Have You No Sense of Decency?

Could the Republicans’ resounding victory on November 5 be an indicator of success for progressive causes? I don’t pose this ironic question lightly. I’m hopeful that the good news for Trump will turn out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Now that Republicans control the Senate and the House, I expect him to go too far and alienate many of those who support him.

History demonstrates that when progress is made, a violent reaction is likely to follow. The abolitionist movement succeeded to the degree that slave-owning states went to war. Racist sentiment against ethnic Japanese-Americans led to their isolation in camps for the duration of the Second World War. The federal government’s determination to desegregate schools and otherwise protect black people’s civil rights led to marches and confrontations. One could argue that resistance to gays’ assertion of their civil rights led the Reagan administration to downplay AIDS.

I worry that trauma will precede the ultimate victory of today’s progressive causes. Yet I suspect that on November 5, Trump won too much for his own good.

First, the indisputably good news within the bad. Even in several red states, voters approved increases in the minimum wage. Several red states also voted pro-choice amendments, meaning the right of women to make their own healthcare decisions, into their state constitutions. Thus, even as voters appeared to repudiate Democratic causes, they adopted them when given the option.

Now that Republicans have gained control of both houses of Congress, they won’t have Democrats to blame for unpopular policies. For this reason, they are likely to feel it necessary to carry out some of their promises to the people who elected them. Maybe they’ll keep health insurance intact for the majority of Americans. Maybe they’ll honor Trump’s pledge to keep abortion a states’ issue. It’s going to get embarrassing that so many Trump officials, beginning with Elon Musk, have wealth that surpasses imagination. To give wealthy people more tax breaks and little in that way to middle class people might become untenable.

At the same time, many points on Trump’s agenda will prove unpopular. Take immigration. I pass immigrant workers in the street as they do renovation work on buildings in our neighborhood, jobs that American-born workers could get if they wanted. These immigrants are well-mannered and cheerful, and they politely make way for me with my cane. They are not busily eating our pets.

But immigrants are an abstraction for most people, which makes them easy targets for irrational anger. Trump plans to expose them to calculated cruelty, from herding them into camps to delivering them to certain death in their home countries. Once video footage reaches the public, there will be an angry response, as there was to Trump’s policy during his first administration of separating children from their parents. One group in particular, the Afghans who assisted us when we occupied their country and who needed protection from the Taliban, may prove a special case for American shame when we start rounding them up.

It’s a foreseeable tragedy that millions of ordinary people who nevertheless took immense risks to reach these shores will suffer. I don’t see how we can stop Trump from making it happen. I can only predict that on the other side will be regret, a search for forgiveness and an increase in tolerance.

Right now, Trump is feeling smug. Smugness leads to mistakes, and he is in the process of making them. Announcements that Matt Gaetz is his nominee for Attorney General and RFK Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services will probably meet opposition in the Republican Senate. The House was about to release a report on Gaetz’s misconduct. Although it is unlikely to become public, thanks to his prompt resignation from his Congressional seat, the gist, including sexual misconduct, is widely known. Trump has asked Republicans to forego hearings on his nominees. Chances are they will reject this demand, resulting in hearings that will cause considerable embarrassment. After Republicans show their first resistance, they just might begin the slow development of a collective spine.

Back in 1954, Joseph McCarthy, who had held the country spellbound for four years with indiscriminate accusations of communist sympathies, made a similarly reckless accusation at a Senate hearing against a young lawyer representing the Army. The Army’s chief attorney, Joseph Welch, challenged McCarthy, concluding with lines that became immortal: “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” McCarthy’s fall from favor was sudden and total.

We would have thought that Trump had faced more than one such crisis, such as his implication in the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. Now here he is, planning to pardon himself and the others who participated in that riot.

Trump’s malignity and incompetence are too obvious to anyone not drunk on his grievance saturnalia, but right now America is acting like a nation made silly by drugs and alcohol. One day the country will wake up with a hangover. When Trump’s “no sense of decency” moment finally arrives, Republicans are likely to face an even harsher reality check than the Democrats are enduring right now.