A president shouldn't have to say "racism is evil." Indeed, saying it - not to mention two days after a racist rally set out to produce terror and mayhem, and generated the nation's first vehicular terrorist attack on a crowd of innocents - suggests he doesn't believe it. That's a word we reserve for the worst things, and this president clearly doesn't think racial thinking is one of the worst things.
"Evil" (as you know, this is something I've thought a lot about for a long time) names an outside threat, claiming for the namer a higher ground by fiat, an absolute purity. It arrests thought, silences opposition and undermes the possibility of engaging the vilified by anything but violent means.
Besides, this nano-president (I quite like that phrase used on "Morning Joe") depletes language by only ever using superlatives. He doesn't engage the middling world where we, and our moral reasoning, live. Reaching for hyperbole is what he does where others think.
Do you think he could just say "racism is wrong" - bringing it within the range of things that people like us might be implicated in, wittingly or unwittingly beholden to, might need to examine our hearts and lives for, might need to change our lives to address - and mean it? Make it a moral question, nor something safely metaphysical? Rejecting such moral reflection and self-awareness seems central to his political brand, and is central to his threat to our democratic culture.
"Evil" (as you know, this is something I've thought a lot about for a long time) names an outside threat, claiming for the namer a higher ground by fiat, an absolute purity. It arrests thought, silences opposition and undermes the possibility of engaging the vilified by anything but violent means.
Besides, this nano-president (I quite like that phrase used on "Morning Joe") depletes language by only ever using superlatives. He doesn't engage the middling world where we, and our moral reasoning, live. Reaching for hyperbole is what he does where others think.
Do you think he could just say "racism is wrong" - bringing it within the range of things that people like us might be implicated in, wittingly or unwittingly beholden to, might need to examine our hearts and lives for, might need to change our lives to address - and mean it? Make it a moral question, nor something safely metaphysical? Rejecting such moral reflection and self-awareness seems central to his political brand, and is central to his threat to our democratic culture.
