A NEWSLETTER FROM DAVID CORN |
A NEWSLETTER FROM DAVID CORN |
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Hugh Hewitt’s Constitutional Con |
By David Corn January 17, 2024 |
Hugh Hewitt on the set of Meet the Press in Washington, DC, on March 13, 2016. William B. Plowman/NBCUniversal via Getty |
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Hugh Hewitt once had the reputation as a reasonable conservative. He was a professor of constitutional law at Chapman University and hosted a radio show in which he assumed the role of center-right intellectual who demanded rigorous thinking about the controversies of the day. He was no in-the-tank partisan for the right and the GOP and no Limbaugh-ish hack or blowhard. He was an egghead who professed reverence for the Constitution and history. Yet the Trump years have changed all that. Like many conservatives who have been faced with the choice of getting on the Trump train or being run over by it—and losing your standing (and audience) within the right—Hewitt enthusiastically jumped aboard, doffed a red cap, and shouted, “Full speed ahead!”
Through the Trump years, Hewitt has been a total toady for Donald Trump, championing Trump’s grifter conservatism and excusing Trump’s demagogic assaults on democracy and decency, his divisive politics, and his debasing of the national discourse. His interviews of Trump have been exercises of lapdoggery. (Here’s one example.) A recent column Hewitt penned for Fox News shows how far he has slithered into Trump sycophancy.
In the article, Hewitt derides those gripped by “hysteria” who assert Trump is a “threat to democracy.” He opines, “It is a silly alarm, one that should be laughed at, not indulged.” Hewitt scoffs at the notion “that a second Trump term would be lawless and Trump in a position to govern outside the law.”
His main point is that even if Trump does try any authoritarian stunts, the Constitution and the courts are strong enough to counter him and prevent any damage to the republic. Calm down, he chides Trump’s critics, calling them “idiotic” for suggesting Trump might refuse “to leave after one more term.” (On Sunday, Trump did refer to his possible next stint as president lasting “four years and beyond.”)
Hewitt’s argument boils down to this: Trump has no intention of breaking the system and, if he did, the system is stronger than he is. This is Soviet-style disinformation, for Hewitt airbrushes out of the picture Trump’s well-documented and fierce effort to undermine the constitutional order of the United States after the 2020 election.
In his long apologia for Dear Leader, this constitutional law professor neglects to mention Trump’s attempt to claim victory before the votes were counted, his never-ending false (and roundly debunked) claims of election fraud, his plot to induce the Justice Department to fraudulently pronounce the election results illegitimate, his role in the fake electors conspiracy, his pressuring of his vice president to take an anti-constitutional action to overturn the election, his incitement of violence on January 6, his refusal to address that violence as it was underway, and so much more. How does one get away with proclaiming love for the Constitution while refusing to acknowledge all this?
Moreover, Hewitt ignores Trump’s call for suspending the Constitution (so he could be restored to his office), his suggestion that the top US military commander should be executed, his vow to use the Justice Department (should he return to the White House) to go after his political foes, his legal claim that as president he could order the assassination of a rival and escape criminal prosecution unless convicted in an impeachment proceeding, and his threat of “bedlam” if he loses the 2024 election.
He pooh-poohs the January 6 insurrectionist uprising, observing, “The GOP has at least overwhelmingly rejected the idea that Trump is culpable for the riot.” As if that means anything other than the party Hewitt allies with has become a cult. And Hewitt tries to flip reality by insisting that those who warn that Trump imperils democracy are themselves destabilizing American politics: “Are these writers of these various alarms and their heirs and assigns intent on inciting their readers to a frenzy which could result in violence?” He sternly rebukes them: “If you believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, stop peddling imaginary threats to either.” How about this: If you believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, stop denying and downplaying actual threats to either.
Hewitt is living in the upside-down. Acting like a clever lawyer who can twist facts for any design, he insists that Trump’s critics are setting the stage for obstruction and violence if Trump triumphs. That sure takes chutzpah after January 6—and after Trump’s continuous deployment of violent rhetoric during the latest election cycle.
Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he does not care a whit for the Constitution, and the record is clear that he plotted to trash it for his own political benefit. He doesn’t deserve a pass because he failed. Nor should any of his past (or future) scheming be dismissed because the system, in the end, prevented him from stealing the 2020 election. Hewitt’s inability to see this shows he has either been blinded by Trumpism or purposefully decided that his ultimate mission is propaganda.
What happened to Hewitt? Apparently the same Trumpmania that has afflicted many other conservatives who placed personal standing above principles. It certainly has worked out for him. His appearances on cable news networks increased. He has moderated GOP debates. He has ridden the Trump wave well. (A personal note: I’ve had my ups and downs with Hewitt. In 2015, I hung up on him during an appearance on his radio show when he refused to address the facts in a story Dan Schulman and I had broken revealing that commentator Bill O’Reilly had made false claims about his reporting from war zones. Yet during the New Hampshire primary in 2016, Hewitt kindly helped me find my glasses when I lost them in the makeshift MSNBC green room in a Manchester hotel.)
Hewitt’s tale is a familiar one, illustrating the brazen abandonment of values on the right. In recent days, we’ve seen other examples of this. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who proclaims himself a “constitutional conservative,” endorsed Trump this week. This is a fellow who in 2016 fiercely opposed Trump at the Republican convention and later said of Trump after the Access Hollywood tape emerged: “If anyone spoke to my wife, or my daughter or any of my sisters…the way Mr. Trump has spoken to women, I wouldn’t hire that person…wouldn’t want to be associated with that person, and I certainly don’t think I’d be comfortable hiring that person to be the leader of the free world.” Then again, Lee privately conspired with the White House and Trump allies following the 2020 election and tried to concoct a scheme to reverse the legitimate results.
An important subplot of the Trump Era has been the transactional capitulation of supposed right-wing intellectuals and leaders to Trumpism. This absolute and abject surrender has revealed the intellectual bankruptcy of the conservative movement. When a constitutional scholar of the right does not recoil at Trump’s attempt to use subterfuge and exploit violence to subvert the Constitution, what does it say about his purported love of this founding document and his adherence to its principles? It suggests he never really meant it.
Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com. |
Another Our Land Zoom Get-Together
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As some of you know, we had a wonderful gathering of Our Land readers via Zoom in November. I vowed at that time to host another meet-up in December. But, damn, the news cycle and the holidays made that tough to schedule. Then I promised one in January. And I’m going to keep that promise. How does January 24 at 8 p.m. work for y’all? Mark it down. Remember, these shindigs are only available to premium subscribers—those proud Our Landers who kick in a few bucks a month to keep this enterprise afloat. On the day of the Zoomfest, only these subscribers will receive a mailing with a Zoom link. But there’s plenty of time for the non-premium subscribers (and we love you, too) to upgrade to top status so they can participate in this conversation with me and fellow readers. Just click here.
While we’re on the subject, allow me to remind people that we do need premium subscribers to continue producing Our Land. Those who support us this way receive more nifty content each issue: additional news and analysis; the highly acclaimed Dumbass Comment of the Week feature; the interactive Mailbag (in which I respond to your barbs, compliments, and questions); reviews of films, television shows, books, music, and other cultural developments; MoxieCam™; and more. Of course, if you subscribe to this full version, you are not obliged to read it all. (There are no pop quizzes.) So, you might ask, if I don’t want all this, why pay for it? There’s a simple answer: Your subscription contribution will be supporting this entire venture, and it will signal you value Our Land, be it the abridged or full version. Here’s my ask: In this new year—full of potential and dread—whether you crave more Our Land content or not, please consider signing up as a premium subscriber and, as noted above, click here. I thank you for even taking a nanosecond to think about this.
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The Watch, Read, and Listen List
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American Fiction. Jeffrey Wright is one of our top actors. He’s a king of subtle and poignant performances. In American Fiction, the dramedy directed by Cord Jefferson and based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, Wright sparkles as two characters in one. Thelonious “Monk” Ellison is a professor and novelist whose books draw critical praise but sell poorly. He also has a huge chip on his shoulder about being identified as a “Black” writer. During one visit to a bookstore, he tries to move his books from the African American Literature section to just plain ol’ Literature. His state of mind is hardly helped when publishers turn down his latest work, explaining it’s not “Black enough.” He resents the literary accolades bestowed upon Black writers who focus on the hardships of Black life, believing they pander to stereotypes of Black dysfunction. At the top of this list is a current bestseller titled We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, penned by a young Black woman named Sintara Golden, who is played superbly well by the always entertaining Issa Rae.
While dealing with a heap of his own (upper middle-class) family dysfunction, Ellison, in an act of venting, bangs out a manuscript titled My Pafology, a supposed memoir of gang life, violent crime, and deadbeat dads written by an ex-con named Stagg R. Leigh. (Get it? If not, click here.) This satire is meant to be only a personal protest. But when his agent sends it out and receives from a publisher, who believes this to be a true account, a $750,000 offer—with a Hollywood deal also possible—the joke becomes all too real. Ellison desperately needs the money to pay to move his mother, who’s suffering with Alzheimer’s, to an assisted living facility. Thus, he adopts the Leigh persona for his interactions with the publisher (via phone calls) and a sit-down with a famous screenwriter.
Not surprisingly, it’s tough for Ellison to sustain the con. We know something must give. But along the way, the movie explores tough issues of racial identity, cultural examination, and white liberal guilt. Is Ellison right to rail against what he sees as Blaxploitation within the cultural industrial complex? With his racial heterodoxy, does he walk too close to the cancelation line? Jefferson deftly blends comedy with unease, and Wright skillfully switches back and forth, as he conveys two different Black experiences, suggesting the truth of American Fiction lies somewhere in between.
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Liberation Day, George Saunders. Regular readers of Our Land know that I’m quite fond of George Saunders. In September, I devoted an entire issue to his 2021 book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, noting this explanation of storytelling was one of the best books I’ve ever read. And I’ve just caught up with his output by consuming Liberation Day, a collection of short stories he published a little over a year ago. His quirky imagination is stop-you-in-your-tracks impressive. He out-Vonneguts Vonnegut with his weird contrivances. In two of the stories in this book, he gives us worlds much like our own but in which humans are essentially turned into machines (by other humans) to perform odd tasks. In one, they are entertainment vehicles, telling and somewhat acting out historical stories—say, the Battle of Little Bighorn—while hanging from a wall. In the other, they are stripped of their identities and memories and become zombies deployed as faux protesters for a disinformation campaign. This might sound too out-there, but the wonder—and fun—of Saunders’ work is how he constructs these incredibly strange settings and circumstances to explore that old cliché: the human condition.
Other stories occur in more conventional environs. A Mother’s Day visit from a daughter leads to an outpouring of memories from a less-than-appreciative mom. A fellow’s failed attempt to purchase a house he yearns for triggers a flood of regret and rumination, as he faces his final days. Personality conflicts in an office merge into a single narrative. Whether he is exploring the mundane or the bizarre, Saunders can keep you hooked.
My favorite tale in this volume, “Love Letter,” is a missive sent from a grandfather to a grandson on “February 22, 202_”—presumably a few years from now. Authoritarians—known as “loyalists”— are in charge. The writer, who fears this letter might be intercepted, is in coded terms addressing a situation in which a mutual acquaintance seemingly has been deported (or worse) by a regime that has managed to squash an independent judiciary. Another unnamed person—perhaps his grandson’s lover—is in similar danger. “You asked,” he writes, “if you are supposed to stand by and watch your friend’s life be ruined.” Granddad points out that he has two answers: “one as a citizen, the other as a grandfather.” He understands the duty to “do something,” yet he asks, “what, exactly?” He adds, “When you reach a certain age, you see that time is all we have.” As a grandfather, he begs his grandson “not to underestimate the power/danger of the moment.”
At issue here is the struggle between the obligations to survive and to help. The grandfather ruefully describes his regrets, noting that during “a certain critical period,” he and his wife tended to their own needs and desires—dental issues, getting the kitchen redone, and jigsaw puzzles—while from the TV “blared this litany of things that had never happened before.” They assumed “all would return to normal” and “that some adult or adults would arrive.” Well, no. “We had taken, in other words, a profound gift for granted,” he tells his grandson. Now he is in full self-justification mode: “Our lives had not prepared us for extremity, to mobilize or be as focused and energized as I see, in retrospect, we would have need to be. We were not prepared to drop everything in defense of a system that was, to us, like oxygen.” Now he believes it’s too late to take action, and he cautions his grandson to not stick his neck out but to simply get by and keep “sanity alive.”
It's a one-way conversation. The story contains no reply from the grandson. It shows us how people can rationalize indifference and inaction and how that benefits those who subvert democracy and undermine decency. Saunders is by no means a political writer. But in this story he probes a psychological aspect of our current politics and concocts a fictitious reality that matches the moment—or perhaps one that might lie ahead. Here's George Saunders talking about Liberation Day on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: |
Read Recent Issues of Our Land |
January 13, 2024: Is Trump extremism getting more extreme?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (everyone!); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.
January 9, 2024: Two historic Dutch girls and today’s world; the creepy chaos of Leave the World Behind; the awesome creativity of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; and more.
January 3, 2024: A story of Mother Jones (the labor organizer) and a populist senator; Mark Levin, Joe Scarborough, and me; and more.
December 23, 2023: To disqualify or not disqualify Trump?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Michele Bachmann); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.
December 19, 2023: A (cracked) Christmas playlist; the chances of Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley; the return of Brad Parscale; and more.
December 16, 2023: Donald Trump, rubber, and glue; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Brenden Dilley); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.
December 12, 2023: Who controls AI?; Nyad is a Rocky for the olds; Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Dave Alvin explore the borderland; and more. |
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Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com. |
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