Norms for Thee, Unrestrained Power for Me

Even before America became a country, Americans already had a habit of freaking out about even minor violations of abstract principles.

“In other countries, the people … judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance,” observed Edmund Burke, the great British statesman and philosopher, in 1775. But in America, “they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.”

America’s obsession with slippery slopes used to frustrate me. I support gun rights, but bans on machine guns or bump stocks do not overly trouble me. I’m a passionate defender of parental rights, but child abuse is intolerable. I think political speech is inviolate, but obscenity laws are fine by me. 

The response to such nuance was often, “If the government can do this, what’s to stop it from doing [insert something much, much, worse].”

My answer was usually “us”—i.e,. Americans. Voters, politicians, intellectuals, et al. can make distinctions based on context, reason, and culture that still respect a principle. The trick, however, requires respecting the principle, even when inconvenient.

In the last month, the president has sent troops—now armed—into the District of Columbia ostensibly to combat an ill-defined crime “emergency.” Because of D.C.’s special constitutional status, he has the authority to do so. But he’s already talking about taking the show on the road to Chicago, Baltimore, and New York, all cities that just happen to be run by Democrats. 

The D.C. gambit—following an earlier scheme in L.A.—is partly intended to force Democrats to talk about crime (which they are very bad at). But it also seems intended to normalize using the army on American soil, at the whim of the president, an idea that is directly contrary to the law and the constitutional order.

The Trump administration has acquired a 10 percent stake in Intel and wants more such “deals.” It raided the home of a prominent critic, John Bolton, without much explanation. Annoyed by commentary from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the president threatened to reopen a criminal investigation in which Christie was already cleared of wrongdoing. Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for releasing data he did not like, and fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency allegedly for a preliminary finding that contradicted his claims of military success (this on the heels of earlier Pentagon purges). 

Trump successfully ordered a pliant Texas Republican governor and legislature—elected officials who do not answer to the federal government—to redraw state maps to produce more Republican friendly districts. He has declared he will lead an effort to dictate how elections are conducted—a function he has no legal or constitutional authority over—on the grounds that the states are merely “agents” of the federal government.

Since taking office, Trump has lawlessly defied Congress’ explicit instruction to force the sale or termination of the Chinese spyware social media app, TikTok. Last week, the White House opened a TikTok account.

Democrats have raised alarms about this hardly exhaustive list. They are obviously correct about the GOP’s staggering hypocrisy. If a Democratic president did any of these things, Republican outrage would be biblical.  

But the issue is bigger than that.  

For my entire adult life, when conservatives raised concerns about the government intruding on constitutional rules and norms, Democrats (and the media) almost invariably responded with contemptuous eye-rolling and mockery. This is one reason the new right no longer cares much about those rules and norms. They’ve convinced themselves that the left cares about such things only when they constrain Republicans.

Contempt breeds more contempt. Norms for thee, unrestrained power for me is a surefire way to destroy all norms.

I’m not saying that what Trump is doing isn’t worse than what Democrats did—or wanted to do but failed. But in our politics, the ratchet effect always leads to ever greater violations, in part because each side wildly exaggerates the other’s transgressions.

Point out that Trump is weaponizing the justice system or profiting off the government, the reply is, “They did it first.” There’s some truth there. But when Democrats did such things, Republicans shrieked that it was wrong. Now one team’s wrongness is justification for even more wrongness.

Partisanship is not new. But partisans used to respect the rules as a way to ensure they were followed when their team was out of power. That’s what has been lost: the idea that the rules should apply to your team, too.