Liberals will find a lot of opportunities over the next four years to give up on their opposition to Donald Trump. Some are already caving. We’ll be told that we should find common cause for the sake of the Democratic Party so that legislation can get passed. We’ll also be told that we need to put the good of the nation first, and that will be appealing because we care about this country more than party loyalty. How do we get back to the point where we can respect our neighbors who supported Donald Trump without normalizing the behavior that has our other neighbors terrified of what the Trump administration has in mind for them? Ironically, Trump’s response to Mike Pence getting booed at a performance of Hamilton provides us with the answer. We need to hold firm until we get a complete, contrite apology from any former Trump supporter. I firmly believe there are enough people of conscience in the Republican Party that we can have some truth and reconciliation as long as we don’t cave.
This won’t be easy for Trump supporters, and this won’t be easy for us to keep demanding it and keep waiting, but it’s vital. If we don’t, the next demagogue will be worse. He’ll say to himself, “I can avoid some of Trump’s most buffoonish mistakes, be a bit more organized, and push the same agenda of racism/sexism/homophobia/religious bigotry once I’m in office, and people will tolerate it rather than admit they were wrong.”
Remember, the people who approved torture in violation of our own laws weren’t held accountable. We got our guy into office and decided it would look petty to kick the electoral losers while they were down. We didn’t want to rub it in. Eight years later, talk of torture is still tolerated on the right. We cannot make that mistake again. Even if no one was prosecuted, liberals should have been resolute and loud enough to make the idea of torture so politically toxic that even a demagogue would shy away from it. We need to learn from that mistake.
Nobody likes to apologize. It’s unpleasant. It makes us take ownership of things we would rather forget. When we do start hearing the first apologies, they will be qualified. “I’m sorry, but…”
“...but emails…”
“...but my economic insecurity...”
“...but her voice bothered me…”
“...political correctness irritates me…”
We need to be the ones to say that every single excuse is an attempt to justify the worst parts of Trump’s rhetoric. Each excuse says, “Selective outrage about emails justified breaking up families,” that “Irritation about political correctness justifies preventing people from marrying those they love, or kicking them out of their homes, or keeping them out of the bathrooms that match their true gender,” that “Annoyance at Hillary Clinton’s voice/pantsuits/lack-of-a-penis justifies telling Black Americans they live in Hell and deserve racist, unconstitutional policing,” and that “Anxiety about globalization justifies taking away a woman’s bodily autonomy.” None of the excuses are good enough, and we can’t pretend they are just to let somebody escape the discomfort of true repentance.
Even when we start getting apologies without excuses, they’ll be small. “I’m sorry I voted for someone who was in league with a Russian dictator. If I’d known, I would have voted differently.” Or, “I’m sorry I voted for someone who spewed racist rhetoric. I didn’t think he’d actually follow through on it once in office.” Or, “I’m sorry, but I just didn’t trust anyone working in the media I’ve become so convinced of their liberal bias, when they told me things that matched what I was seeing with my own eyes, their reporting made me doubt what I was seeing.” Here’s the most insidious and persistent of the non-apologies: They will say that Trump was insufficiently conservative. This is a running theme in conservative autopsies. Conservatism can’t possibly be to blame, they say, it just needs to be more extreme. This is what we heard after George W. Bush. This is why we, as a nation, do not learn our lessons.
Liberals heard that conservatives were dissatisfied with Bush by the end of his presidency, and we thought we’d come to a common understanding despite different worldviews. We didn’t push back hard enough. Their reasons for not liking Bush pushed them further to the right and emboldened the Tea Party. We liberals allowed ourselves to be cowed by the very people who were trying to make “liberal” a bad word. This was more than a tactical blunder; we actually need responsible, moderate conservatives. I don’t have that in my nature, but I acknowledge the value of people who serve the national interest by saying, “Slow down. Let’s think about that some more,” or, “That sounds like a good idea, but can we pay for it, are we paying too much for it, and what are the opportunity costs?” or, “Does this beneficial policy proposal need to be carried out in such a way that it centralizes authority, or could it be successfully carried out at a lower level of government?” These are important questions that real conservatives of conscience can ask and make a valuable contribution to the healthy functioning of our democracy. But if we, as liberals, aren’t willing to confront the fact that conservatism has wedded itself to the neo-Nazi “Alt-Right,” then every voice that tries to be conservative and responsible will fail. Every call to slow down will be associated with a sinister plan to hurt people of color more, or to keep women down, or to oppress religious minorities. If conservatives actually care about this country, they are going to need to fully apologize and admit that conservatism can become too extreme if they want to make a clean break with Trump’s rhetoric. We liberals are going to have to do them the favor of pushing them to that conclusion.
The alternative is to let the Alt-Right permanently infect our politics.
Moderate Republicans aren’t going to want to apologize. They’ll resent the hell out of it. And it won’t feel good for us, either. It’s not enjoyable to watch your child agonize over an apology. And conservatives will feel like we are treating them like children. They’ll say we are being condescending, even infantilizing, certainly disrespectful. We need to have the courage to say, “Yes. Yes we are. You chose to do something wrong, and that cost you respect. You chose to try to blow up the government because you felt aggrieved, and you didn’t care who was hurt in the process. That was childish. You chose to give Trump a pass on racism, on his bigotry towards Muslims, on his (and Mike Pence’s) sexism and anti-LGBTQ attitudes, and we do look down on that choice. You earned condescension, disrespect, infantilization, and the only way out we’ll allow is for you to act like a grown-up. Grown-ups admit when they’re wrong. That’s how we move on.”
One of the consequences of an apology that liberals need to be aware of is that it’s going to make conservatives into hypocrisy police. The first time a Democrat says something racist or sexist or homophobic, the conservatives who are still stinging from their forced apology are going to say, “Gotcha’! See? You voted for someone who holds the same attitudes as Trump, and you made us apologize.” My response to that: Wonderful! We will be a better country when Republicans are keeping an eye out for offenses against minorities. I would much rather be saying, “You’re right. You win. I owe you an apology in return for voting for someone who also violates those norms. I shouldn’t have voted for that person, either.” That’s so much better than debating whether racism, sexism, homophobia, or religious bigotry exist or should be tolerated! And the additional benefit of having conservatives playing hypocrisy police is that they will be shooting warning glances at their own candidates, telegraphing their warning that they’d better not make conservatives apologize again the way they had to after Trump. Because that stung, and they don’t want to do it again.
That’s why the apology has to be complete. They can’t apologize for the sexism but not the racism, or the racism but not the homophobia, or the homophobia but not the bigotry against an entire faith. Anything they won’t apologize for, they are affirming. They’re saying, “That one is okay with me. I still believe in it, and in the future I’ll tolerate it from another politician.”
It will be difficult to force a Congressperson in a safe, gerrymandered seat to worry about what liberals think, so the apologies won’t come from our “leaders,” but we do have some influence with our friends and family. We want to put the election behind us, to rebuild those relationships, to move on. But we have an obligation to demand truth before reconciliation. Share this with a liberal friend. Tell them to stand firm, and that you have their back. Our country is in an ideological game of chicken. Either we dodge to the side in the name of unity and allow Trump’s ideology of populist hate-mongering to share the highway with us, or we hold steady and force it off the road once and for all.
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Benjamin Gorman is the author of Corporate High School and The Sum of Our Gods.