Civility From Thee, But Not From Me

Civility.

There's been a lot of calls for more of it in political discourse lately, with very good reason.  In the past several days, someone targeted about a dozen prominent political figures with homemade bombs.  As far as political violence goes, that's a huge damn deal.  Civility seems like a pretty important commodity right now, don't you think? Who would be against that?

Who, indeed? Well, as it turns out, it's some of the people being the loudest in calling for more civility.

Every political ideology has a certain percentage of adherents that see violence as a legitimate tool for achieving their goals or expressing their beliefs, whether it's pounding a metal rod in a tree due to be logged, blowing up an abortion clinic, shooting up a Congressional softball game, or sending homemade bombs through the mail.  They fall all along the political spectrum, and no amount of civil discourse will temper their fanaticism because they don't possess a radical thought process.

Traditional political rhetoric reaches these people in a different way.  Where a rational person hears a politican's call to action as a cue to volunteer, contact their elected officials, or some other form of political activism, these people interpret the message as a command to destroy property or harm people. That's an unintended consequence of political rhetoric, and there's not much that can be done about it.

However, one of America's two major political parties has been issuing increasingly incendiary rhetoric for months now.  From subtle dog whistles like "globalist" and "placeholder" to obvious phrases like "left-wing mob" to ridiculous conspiracy theories.  And it's having a measurable effect. Yet if the response to the homemade bombs is any indication, that party doesn't show any signs of changing its rhetoric.  President Trump's response to a reporter's question about whether he planned to tone down his rhetoric in the wake of the attempted bombings was basically "LOL, nah." So was Sean Hannity's. Tucker Carlson spun a false equivalency fairy tale. Meanwhile, some right-wing pundits have been aggressively promoting a "false flag" narrative, that the Democrats are behind the homemade bombs.

To put it mildly, this is a disgrace.

Do we need more civility in our political discourse? Someone just tried to assassinate a dozen or so political figures with homemade bombs, so hell yes we do. But I'm sick of hearing any calls for civility coming from the GOP or anyone in the right-wing media. They've been fanning the flames of paranoia and hostility literally for years.  With Birtherism. With Benghazi. With Clinton's emails.  With Pizzagate. With Seth Rich and Vince Foster conspiracy theories. With discriminatory and needlessly cruel policies.  All the while, they cast themselves as the victims and refused to take responsibility for their rhetoric or their actions. To them, "civility" is a unilateral cease-fire, where the other side shuts up and they get to say whatever they want.

I'll take Republican calls for civility seriously when Trump, his minions, and all of Fox News get their own houses in order. When they stop peddling conspiracy theories and outright lies, and stop spewing inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes their political opposition. Their hateful rhetoric is already responsible for one person's death, and there's a good chance we'll see more bloodshed if this continues.  As long as they keep fanning the flames, I'll respond to their calls for "civility" with a polite but firm "Go fuck yourselves."

If they want civility, they can show a little first.

Fabricated Memos and Credibility Problems

The much-hyped Nunes memo became public a few days ago, and I've been noticing a very interesting reaction to it in various corners of the internet; specifically, a lot of people are buying into it, lock, stock, and barrel.  Now, the memo is obviously a steaming poo pile, but here's the thing: there are a lot of people who believe the memo to be true have a plausible argument for that belief.  I don't mean the hardcore Trump supporters; at this point Trump could tell them he can walk through walls and they'd believe him.  The people I'm thinking of are the ones who have been holding a long-standing suspicion of the government.  All the government.  Because the truth is, there is plenty of good cause for suspicion.

The assorted government agencies tasked with protecting America and its citizens - from TSA to the FBI to the DEA to NSA to CIA - have a credibility problem of their own making.  It's not enough to say they all dropped the ball at one time or another, because "dropping the ball" implies that they failed because of something like bad luck or an innocent mistake.  That's not the case at all.  The credibility problem stems from the fact that these agencies misused their authority in a variety of unsavory ways.  Two successive presidents and countless members of Congress told us we had to accept infringements to our Constitutional rights to combat an amorphous terrorist threat.  The Director of National Intelligence perjured himself.  Police forces began to resemble military units and no-knock SWAT raids became more common.  An intelligence failure allowed an al-Qaida bomber onto a US-bound flight from Ghana through the Netherlands.  And those are only a handful of post-9/11 examples.  Do some digging, and there are many other historical ones: COINTELPRO, Watergate, the McCarthy hearings, the Pentagon Papers, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and countless coups and covert wars. And all the documentation gets hidden behind a "TOP SECRET/NOFORN" label, nobody gets punished, and nothing changes.  Given these organizations' history of past transgressions, it's natural to be skeptical of the FBI.

So does that mean the Nunes memo is correct? No, absolutely not.  First, consider the source: Nunes, Trump, the GOP leadership.  They've all discredited themselves long before this memo became public.  Nunes was already caught trying to cheat on Trump's behalf once; and Trump's accusations fall short when you factor in that two individuals have already pleaded guilty for crimes pertaining to the Russia investigation, that there is a documented paper trail between Trump campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government, and, of course, there was a meeting at Trump Tower in June of 2016.  And those are just the things we all know about.  Add to that Trump and many of his cronies are well-known serial liars and conspiracy-theory peddlers.  Finally, remember that as president, Trump has the authority and the resources to expose any illegal spying if he chooses.  He can declassify NSA intercepts that targeted him, if they exist; he can order the Department of Justice to review the FISA warrants for impropriety.  Occam's Razor says the simplest explanation is more likely to be true.  Ask yourself: is it more likely that the investigation is legitimate and substantive or that the FBI is playing a central role in a broad "deep state" conspiracy against the small group of people in Trump's orbit?

Because that's what this is being packaged as: a deep, sinister conspiracy.  The people pushing this idea performed a very subtle sleight-of-hand, one that's easy to overlook if you're not paying attention.  They shifted the narrative from a claim that the government (in particular, the NSA) is collecting all Americans' communications (true) to an accusation that the government mobilized the resources of the entire intelligence/law enforcement community against the Trump clan in an unlawful attempt to neutralize it (horseshit.)  We're witnessing the birth of a conspiracy theory on par with "9/11 was an inside job" right before our eyes.  This "echo chamber" groupthink would normally be an object of ridicule, except that similar conspiracy theories have already driven people on the extreme fringes to violence not long ago.  That's not something to take lightly.

If we could trust our institutions, there wouldn't be an issue; but our politicians and political appointees have squandered that trust for decades.  Now we're reaping the bitter fruits of that wastefulness.  The agencies, and their civilian overseers, have misused and abused their authority so badly, that now many people reflexively think they're lying and choose to believe con artists like Nunes and Trump instead.  They're the spies who cried wolf, and just like the old fable goes, we're ignoring them at the very time when we should be believing them.

There needs to be serious reform once Trump is no longer president.  He's only the byproduct of some deeper issues, and we need system-wide reform.  He's a complete shit-show, so maybe he'll be the impetus that motivates the people in Washington to finally implement some long-overdue reforms.