America stares into the abyss
Last week, America stared into the abyss and the world stared with it. Images from the storming of the US Capitol have gone global, especially photos of the activist known as Q Shaman. With his horns, fur, facepaint, and tattooed torso, braying for the cameras in the sanctified corridors of power, the surreal photos perfectly encapsulate a shocking transition; the hours when virtual posturing and LARPing suddenly became a deadly serious assault on an institution of federal government, like electricity arcing from one electrode to another. But the photos and the events they represent aren’t just an American problem. They contain a deeper lesson about the frailty of the habits and institutions that we depend on, even in New Zealand.
The Capitol invasion, the aftermath of the Trump-inflamed “Save America” protest rally, was an attempt to prevent Congress’ confirmation of Trump’s election defeat. It came hard on the heels of the President’s wild and wildly irresponsible conspiracy-theorising about election fraud. Rightly, he’s been buried by an avalanche of condemnation ever since. There’s a strong element of farce in the viral images—a rabble of rioters posing for photos like tourists, one of them even souveniring a podium. But hand-in-glove with this farce goes grim reality; at least five people have died, including one of the police officers protecting the Capitol, pipe bombs were found at the scene, and one of the world’s superpowers looks horribly impotent, divided, and decadent.
Of course, there’s a history to last week’s events—unchecked riots in 2020, hyper-partisanship beginning in the 1990s, social breakdown weakening our civic ties—that shouldn’t be ignored. And yet, there is something particularly serious and threatening about an invasion of a house of representatives, and the disruption of crucial democratic processes, that makes it appropriate to reflect on these specific events.
In fact, these events illuminate something that’s all-too-easy to take for granted: the miracle of democratic, representative government that allows the contest for power to be settled peacefully. It has taken centuries of conflict and strife to create these “collective assets”, to use Sir Roger Scruton’s phrase. And as he said, “In respect of such things, the work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating; the work of creation slow, laborious and dull.” The storming of the Capitol highlights two particular things we in New Zealand need to uphold if we are to preserve our own collective assets—character in our leaders, and civility in our discourse.
First, character matters because leaders wield power and exercise judgment. They can shape others’ reality, and people imitate the behaviours and norms that leaders model. Character—like a leader’s disposition to do good instead of ill, to recognise their own weaknesses, and to put others first—is what determines whether they will be responsible and trustworthy.
Throughout the last five years, Trump has proved repeatedly that he lacks character. Now, this lack has manifested in a dangerous, selfish and deluded attempt to deny that he lost the election, inciting the rioters to march on the Capitol. New Zealand politics hasn’t been disfigured by a Trump-like figure, but there are enough warning signs that we shouldn’t be complacent. From misconduct by individuals like Jami-Lee Ross and Andrew Falloon, to a broader culture review in our Parliament that concluded that, “bullying and harassment are systemic,” there are plenty of reasons to think that we mustn’t be complacent.
Second, civility matters because it both lubricates and guarantees the way we choose governments and allocate power. As Professor Jeremy Waldron has explained, civility is essentially a commitment to respect those you disagree with, to see them as opponents rather than as enemies, and to graciously accept the outcome of the democratic process even when you lose because you know that the process has its own value, one that transcends your own ambitions.
Trump’s rhetoric—“stop the steal,” “we’re not going to let it happen,” “brazen and outrageous election theft”—is profoundly uncivil. Again, New Zealand’s discourse hasn’t been disfigured in the same way as America’s, but we conduct much of our lives and our politics on the same platforms and technologies, like Twitter, that aren’t just a channel for incivility but which employ outrage-driven algorithms that actively undermine the norms and habits that civility depends on. If last week’s events show us anything, it’s that what goes online doesn’t necessarily stay online, that the virtual can become reality.
As Yuval Levin says, these events will not prevent Congress from doing its job, and nor are they unprecedented: the Capitol “faced intense crowds of rioters several times in the 19th century, and many times in the 20th. Puerto Rican nationalists fired guns from the House gallery in 1954, injuring several members. Vietnam War protesters set off a bomb on the Senate side in 1971.” We should be thankful that events like these stand out as aberrations, and determined to value and protect the culture that keeps it that way.
In New Zealand, that starts with celebrating examples of civility and good character wherever we find them. It means re-evaluating our use of platforms like Twitter, committing to use them in a civil way or not at all. It means recognising that character is not an optional requirement for leaders—at election time, for example, we shouldn’t merely ask about the policies and the level of technical expertise that an aspiring candidate offers, but about the kind of person that they are.
Above all, it means recognising that a healthy political culture is a precious and fragile inheritance, which must have new life breathed into it by each succeeding generation. To adapt something else Scruton said, it’s part of “the frail crust of civilisation” beneath which lies an abyss of anarchy, chaos, and the war of all-against-all. Let’s hope that America can step back from that abyss, and that we never allow ourselves to stand on its edge.