Political Rhetoric in Liberal and Illiberal Modes

I spent the end of last week at “Liberalism in the 21st Century,” a conference sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, the publisher of Shikha Dalmia’s excellent Substack, The UnPopulist. Lots of great stuff at that conference, and I had hoped to kick off this week by writing on some of the thoughts I have coming out of that conference. I’ll get back to those thoughts in the near future, but the world didn’t feel like cooperating with my editorial calendar. 

There isn’t much we can say for sure about the shooting of former President, and current candidate, Donald Trump on Saturday in Pennsylvania. From what we know, it seems most likely that the shooter was not particularly motivated by ideology - more like John Hinckley, Jr. than a political assassin. It’s possible that new evidence could emerge, but it seems unlikely – not that this is stopping lots of people across the political spectrum from engaging in wildly irresponsible speculation, of course. What evidence we have points to the shooter having a vaguely right-of-center alignment, and certainly not an Antifa Supersoldier. But whatever the motivation, we should all condemn and abhor attempted murders and other forms of violence, regardless of our partisan leanings or opinions of the people involved. Human life is precious. 

But that brings us to the subject of political rhetoric, which is squarely in line with my own research, and on which I can therefore say a lot more. The immediate line from most of the political right was something like this quote, from a piece published in the Washington Examiner on July 13: 

So let’s talk about that. To start with, that’s a load-bearing ‘you.’ The accusation of lying demands proof that what people are saying is false. Lots of people villainize Trump, fair enough, but only a few people (Jack Smith, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg) are prosecuting him, and only one person – Thomas Matthew Crooks – tried to kill him. Prudence would recommend that you wait for actual proof before you associate the latter with anyone else, but what need for prudence when there’s a political narrative to sell? 

One wonders if the author will retract her stated willingness to “crawl over broken glass to vote for the man” if the shooting is confirmed as a senseless and tragic act of violence, not a politically targeted assassination. One doubts it, somehow.

I want to steelman that line of argument – that calling Trump a threat to democracy, an aspiring authoritarian, and a wannabe dictator is tantamount to an incitement to violence – even though I’m completely certain that the vast majority of those on the right who are making it are operating in the height of bad faith. After all, where were they when Trump said that migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” and that some of them are “not people, in my opinion,” later comparing them to animals? Where were they when Trump said that some of his political opponents “live like vermin within the confines of our country”? Where were they when North Carolina’s current Lieutenant Governor, and gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson said “some folks need killing?” I could fill a book with examples of prominent right-wing figures calling Democrats evil and members of the LGBT community ‘groomers,’ fantasizing about violence and civil war, making explicit threats, and endorsing dangerous conspiracy theories. And lest we forget, these things are not only potentially connected to violence, they have in fact already inspired numerous acts of violence. 

Despite the gross hypocrisy of right-wing figures suddenly discovering the concept of dangerous political rhetoric, do they have a point? I think they do, at least in part. 

Most of us are used to thinking about politics in terms of a left-right divide. We’re all familiar with those policy differences, but they’re rapidly crumbling and being reformed in new ways. I don’t mean to suggest that there aren’t meaningful policy differences that remain between the two parties, but I do think that the most important divide is no longer a policy disagreement. It’s a difference between liberal and illiberal modes.

Within the liberal mode of discourse, we deliberately renounce certain political questions and repudiate certain political tools. We place some questions outside the scope of politics - we don’t have or seek a state religion, and we don’t (or at least, we aspire to not) favor one ethnic group over another. We try to elongate the ‘shadow of the future’ for all political players: because defeat is never final or total, and because the possibility of persuasion and coalition-building is always left open, the hope is that political losers will accept defeat graciously and peacefully, knowing they may win in the next round. We also reject certain kinds of political action: violence, repression, and other kinds of illegal or extra-legal means.

Within an illiberal mode of discourse, neither questions nor tools are off-limits. The illiberal wants to achieve political dominance – on behalf of race, class, religion, or ideology – that is both final and total. The illiberal endorses the tools of violence, repression, and illegal or extra-legal means, and in so doing they reject the basic dignity of all human persons and the institutions and structures that attempt to uphold that dignity. They say, in effect, “I may treat you however I like, and however I can, if only I win.”

When a committed liberal hears Trump described as a threat to democracy, as a man who is at least open to illiberal goals and authoritarian means in a manner which we find unacceptable, the unstated but crucial premise is that our opposition to him, though fierce and committed, must be undertaken by liberal means. It is the illiberals who respond with violence, and although that does not appear to have been the case in this shooting, it is logically possible that it might in the future.

This is why understanding that the liberal/illiberal divide does not parallel the right/left divide is so important. There are certainly liberal Republicans and illiberal Democrats. I consider myself to be aligned with the Democratic Party because at the current moment the liberals are more powerful within that party, while the Republicans are almost completely in the grasp of their illiberals. But liberals who oppose Trump should not forget that not all who oppose Trump are fellow liberals. The threat of Trump, when heard by an illiberal mind, might well inspire violence.

This moment does not demand of us that we swallow our critiques of illiberalism on the right, or silence our opposition to Trump. I believe, by the best weighing of evidence in my power, that he lacks any commitment to liberalism, to democracy, to the rule of law, or to anything besides his own personal interest. I believe, also, that those around him are united mostly by a set of diverse but decidedly illiberal goals, each of which they hope to see him advance. These things were true before the shooting, and they are still true. I won’t stop saying them.

This moment does demand that we liberals reinforce our commitments to liberal means as well as liberal ends. We should make explicit the all-too-often unstated liberal premises: no violence, no repression, no final or totalizing power. It is possible that such commitments are a tactical weakness against opponents who recognize no such limits. But they’re also a moral strength, and the free and fair endorsement of them is, in my opinion, the only real way to have a society worth living in.