The Great Acquiescence
[URL='https://substack.com/@samharris']
[/URL]Sam Harris
The Democrats did their best at Trump’s Second Inauguration. They didn’t look happy, exactly, but they pretended that everything was normal out of respect for the office of the presidency—as well as for our tradition of peacefully transferring power, which only occasionally includes patriots in “Camp Auschwitz” t-shirts invading the Capitol and smearing shit on the walls.
Given the much-remarked “vibe shift” in America, it is hard to know how to discuss Trump’s Restoration—including all the obvious lying and malevolence—without seeming like someone who doesn’t know how to have a good time. (Why the long face? Are you rooting for America to fail?) Noticing the rumbling sounds of theocracy just seems paranoid. All that triumphal talk about God at the Inauguration couldn’t mean anything, because everyone knows Trump believes only in mammon. To be cynical, selfish, dishonest—and, above all, unserious—is what passes for “optimism” in our new moment.
How can one respond? I think I’ll just wait and see what happens…
But a few things have already happened! In one of his first actions as president, Trump freed even the most violent of the January 6th rioters.1 He also revoked Secret Service protection from John Bolton and Mike Pompeo (both of whom live under credible threat of assassination by the Iranian regime).2 In combination, these gestures convey a shocking (albeit unsurprising) message: If you commit violence for Trump—even against the police—there will be no consequences. But if you are less than loyal to him, he may help get you killed.
But the new vibe prevents any thought about such things. Don’t you know that in the waning minutes of his presidency, Sleepy Joe Biden also issued some sketchy pardons? Not of people who were caught on video stabbing cops in the face with flag poles, it’s true. But he did pardon members of his family who might have done something illegal. As you can see, there is simply no moral high ground left to stand on—and perhaps there never was!
And then there was Elon, who managed to make it all about him—and not in a way that pleased anyone apart from America’s white supremacists. Did he really perform a Nazi salute (twice)? Probably not. Why do I think this? Like so much that passes for insight at this moment, it’s just a feeling. It’s true that his unqualified support for the AfD party in Germany, his refashioning of X as a haven for bigots—and his willingness to promote people who are overtly antisemitic or adjacent to every species of racist awfulness—makes the principle of charity seem a little strained. But Elon is so intoxicated by the attention he’s getting now that everything he does seems like a fresh upheaval of childhood grandiosity. Who knows what any of it means?
Predictably, Elon’s response to the ensuing controversy was merely trollish and amoral. And yet, what might he have said if he really didn’t want to lend any support to the Nazi cause? Perhaps something like this:
“Whoops! That was definitely an awkward way to show my love for the crowd. But rest assured that I have no sympathy for Nazism, white supremacy, or any other form of racism. Note to all racist assholes: Unfollow me!”
Of course, that would have been too sane and well-intentioned to meet the mood of the moment. We now live in the age of insincerity. Move fast and break things—even your principles!—and your fans will love it…
1
J.D. Vance seemed very confident that this would not happen when he said “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
2
When I debated Ben Shapiro, a mere week before the election, he assured me that Mike Pompeo was likely to be Trump’s Secretary of State. The lines on the field keep moving, and yet the game goes on...
