Nearly every enabler and co-conspirator of Trump, like the man himself, will fail up, on their feet, well paid and insulated from accountability. The incestuous tribe protects its own. It always has, and it always will.
Nearly every enabler—journalists, academics, editors, cable news hosts, and politicians—of the disastrous Bush administration and his ongoing, bloody War on Terror has failed up in life. Very few have ever publicly acknowledged their role in the disaster, shown remorse, or asked for forgiveness. Bush himself is now largely seen as a harmless, eccentric painter who gives candy to Michelle Obama.
What makes you think anything different will happen to Donald Trump and his mob of insurrectionists, including the majority of elected Republicans and conservative pundits?
It’s Groundhog Day in America, an often masochistic and maddening country where a privileged revolving door stays operating to consistently reward and recast the very same people most committed to destroying her. To quote the acerbic wit of the late George Carlin: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
Just this week, Donald Trump wrote a tirade from his Mar-a-Lago resort trying to cancel his Judas, Senator Mitch McConnell. Trump’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway, who coined the term “alternative facts” and lied with a rare degree of serene shamelessness, channeled Karen energy and awkwardly danced on American Idol to support her daughter’s audition. Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey and one of Trump’s earliest and most loyal advocates, pontificated and commented upon current events from his well-paid perch as an ABC News commentator. Meanwhile, former Governor Nikki Haley hopped over the world’s lowest bar and gained some applause last week for simply criticizing Donald Trump, a man whose hateful agenda and administration she championed in front of the global community as his ambassador to the U.N.
They all seem to be doing well.
Still, Trump’s allies and base complain about being “canceled.” The GOP and the right wing are currently obsessed with “cancel culture,” which is a modern remake of political incorrectness, a manufactured grievance to weaponize fake victimhood for bad-faith actors who want the freedom to be cruel without accountability. The “number one issue” and “most dangerous thing” happening today, according to Rep. Jim Jordan, is “cancel culture.” Meanwhile, half a million people have died from COVID-19.
Proof of this oppression is the firing of Disney+ actress Gina Carano, who posted anti-Semitic and anti-trans content and doubled down on her toxic conspiracy theories when confronted with them. Ben Shapiro gave her a movie deal to “fight cancel culture” and Bari Weiss followed that with a sympathetic redemption interview focusing on her “intention.” I’m sure congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Marc Lamont Hill would have loved to have received such benefit of the doubt and quick forgiveness for their controversial comments on Israel. Instead, she remains a perpetual target of death threats, and he was immediately fired by CNN.
Meanwhile, business is booming for Trump’s enablers. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose sole job was to lie to the press, was given a book deal in 2020 by St. Martin’s Press, part of MacMillan, one of the “big 5” publishers. That publisher also gave a contract to Nikki Haley, whose book was released in 2019. Ambassador John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser, George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, and a notorious anti-Muslim bigot, was rewarded with a $2 million dollar advance from Simon & Schuster for his bestselling book. Oh, and Kellyanne Conway has also apparently scored a multimillion-dollar book deal for her upcoming Trump tell-all.
This liberal media is just so cruel, biased, and intolerant!
It seems clear that fascism, racism, and the destruction of our democracy often take a second seat to money and ratings. Trump himself was a manufactured product of this incestuous fornication between politics, business, and entertainment. Without NBC’s hit reality show The Apprentice, the failed businessman who cheated on his taxes would have never re-branded himself as a slick, wealthy financial genius with a Midas Touch. CNN President Jeff Zucker produced the show with Mark Burnett and it ran from 2005 to 2014. Zucker often talked to Trump during his 2016 campaign, referring to him as “the boss.” When later asked if he regretted his role in Trump’s rise to the presidency, Zucker replied, “I have no regrets about the part I played in his career.”
Why regret backing one of the greatest returns on investment in history? A reality TV star used his manufactured narrative of success to end up becoming the most powerful person on Earth. In 2016, then-CBS Executive Chairman and CEO Les Moonves said Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
If you thought the press would hold power accountable, well, you haven’t been paying attention.
I’ll never forget being invited to a party for journalists, reporters, and cable news personalities a day before the annual White House Correspondents Dinner and seeing Sean Spicer having the greatest time of his life, giving a bear hug to a friend in the parking lot. The man whose first act as Trump’s first press secretary was to gaslight America and lie to the White House press corps about the size of his inauguration audience was not only invited but embraced by the very people he mocked and demeaned. He suffered greatly after leaving his position by accepting a prestigious fellowship at Harvard, publishing a book, and receiving a six-figure sum to appear in a leotard on Dancing With The Stars.
It seems the ones who complain the most about getting canceled are the ones scoring the most lucrative deals. Anand Ghiridardas wrote earlier this week about the “cost” of these privileged “second chances,” where this incestuous tribe and revolving door of wealth and privilege “entrench a reality in which second, and often first, chances are withheld from most people.” He’s correct in concluding it seems like a “zero sum game.”
And, of course, it’s often people of color, who were right in warning about the horrors of the War on Terror, the 2008 economic crisis, and the rise and consequences of Trumpism, who never get a chance to succeed or fail. They often remain dismissed or sidelined as reactionary, hysterical, and angry. They sometimes receive the invites to the party but based on the unspoken terms and conditions they stay in their lanes, don’t ruffle fragile egos, and never disrupt the dynamics of power that keep the revolving door spinning.
We should be generous and allow people to reflect and change, helping to break a cycle of destructive behaviors. This is necessary and healthy for both individuals and a community. But, what happens when there is no reflection? No insight? No remorse? No accountability? No changed behaviors? What happens when the criminals game the system, pass GO, collect all the money, and somehow the innocent go to jail and are left with the bills?
In light of our fragile democracy barely surviving a racist authoritarian and his violent mob, this time we should try harder to disrupt the incestuous tribe and jam its revolving door. Maybe this time we can do our part to remind them of their culpability and ask them to account for how they helped enable a man who almost overturned our democracy?
Just yesterday, it was announced that Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, a multimillionaire, joined the speaking circuit and is charging $250,000 to speak in person and $75,000 for virtual addresses. Maybe his keynote will address why he tried to cut lending programs during a pandemic and a recession.
At the very least, maybe we can just make it a tad bit more uncomfortable for him and his ilk, dim the lights, just a little, forcing them to cover their head in shame, stumbling a bit, as they inevitably fail up.
"Remember, honey. Winners are people who are willing to lose,” Kellyanne Conway told her daughter before her American Idol audition.
I agree. It’s time we help some of the old winners start losing.
