As today’s Congressional testimony makes so powerfully clear, what we’re going through isn’t a political crisis, it’s a moral crisis. Until we face that as a nation, there can’t be any “moving on.”
One of the greatest strengths of democracy is that it separates most moral questions from politics — moralistic intolerance has been the source of some of history’s worst abuses. But in its current form, that separation has also left us poorly equipped to confront a moral crisis, because even the most basic moral values are now open to political dispute.
Thanks to democracy, we’re not required to believe in any religion, or disbelieve in any. But democracy can’t function if we don’t at least believe in democracy itself. That must include believing in its core moral values. We can’t prove logically that freedom, equality, and justice are good; we choose to believe they are.
But because democracy isn’t a religion, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that its values must be sacred. And we have lost sight of that sacredness.
Trumpism isn’t just politically wrong. Because it’s hostile to democracy, it’s morally wrong. (It’s also immoral by other moral codes, including the Christianity many Trumpists think they’re upholding.) We must face that truth, not so one side can win a political argument, but to protect democracy itself, at its core.
The claim made by Trumpist leaders and media personalities that this is just a political contest is a sign of their moral degradation.
Facing the essential immorality of Trumpism doesn’t mean we should judge Trumpists as uniquely immoral. Immorality exists in all of us, and all of us have played a part in creating a society in which Trumpism can flourish.
But it does require accountability.
Supporting Trumpism isn’t just a mistake, caused by misinformation. That so many analysts see it that way is another indication of what we’ve lost sight of. Not only information, but morality makes democracy possible.
And that morality must not only be shared among us, but be present within us, in the form of “civic virtue.” We can never expect all people to be virtuous of course, or expect any one of us to be virtuous all the time. But the necessity of civic virtue as a standard of behavior has been understood since the invention of democracy in classical Athens. We’ve largely abandoned that standard, while turning citizenship into a form of consumerism. Citizens make demands of leaders, not of themselves — forgetting that citizens are supposed to be the ultimate leaders.
Civic virtue includes a responsibility to be informed. So people who are still misinformed, after all we’ve all seen, are responsible for their state. Accurate information about Trumpism is available easily, instantly, and for free. Continuing support for Trumpism requires actively avoiding accurate information. That’s a choice. An immoral choice.
We can’t just move on from immorality, even if we all were to agree we wanted to. No matter what we may want, it won’t go away. It persists as shame, whether or not that shame is acknowledged. We’re still paying for the attempt to just “move on” from the Civil War.
The only way to move on is through the truth. If we don’t face the truth about Trumpism, we’ll be living with it, and suffering from it, for a long, long time.