I’m rather surprised that Chris Christie’s little drumhead trial of Hillary Clinton at the RNC on Tuesday night isn’t getting more coverage or reaction. I thought it was one of the most chilling, disturbing and horrific things I’ve ever seen at a political event. Maybe we’ve just become accustomed to modern political rhetoric bearing an eerie resemblance to fascist regimes, tinpot dictatorships and kangaroo courts of the past, or of various apocalyptic fictions.
The unofficial slogan of this year’s Republican National Convention is, apparently, “Lock Her Up!” The “Her” in this sentence is, of course, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for President. Republican partisans know — not believe, not suspect, not allege, know — that Hillary Clinton is a criminal — not a crook, not a corrupt politician, a criminal — and should be in prison — not defeated in the fall election, not condemned for her bad behavior, in prison. That she has never actually been charged, indicted, tried or convicted of any crime is at best incidental, at worst further proof, somehow, of her criminal behavior and/or nature. The speakers at the RNC, and the candidate himself, have implied their intention (if not explicitly promised) that should Donald Trump win the presidency, he will arrange for the indictment, prosecution and conviction of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
It’s been written several times over the past couple of days that explicitly calling for one’s political opponent to be prosecuted and imprisoned once one wins the election is something that happens in Third World banana republics, not in America. Here’s Paul Waldman at The Week:
It shouldn't require pointing out that while there are countries where in a national election one side promises to prosecute and imprison the other side's candidate if they win, America is not one of them.
I wonder if that’s true.
Yesterday I wrote a diary called “Citizen Trump,” as I’d been thinking about the similarities between the candidate and the fictional Charles Foster Kane of Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane, one of my favorite films, and wanted to hash them out. It was this connection, I think, that intrigued me the most.
Roughly halfway through the film, at the apex of Kane’s character arc, he delivers a rousing speech at a rally on the eve of the 1916 New York gubernatorial election, which he is poised to win in a landslide. He describes his opponent, an establishment politician named Jim W. Geddes, as the boss of a crooked, dishonest, “downright villain[ous] … political machine.” At the end of the speech he vows that his “first official act as governor of this state will be to appoint a special district attorney to arrange for the indictment, prosecution, and conviction of Boss Jim W. Geddes!”
(For Kane, it’s basically all downhill from there. See the previous diary for details.)
Now, the scene takes place in 1916, and the film was made in 1941. I’m not nearly old enough to remember what American politics was like in either of those years or eras. And the film is not about politics; it doesn’t ask us to contemplate what kind of a governor Kane would be, or whether a man like him can, or should, win elected office. So it’s hard to say what Welles and his screenwriter, Herman J. Mankiewicz, had in mind when they had Kane explicitly threaten to prosecute and jail his opponent immediately upon taking office.
What I’m wondering is, is this really a new idea? Was this common in political campaigns in 1916? Or 1941? Where did Welles and/or Mankiewicz get this idea, and what were they trying to say? Were they trying to portray Kane as unconventional and reckless, emboldened by his wealth and influence (as a newspaper publisher who essentially controls the news) to go to lengths other politicians wouldn’t dare go? Or was this a standard political practice of the time? Were 1941 audiences shocked to see and hear this? Would a 1916 audience be shocked to hear a candidate say something like that?
Thinking about this speech in Citizen Kane has made me think that perhaps this is not new; that America really is a country where “one side promises to prosecute and imprison the other side's candidate if they win.” Maybe it’s never happened in a presidential contest before, but is it really so unprecedented?