I am all for a range of opinions. It is easier to defend your position if you know how your opponent plans to attack it. If the New York Times (NYT) wants to publish conservative op-eds (a.k.a. "Guest Essays"), this liberal will read them. However, no matter how broad-minded a newspaper is, they should never publish a hagiography. On Thursday, the self-congratulatory “Newspaper of Record,” did just that.
The NYT presented its readers with a piece with the farcical headline “Trump Embraces Lawlessness, but in the Name of a Higher Law.” Read it and feel the disbelief wash over you. (The paywall should be down.).
The author, Matthew Schmitz, bless his heart, founded the Compact online magazine and he contributes to the American Conservative. His journalist schlock is predictable. And he is knee-bending in his bobby-soxer obeisance to Trump.
Undeterred by facts, Schmitz uses his space to paint the 2020 loser as a mythical savior of America’s most abused demographic — heteronormative white conservatives. Because, in Schmitz’s calculus, those poor, put-upon folks have suffered the most at the hands of “the establishment.”
So be it. Schmitz can write what he wants. But why is the NYT giving him a platform? It is one thing to present an opinion. It is another for a (once?) reputable national newspaper to embrace the hate-click business model used by lazy reporters and dollar-blinded editors.
Let us have a look at what he writes. This is how he starts.
“Donald Trump is often denounced in terms that suggest he poses an existential threat to the American political tradition. He is a fascist, a Russian agent, an aspiring caudillo: something foreign and menacing. To his critics, the four criminal indictments he faces are further evidence that he is a danger to democracy.”
I write to criticize his content. But first, a comment on his style. Schmitz is an unconfident writer. His aggressive prose shields a pusillanimous heart. “In terms that suggest he poses” is flabby. He should rewrite his first sentence as “Donald Trump is often denounced as an existential threat to the American political tradition.”
OK. No more style commentary. But you will see more of Schmitz's insecurity throughout his polemic.
Let us look at his content. Who has suggested Trump is foreign and menacing? Everyone knows he is an outer-borough New Yorker who fled the state to Florida. He may act as an enabler of America’s enemies, and his pronunciation is weird, but his menace is all domestic.
In addition, you do not have to be a critic of Trump to believe indictments for election fixing, insurrection promotion, and document theft are evidence he is potentially dangerous.
Schmitz adds this:
“For Mr. Trump’s detractors, such an open embrace of lawlessness confirms the danger he presents. But this understanding of his newfound criminal persona, a persona his legal opponents have helped to thrust upon him, overlooks something important: Mr. Trump may pose a threat to our political system as it now exists, but it is a threat animated by a democratic spirit. It is the threat of the outlaw hero, a figure of defiance with deep roots in American culture who exposes the injustices and hypocrisies of a corrupt system.”
Put the pipe down, Matt. Trump’s criminal persona is self-earned. He does not have “legal opponents”. He faces prosecutors doing their job — which includes amassing evidence against bad people until it is sufficient for a grand jury of regular Americans to indict.
I will grant you that is not a high bar. But reaching a guilty verdict in a trial is. And I challenge Schmitz to identify a white billionaire the system has railroaded into an incorrect guilty verdict.
Moving on. WTF does Schmitz mean by Trump being “animated by a democratic spirit”? Where is the evidence? And what is this “outlaw hero” vs. a “corrupt system” nonsense? Trump is the corrupt system.
Next:
“The outlaws in whose image Mr. Trump styles himself gained fame in the United States because they seemed to embody freedom and spontaneity, along with mistrust of authority and indifference to polite convention. They appealed to democratic impulses, however perversely.”
Everybody loves a good, bad guy — in their fantasies. Many people pipe-dream of breaking free from the shackles of their routine. But who thinks Bonnie and Clyde were promoting democracy? And who believes Al Capone should have been president?
After some obligatory puffery about Trump and Robin Hood being kindred spirits — supported by quotes from Sebastian Gorka and Lauren Boebert — Schmitz brings up another “hero” of the downtrodden.
“Whether these outlaws did the good deeds attributed to them hardly matters, because the appeal of the outlaw hero rests on a deeper truth: When the authorities are regarded as corrupt and malevolent, people will celebrate those who defy them. Like Joaquín Murrieta, the 19th-century Mexican laborer working in California who, according to legend, responded to injustice by vowing that he “would live henceforth for revenge,” Mr. Trump has promised to avenge the downtrodden.
Matt is blind to irony. If Murrieta lived today, Trump would have called the Sonora-born man a rapist, drug terrorist, and sex trafficker — and recommended his execution.
There is more:
“Mr. Trump’s embrace of an outlaw image marks a change on the American right. A political formation that once was committed to what Russell Kirk called the “defense of order” is now drawn to the most anarchic figures in our national mythology. The exchange of George Washington for Jesse James reflects the right’s growing alienation from America’s leading institutions.”
Dear God, please make it stop. The right does not have a “growing alienation from America’s leading institutions.” They want to take those leading institutions — the courts, the DOJ, federal agencies, even the military — and staff them with hand-picked fellow travelers.
If Schmitz is unaware of the Federalist Society’s 40-year campaign to corrupt the criminal justice system, he is a moron. And I doubt he is a moron.
Matt goes on:
“But the break may not be as total as it seems. Even as Robin Hood defies the local sheriff, he maintains his loyalty to the king. He may humiliate the bishop, but he prays to the Virgin Mary. A similar combination of rebellion and reverence characterizes Mr. Trump’s attempt to run as an outlaw who will restore law and order.”
Fantasy is what you embrace when reality does not support your desires. Robin Hood is not real. I am not saying he did not exist. But who you think he is depends on which screen representation you favor.
For all the hero worship, it was not the bandit — no matter how well-intentioned — who brought law to the masses in England. It was the steady spread of democracy and the creation of civic institutions that now protect the rights of the average Joan.
The very institutions and democracy the autocratic Trump would corrupt.
I understand that many MAGAs are simplistic thinkers — easily seduced by memes of their hero as a knight in shining armor — but the citizen should be able to rely on professional newspeople taking important subjects seriously.
American political discourse suffers when the Times gives this fantastical nonsense its imprimatur.