On Glenn Greenwald, Autocracy, and False Equivalency
Equating Democratic Party inconsistencies with Donald Trump’s attempt at autocracy is fallacious.
In journalist and commentator Glenn Greenwald’s December 8 article (“Biden’s Choice For Pentagon Chief Further Erodes a Key U.S. Norm: Civilian Control,” available at https://greenwald.substack.com/p/bidens-choice-for-pentagon-chief), the iconoclastic writer offers some solid points, but as usual, he proves prone to ridiculous hyperbole, as when he claims that “all of this underscores why the values and methods embraced by Democrats and their allies in the name of opposing Trump were often at least as dangerous, if not more so, as the worst excesses of the Trump presidency itself.”
That is a matter of false equivalence and grossly downplays the anti-democratic, neo-fascist, and authoritarian threat that Trump continues to embody. Whatever inconsistencies and ideological instabilities Democrats may be wallowing in simply pale beside Trump’s frontal assault on America’s constitutional democracy. Moreover, Greenwald fails to acknowledge the difficulties that arise when attempting to confront a would-be autocrat such as Trump. For instance, while a series of endorsements from former military officers and national security officials may not be optimal in the realm of partisan politics, when faced with a national emergency (Trump and his Republican enablers), one needs all the sound endorsements that one can receive in an effort to scoop up every last vote in every critical swing state. And, no, such endorsements do not threaten to undermine American democracy, especially when compared to a neo-fascist threatening to sabotage the country’s political system. Moreover, maintaining ideological purity or perfection is not always possible or even desirable when faced with the urgent need to defeat a maniac who is both leading thousands of his citizens to their deaths and also seeking to dismantle the nation’s political structure in favor of autocracy.
Curiously, Greenwald repeatedly refers to Trump as an “elected president” without any caveats. While he was indeed an “elected president,” the writer declines to mention how Trump only won election through the severely anti-democratic and anachronistic mechanism of the electoral college, which allows for minority rule. Additionally, Greenwald refuses to acknowledge that even that anti-democratic election quite possibly resulted from the anti-democratic foreign propaganda of an authoritarian state, Russia, one whose insidious involvement Trump publicly courted while some of his campaign officials and advisers directly collaborated with Russian agents.
Furthermore, while this statement may not describe all of the internal resistance that Greenwald mentions, he puzzlingly suggests that federal employees who acted on their own recognizance to skirt Trump’s orders constitute the demagogically-described “Deep State” rather than citizens of conscience resisting a lunatic fascist. By Greenwald’s logic in this article, Edward Snowden represented an anti-democratic traitor undermining a genuinely elected president (Barack Obama) rather than a whistleblower acting in accordance with his moral conscience. Indeed, Greenwald now appears hypocritical.
Greenwald also misses the point when he fails to critique Trump’s use of the dangerous “Deep State” label. What Trump means when he spouts that toxic phrase is that all federal agencies and organizations should constitute mere tools of his personal and political power rather than independent bodies staffed by objective professionals. And when they fail to act in accordance with his self-serving whims, Trump seeks to demonize them with that sabotaging moniker.
In short, Greenwald proves careful and adept as a journalist, but when he segues into overarching political commentary, his ideological imperatives override his sense of nuance and cause him to descend into deductive reasoning, false equivalency, and sophistry. Greenwald is hellbent on proving that Trump is merely part and parcel of America’s flaws. But while all authoritarians are symptoms of their societies on one level or another (Trump included), this president indeed represents something new and uniquely virulent. As Steve Schmidt recently stated, America is now basically divided into two political camps: one broad coalition ranging from “AOC” and Bernie Sanders to disaffected Republicans and former Republicans such as himself, which believes in democracy and everyone being able to participate, and the Trump-led Republicans, who believe that they should retain power no matter what, facts be damned. If Greenwald fails to appreciate that fundamental distinction or seeks to minimize it, then he is blinkered by his own ideological dogma.
