Our Derangement Problem

It’s particularly telling when people are criticized for using facts and reason.

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Dear Reader (particularly all of the members of the Mr. Peanut family),

To paraphrase advice from Groundhog Day, I’m trying not to write angry. 

But some days, it’s hard. 

Contrary to a lot of my detractors, I’m far more reconciled to the Trump presidency than many people think. Indeed, some of my NeverTrumpier friends think I’m too reconciled. When The Dispatchwas launched, my friend Bill Kristol responded to our editorial stance of “Trump skepticism” by saying he and The Bulwark folks were “Trump hostile.” And that’s fine. I don’t consider a constant state of hostility toward Trump to be irrational, per se. But I do think your judgment can get catawampus with your interests or the facts if you let your hostility get the better of you.  

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ray Salemi

    I think the irritation that would cause me to write a column would be that we never discuss how the Kavanaugh hearing was the dress rehearsal for the upcoming impeachment vote.

    It’s a great example of how a behavior was that was considered meritorious at the time (that behavior being lockstep discipline in not voting against Trump) is considered terrible now. Both involved ignoring a lot of evidence. Both involved playing to an audience of one.

    And, as Jonah points out and Lindsey Graham demonstrated, what was rewarded is being repeated.

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      WKDawson

      I remain undecided myself. It wouldn't be right if he is really innocent, it wouldn't be right if she was ridiculed but he is guilty.

      In an unusually thoughtful movie, the actors go home and live out their lives earning another dollar. Here, we have real human beings with real lives. ... they don't get up to make the next movie and the next dollar untainted. It is easy to forget that. I don't know either of them, never interacted with them. The politics have turned them into mere caricatures to me. Maybe we will only know somewhere down the road when each of us crosses that great river.

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        Ray Salemi

        My problem is that folks who are upset that the Republicans are in lock-step with Trump today were happy to see it with Kavanaugh.

        The smart move, the wise move, would have been to shoot Kavanaugh down and replace him with Merrick Garland. Garland was an acceptable conservative choice and choosing him would have begun a healing process. Even if this was beyond Trump it was not beyond the Senate.

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          WKDawson

          I basically can agree with you. I never really saw what the big "crime" was about Garland other than he was selected by Obama. I still cannot shake off the feeling that they refused to do anything to confirm Garland for the sole reason that Obama is black and a democrat.

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            Ray Salemi

            Well, it never happened until we had a black president. Is that solid logic? Probably not. But it's a bad look.

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    td12212

    If Clinton could be impeached over lying about being fellated in the oral office I think then subborning a foreign government to help IMPOTUS45's 2020 election should also be impeachable. Waiting for an election to make the decision is no solution since the whole point of the crime was to help his election prospects. IF we go that route I think any crime/obstruction of justice by the executive branch will hence forth use the excuse "wait for the next election". In the meantime all manner of criminality will exude from said branch.

    It's not TDS to logically make this point but it is TBS (total Bull sh**) to argue that everything IMPOTUS45 does is good and truth and light when most public pronouncements from him tend to be lies.

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      RandyMc

      Cigar. Don't forget the cigar.

      Lying under oath is a crime. That can't be argued. Being a cad and a scoundrel is not a crime.

      But, I am not far from you on the merits, though.

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    LLM4OSU

    Jonah, I really like you. And I am very sympathetic to your positions most of the time. But you lost me this time at “the Kavanaugh evidence was manufactured.” I’m tempted to say you have “Anti-Me Too Derangement Syndrome” .... but I won’t. 😉

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    1. Photo of Jonah Goldbergcircle-angle-nib
      Jonah Goldberg vertical-nib Author

      Manufactured was probably overstated, I grant you. But a lot of it was obviously bogus. And none of it was verified or really reliably verifiable. Very different situation with Trump.

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        Ray Salemi

        I would suggest that the hearing was the dress rehearsal for today’s Senate behavior. Lindsey Graham’s behavior was rewarded and is being repeated.

        Now everybody is ignoring obvious evidence and voting the party.

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        RandyMc

        Here I was defending manufactured. You're killing me, Jonah, you're killing me.

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      RandyMc

      Do you have a better description than manufactured? I don't.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Ray Salemi

        Lindsey Graham made his bones in that hearing and as Jonah wrote, what gets rewarded gets repeated.

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        Ray Salemi

        By the way. Those decrying the lock-step refusal of Republicans to look at clear evidence witnessed the dress-rehearsal at the Kavanaugh hearing.

        It all comes back to the Republican Party behaving badly in one instance and then being horrified to see that people took it to the next logical step.

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          RandyMc

          Conflating the Kavanaugh hearing with this circus is not a serious position to be even debated.

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            Ray Salemi

            Same exact behavior. You’re just on a different side this time.

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        Ray Salemi

        Discovered works.

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          RandyMc

          Nah. Discovered suggests it actually exists.

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            Ray Salemi

            And that’s why Jonah should not have said “manufactured “. Because it encourages this sort of epistemological rathole.

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      4. Avatar photo
        LLM4OSU

        So you don’t believe any of the allegations against Kavanaugh?

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          RandyMc

          I believe that he went to Georgetown Prep & Yale and that he liked beer.

          I can't think of any other allegation that didn't come off a metaphorical 3-D printer (manufactured).

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          John D. Wright

          No. None were substantiated. Some later confessed to lying. No reason to believe.

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          1. Avatar photo
            Ray Salemi

            It is easy to believe that a drunken Yale frat boy badly misbehaved and then denied it in order to get a dream job.

            Easier than believing that those women would randomly decide to come up with similar stories.

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            LLM4OSU

            Did I miss that Christine Blasey Ford recanted or lied? And thet you call Kavanaugh’s “fault” “liking beer?” Wow. I have never been particularly sympathetic to the Me Too movement (probably because I am in a fairly male dominated profession and never felt sexually harassed at all). And I’ve kinda felt that guys were often getting a bum rap. But I may have to reconsider. Wait! In my mind, I’m totally feeling like Jonah felt after the Hugh Hewitt interview! Like something is so perfectly rational and obvious to me ... and that I’m being very reasonable (I.e. you can debate if Kavanaugh should or shouldn’t have his “dream job” taken from him based on his behavior in college ... but you can’t really argue he likely did some very stupid if not illegal things in college and was really just a jerk). So interesting 🤔 🧐.

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  4. Jomo

    If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs . . .

    Stay strong JG.
    Also, so long Jack -- you will be missed.

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    Paul and Ann

    Far too little in the comments noting the end of the Jack Butler era, or the “JG and Butts show” as (I think) Ben Sasse called it. So - Jack, I wish you the best and look forward to hearing from you again. I did not know until now that you were the brains behind the “weird stuff” but it makes perfect sense in hindsight. I admired your insight and frequent counterpoint to Jonah on the Remnant. You were a more than capable amanuensis; and I wonder about the future... will Jonah be able to stand on his own, or will it be like those periods when the Doctor is in between companions, that is, slightly awkward?

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    Jeffrey Ward

    Further to my comment brow: 1. While we don’t know if Trump would have said anything if the Bidens Weren’t involved, it certainly is a good guess that Bidens’ involvement was important. 2. Trump get to the corruption issue in the paragraph after the Crowdstrike.

    Thanks for replying.

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    Kenton A. Hoover

    Heathens get converted or ignored, while apostates are burned at the stake? I sometimes feel the pull within myself, hating liking something Trump has done, and hating on people who are hating on Trump when I know they are are right — it’s just that they are hating on him for the wrong reasons; see apostate, above.

    I don’t hate on them outside my head, which perhaps makes it more virtuous.

    [And count me among those who would really, really like an edit button]

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      Ray Salemi

      +1 on the edit button! #ForcedToPublishFirstDrafts

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    Eugene

    Jonah, I would not spend too much time stressing out about what people like Hugh Hewitt think about the reasonableness of your opinions. I understand that he is your friend, but he is very clearly, first and foremost, a partisan with an agenda. You cannot have a fruitful discussion with someone about a contentious dispute when you are making a good faith attempt at seeking the truth of the matter and they are just an advocate for one of the sides in the dispute. To put it simply, you are playing fair and he is not. This is not to say he is disingenuous, as an attorney I have a good deal of experience with zealous advocates who, more often than not, are actually able to convince themselves of their own bs (after all, how are you going to convince anyone else if you can't convince yourself first?). But keep up the excellent work and don't waste your energy worrying about what Hugh Hewitt needs to tell himself about people like you to be able to look himself in the mirror.

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    Earl King

    Sadly you proved the derangement again in this fashion. You called Hugh "Nutty" for what I consider him also taking a reasonable position. Those of us who disagree with you are not deranged or nutty or idiots or sycophants....We simply have a different take and I do resent you for portraying us as nuts. I accept your position. I accept you hold it with honesty. Give me the same curtesy.
    I do not think what Trump did merits Impeachment. I don't think given all we have learned "L'affaire Ukraine" for 3 or 4 mos. was all about "Let's get Joe Biden". First of all Trump is not a disciplined thinker. He represents cognitive dissonance. I accept his comment regarding Aide. "I want nothing, no quid pro quo. I want him to do the right thing". Trump hold many positions at the same time. So yes he asked about Hunter and Burisma...because he is undisciplined. I asked in the exact same curious way I would have. It sure is odd Hunter got a job he had no qualifications for and what was Joe during asking Ukraine to fire a Prosecutor looking in that company. Add in the diamond and $1billion dollars from China when he traveled with his father. I am curious. That he didn't make the request thru the State Dept. or Justice Dept? Ok slap his hand tell him he can't do that but it is surely not Impeachable.

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      JonathanRRogers

      Jonah called Hugh "nuttier than Mr. Peanut’s wake" for saying that "he thinks there’s nothing particularly wrong with what Trump did." AFAICT, you do think there's something wrong with what Trump did, but it is not sufficiently bad to warrant impeachment. That position is one which Jonah respects. I don't think he's calling you nutty.

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      Ray Salemi

      I’m with Jonah that “He did it, but do we really want our first removed president to be removed over this?” is a reasonable argument.

      I’m also with Jonah on saying that Trump did nothing wrong is nutty. To say he did nothing wrong requires that one either ignore the vast trove of evidence or say that the written word doesn’t mean what it did last week and that’s kind of nutty.

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        RandyMc

        See, we do agree. My position precisely.

        I'm am subject to changing that position, though. He may have to go.

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    Ray Salemi

    What we have here is a case of conservatives being hoist on their own petard, that petard being Obama Derangement Syndrome. What else but Obama Derangement Syndrome could have explained conservatives norm-destroying behavior when it came to the Obama presidency? McConnell’s proud refusal to vote on Merrick Garland, the complete lack of Republican votes for Obamacare, and the conservative’s apoplectic response to Obama’s tan suit could only be explained by OBS.

    Now I’ll admit that, at the time, I chalked OBS up to simple racism because the behavior was so extreme and so bizarre that I assumed it had to come from a dark place. (Was it such a stretch that McConnell hated Obama because the elderly senator from Kentucky saw, in Obama, a black man who had gotten too high and mighty?) I see now that Obama Derangement Syndrome can be explained without racism. It’s just simply conservative derangement brought on by talk radio and Fox News.

    Now, those same people who engaged most vociferously in OBS now see TBS in others.

    The difference between OBS and TBS is that I could use OBS to explain truly bizarre positions such as refusing to vote on Merrick Garland (which was rewarded, by the way, so expect more of that without legislation) whereas TBS is used to negate perfectly reasonable positions using a cheap ad hominem attack.

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      Kevin Durant?

      You used the “complete lack of Republican votes for Obamacare” as an example of derangement and I think you were being serious....

      But yes, we are still overcome with rage over that anti-American beige suit
      😡😡😡😡

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        Ray Salemi

        I was being serious since it was originally a Republican plan and it’s hard to get fifty authentic thinkers to agree on anything.

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          Kevin Durant?

          ACA got 60 votes and Senators are not authentic thinkers 😃😃

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            Ray Salemi

            True. Otherwise it would have gotten 60+

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    2. Photo of Jonah Goldbergcircle-angle-nib
      Jonah Goldberg vertical-nib Author

      The "Derangement syndrome" thing began with my friend Charles Krauthammer who coined "Bush derangement syndrome." I wish Charles hadn't. But even before Bush, liberals were claiming that any criticism of Bill Clinton stemmed from being an irrational Clinton hater. My point is this cycle goes back a long way and is only getting worse.

      I should also say I think your interpretation of GOP opposition to Obama is not entirely fair. The constant insistence on using racism to explain opposition to liberal policies that conservatives would have opposed from a white politician is one of the main drivers of polarization. Also, the tan suit outrage thing is mostly a media concoction.

      Thanks for reading!

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      1. Avatar photo
        WKDawson

        Maybe with the derangement syndrome, it's that the media (on our preferred side of the aisle) tends to bring out the most embarrassing examples of over-the-top behavior on the other side and we are less troubled when it is someone on "our side" who acts in that over-the-top way.

        You're right that it has been going on for a long time. The mudslinging and not discussing the issues has been part and parcel for the last 40 years -- with the mud typically getting dirtier with each election cycle.

        When the League of Women Voters held debates, the standard was to present a civil argument for your position and you were not to call the other side derogatory names. However, "we the people" wanted to see these food fights. Ooooh, look at that tomato sauce all over his face. Eventually, that wasn't enough and it became manure with the increasingly stinkier type.

        The problem is that "we the people" didn't become enraged and flunk the people who had nothing to say, except dirt on the other guy. We rewarded people by reelecting them when they refused to work together. We need conservative types who will say "hey wait a minute" and we also need liberal types who say "hey, look at it from that person's shoes". We need to come back to civility and learning to work together, despite our differences in views. We need to come back to being quick to listen and slow to anger.

        If we focus on our own self-pity and mistreatment, then we will never get out of this rut, nothing will get done, it __will__ get uglier until we ruin ourselves. That was one thing I remember from one of your early Remnant guests Bahnsen. He argues in "Crisis of Responsibility" that we have to get out of playing the "victim" game. Being a liberal, I have some mixed feelings about some of his points, but I felt he was spot on with that point in particular. I often hear this "victim" thing in my exchanges with Trump true-believers, and maybe it is true that people seized on racism too quickly in the days of Obama. I was angry because neither side showed any willingness to work together and find a sensible compromise.

        To use your expression, it seems like both sides tend to "pee from a great height", but on different platforms. When we think the "other side" is 100% pure evil, it doesn't seem wrong to urinate on them; or hurl other things on them too.

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        Pat Riot

        I guess we can wish he hadn't, but you could argue it might be more of a symptom than a cause. Answering an argument with, "you have xyz derangement syndrome" is a meaningless slur, not an argument. Lots of today's "serious" discourse (i.e. not in little text boxes on the Internet like these) has been reduced to this sort of name-calling. Republicans throw around the word, "socialist" like that, Democrats, "Nazi", etc. The deeper disease at work here is a lack of abstract thinking. What the term really means is, "UGH. OTHER TEAM BAD".

        Hence Krauthammer might have indulged himself in a moment of passion with that sort of term not quite aware that so many would pick up on it, but probably a depressing number of his readers would only understand what fell through a #4 sieve.

        And while tribalism is visible on both sides of the spectrum, clearly one side is far far more guilty of this than the other right now, that being the Republicans. Like many things that has reversed itself in the last 20 years.

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          Pat Riot

          ^^^ And let me again express my annoyance at the lack of editing here. Besides the typos, that should read, "gets stuck in a #4 sieve", which changes the meaning...

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          Ray Salemi

          My point above was that I could find no reason for Obama Derangement Syndrome so I defaulted to “it must be racism.”

          It’s really not fair to position the kind of hatred Obama suffered as good-faith conservative differences in policy preferences.

          Conservatives were more than happy to go along with the whole birther controversy. I even had one say he knew it was a lie but if it slowed down Obama then he was okay with that.

          How does one explain that?

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            WKDawson

            Yeah, I also still feel that some of the refusal to cooperate was just a ruse for racism.

            However, up until Trump, I think they only conservative columnists I would regularly read were David Brooks and Arthur Brooks; both showed up on the NYT columns. I never visited NRO before this Trump thing. The closest I came was years ago when I sometimes watched WF Buckey's show.

            I evidently am not a full-blown flaming liberal because I didn't like the way most of the readers treated the two Brooks. However, their views were generally very sensible. Many readers at NYT would throw mud at them. I thought I understood something about what was going on, but the madness to elect Trump really shocked me.

            At any rate, my point is that I got most of my information from NYT, so it is difficult to weigh to what extent the resistance was racism and what extent was genuinely due to unreconcilable policy differences. The two-faced profligacy on the deficit seems to have been mostly a selfish fraud. I do note, however, that lowering the tax on businesses may have been somewhat wise. Still, I agree, when I saw people call Obama "Hussien" on those disgusting yahoo channels (note the small "y"), it was very offensive to me and struck me to be nothing other than racism.

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            Pat Riot

            The way you explain it is when tribalism takes over every principle one has.

            And for a case study on how it all happens, take a look at Glenn Beck. Right after Trump was elected he had a moment of clarity and lamented that his job was "really about selling mattresses" (ads for MattressLand on his radio shows etc.) and he felt bad about how saying all of that stuff (which one would surmise he didn't even really believe) had lead to the monster that is Trump.

            And then... Beck went back to selling mattresses: he got right back on the Trump train. His other choice was poverty and obscurity.

            I still remember the sentiment before Trump was elected and the feeling was that most of the pundits and press would escape with their reputations and consciouses intact. For about 98% of them, they went all-in on Trump in a way nobody could have imagined. It ended up being ten times worse than most predicted at the time. If you showed these people a window into what is going on today and their own reaction to it, they wouldn't believe you.

            At the end of the though, a lot of it boils down to plain old money, and people keeping their jobs that sustain their families.

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        Ray Salemi

        While we're talking I just wanted to thank you for SUICIDE OF THE WEST. Now that my eyes are open to the Enlightenment/Romanticism struggle I see it everywhere. Great job!

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