Silence is complicity; 'support' is collaboration

Daily Kos Staff

Wednesday August 16, 2017 · 11:11 AM PDT

2017/08/16 · 11:11

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 12: (L to R) Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump's choice for National Security Advisor, Michael Cohen, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Donald Trump, and former Texas Governor Rick Perry talk with each other in the lobby at Trump Tower, December 12, 2016 in New York City. President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet and other high level positions for the new administration. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) — Ex-adviser Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, now-cabinet member Rick Perry

As Donald Trump's defense of white supremacy and pro-Nazi marchers lays waste to the notion that the man has any defining principles at all, save his own self-promotion, his lawyer steps up to declare that just because he works for and "supports" Trump does not make him a racist too. He declared this in the usual manner, for those that support racist policies while insisting they themselves would never harbor such thoughts: with a photo montage of himself associating with black people.

As the son of a holocaust survivor, I have no tolerance for #racism. Just because I support @POTUS @realDonaldTrump doesn't make me a racist pic.twitter.com/lfIwdosreE
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) August 16, 2017

This is, of course, precisely what Trump himself has done. It is precisely what Paul Ryan has done, and Mitch McConnell, and every Republican lawmaker currently declaring their intolerance for racism while remaining silent on why, precisely, they have each been driven to such a statement—it is in fact the Great Heralding Call of the Republican Party, as they have systemically worked to undermine the civil and voting rights of black Americans for a half-century and counting. It is why Jeff Sessions is now in charge of the Justice Department, with the full support of his not-racist party. It is how this works.

Michael Cohen says he is not racist—but Michael Cohen is acting to support the power and agenda of a man who clearly is. Michael Cohen has no tolerance for Nazi-inspired cretins, but Michael Cohen declares a mere lawyer-client neutrality but his "support" for a man who in one afternoon did more to legitimize white supremacist violence than any American president since World War II.

Cohen, like Paul Ryan and the others, may distance themselves from Trump's embrace of white supremacist torch-wielders as valid movement, but it is their collaboration with Trump that grants him the power to make those declarations. Cohen, like the others, denies he shares an agenda with white supremacist marchers—but refuses to distance himself from those that do.

Cohen, like Paul Ryan and the others, do for Trump precisely what Trump continues to do for the neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements. They remain silent. They offer token words of opposition only when those words are squeezed out of them under the duress of the news cycle, while continuing to work on behalf of those that enable what they purport to condemn.

The white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups who assembled as torch-wielding mob to chant condemnations of Jews and raise their hands in fascist salutes today remain convinced that Donald Trump is their ally. If they believe it to be true, by his words and his deeds, then he is; he has not dissuaded them, though he could at any moment have spoken out to do so.

Silence over Trump's embrace of violent white nationalism on the national stage is complicity with his actions. To turn away from it under the supposition that the defender of the torch-wielding mob chanting the slogans of genocide could still assist you with your own agenda of tax cuts or governmental curbs, tit for tat—is collaboration.

And though the titans of industry are, at long last, tearing themselves away from Trump's orbit, his Republican allies are not. They are still making the bargain; maintain support for Trump and his worst racist allies, both in the White House and outside it; pretend to see no evil, or that it can be compartmentalized to one side in order to use Trump as an ally on all the rest.

It is complicity. As Trump has been condemned for keeping white supremacists as his allies, they should be condemned for continuing to grant him the power to keep those allies. They could force him to choose, between the shrieking white nationalists of his base and their own support. Michael Cohen does not. Paul Ryan does not. They shake his hand, and condemn the racism he gives solace to without making mention of the man giving that solace. They shake his hand, and make the bargain.

Silence is complicity; 'support' is collaboration

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