I’ve survived 2018 by following the “FT rule”: I only read articles about the Trump administration if these stories have been featured on the homepage of the Financial Times. This isn’t because I find Trump more palatable in salmon-pink. It’s because the FT normally only covers Trump and his administration when their actions meet certain criteria — e.g., the story should include no more than one porn star. While the administration’s D-list scandals may collectively be important, I doubt the individual stories will have any lasting relevance. Is anyone going to remember Michael Cohen’s AT&T “consulting” or Don Jr.’s elephant hunting in five years — or five months? Does anyone remember Brenda Fitzgerald?
Rule #1 of the Internet may be “never feed the trolls,” but troll-feeding has become America’s new national pastime. Trump does, says, or — more likely — tweets something provocative. Or someone in his administration does or says something particularly stupid/shady/shocking. And it begins: Democratic Twitter responds by screaming “impeachment,” Democratic politicians respond by screaming “special counsel,” Republican Twitter responds by screaming “witch hunt,” and Republican politicians respond by becoming invertebrates.
Lather … rinse … repeat.
This cycle of hysteria is troubling, not only because it renders the administration’s minor and major scandals indistinguishable, but also because the Democratic response is now part of the cycle. When the opposition keeps taking the bait, it isn’t speaking truth to power — it’s turning up the volume, making power’s voice all the more deafening.
The Helsinki summit was not a D-List scandal. Watching the American president kowtow to the Kremlin, putting his personal interests before the nation’s, was shocking. Like a few other major scandals — the travel ban, the Charlottesville response, the Hurricane Maria response, and the family separation policy — the Helsinki summit temporarily rose above the noise to remind Americans that sometimes politics is more than adrenaline-producing clickbait. Sometimes it’s history, the type of history future generations will read about with shame.
Trump’s actions in Helsinki, both his two-hour closed-door meeting with Vladimir Putin and the subsequent press conference, initially seemed to throw the hysteria cycle out of whack. Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan openly criticized the president. Mitt Romney remembered he had principles. Barack Obama made pointed critiques, reminding everyone what a president should sound like. And even a few Fox News hosts broke character long enough to act like humans. But even though some of these responses were mildly heartening, it was disturbing how quickly the statements shifted from severe denunciation to 2018-era madness.
By which I mean, what are you doing, Chuck Schumer?
If you’re just a garden variety Democrat — i.e., not the Senate minority leader — then you can make all the Manchurian Candidate insinuations you want. But on the day the president sells out his country, the country deserves more than tabloid-level insinuations. We all know Russia meddled in the 2016 elections to weaken Hillary Clinton’s campaign, support Trump’s candidacy, and, ultimately, weaken liberal democracy. We all know that members of the Trump campaign likely interacted with Russian officials because they were too inexperienced and too incompetent to realize they shouldn’t. But I do not, for one moment, believe that a vast Russian conspiracy resulted in Trump’s election, no more than I believe Angela Lansbury is lurking in a corner somewhere clutching a pee tape instead of a deck of cards.
My objection to the conspiracy theory is not just that it’s almost certainly untrue (blackmailing an unapologetic adulterer, harasser, liar, and charlatan seems like a somewhat futile endeavor). Nor do I object to the conspiracy theory merely because the plot lets Americans off the hook — although it does. I object because the conspiracy theory strengthens Trump’s victim narrative and gives Trump supporters and even moderate Republicans an excuse to forget the Helsinki performance. Instead of forcing all Americans to consider the president’s lack of patriotism, attraction to authoritarians, and pathologically thin skin, Democrats instead reminded the country that many leading members of their party believe the president of Russia is blackmailing the president of the United States with a fetish film. Trump disgraced himself and embarrassed the country — and yet Democrats still managed to find a way to make themselves look bad.
Giving credence to conspiracy theories is also counterproductive because it will likely enable the administration to delegitimize whatever comes out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Unless Mueller produces a video of Trump and Putin discussing how best to undermine NATO and how easy it was to phish John Podesta, Trump and his supporters will almost certainly respond with their all-too-familiar mantra: “no collusion.”
This isn’t to say that we should respond to this administration’s actions with resignation. Hysteria and anger are not the same thing. If you become passionately angry about children being separated from their parents and respond by joining a protest or contacting your representatives, you’re not bring hysterical. But if you claim that Trump is trying to eliminate term limits and crown himself emperor because of a joke he made about Xi Jinping, then, yes, you’re being hysterical.
And losing our collective minds isn’t just useless; it makes recognizing and responding to real controversies more difficult. It’s been one week since Trump said, “I don’t know why it would be Russia,” and his poll numbers are up. The Helsinki summit is suddenly just another scandal, spoken about in the same breath as Michael Cohen’s taped conversations about a Playboy model. When everything matters, nothing matters.
Hysteria may be a reasonable response to 2018. But it’s not a helpful one. I know it’s easy for me to caution calm because I’m not the one having my visa rescinded or my child interned. But I’m not sure how having daily panic attacks and losing sleep is going to help anyone — except Trump. He cares about nothing more than attention, and we keep giving it to him. He’s like Medusa in a baggy suit. We know looking at him is unwise and likely won’t end well, but, before we know it, he’s got us. And then we’re stuck, petrified, unable to look away.
But I’m going to try. I’m sure I’ll repeatedly fail to follow my own rule. And I realize that giving the administration attention only when it’s warranted will have approximately zero impact on anything, but at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I’m not feeding this particular troll — at least not every day. It may be a limited protest, but the alternative is diving headfirst into the hysteria cycle for yet another turn. And if I do that, I don’t think I’ll make it to 2019.
Right on! An executive who utilizes distraction and diversion on a daily basis, anticipating that you’ll succumb to mental fatigue and forget the important stuff.