How Democrats are modeling acquiescence

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On Wednesday President-Elect Donald Trump visited the Oval Office at the invitation of current President Joe Biden. The two elderly men sat side-by-side looking thick as thieves in a moment that I could only describe as Biden modeling acquiescence. What do I mean here? I mean he showed fellow Democrats and the entire country how to roll over in the face of fascism.

When I posted this sentiment on Bluesky that day, I received a bunch of responses like “what was he supposed to do?!” and “it would’ve been hypocritical for Biden not to meet with him!” These questions may have been reasonable in the 2016 transition when the full scope of Trump’s crazy hadn’t been revealed: but after nearly 10 years with him as our political epicenter, and four of those years as president, the jig is up. Trump is a known quantity, and to treat the way he and his team conduct themselves as anything resembling normal is feigned ignorance. Moreover, to go above and beyond to accommodate them is entirely unnecessary.

After leaving the cheery meeting, Trump called up Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post to gush about it like a Bachelorette contestant who had a one-on-one date. Trump told the Post that they “both really enjoyed seeing each other” and described the meeting as “really good” and “very enjoyable.” 

In maybe the most baffling quote, he said, “We got to know each other again.” (I know you come to me for answers, but I’ve got nothing here.)

We also learned that the photosharing platform Flickr still exists when people pointed out the White House’s account shared this pic of Trump and the Biden’s cheesing together.

In another alarming attempt to normalize the abnormal, Colorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis tweeted Thursday—again, gushing—his excitement about Trump’s plan to nominate notoriously anti-vaccine and dead whale mutilator Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

“He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA,” Polis wrote. “I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health.”

Who needs Republicans when we’ve got Democrats like these?

Polis’ endorsement of RFK Jr. is shocking beyond his party: He’s the first openly gay man to serve as the governor of any state. Kennedy, on the other hand, isn’t convinced HIV causes AIDS. Polis is also Jewish; In August he described himself as “a 49-year-old balding gay Jew from Boulder, Colorado.” As I’ve written here in The Handbasket, Kennedy is no friend of the Jews: In the summer of 2023 his scientific incompetence intersected with his antisemitism when he told attendees at a private dinner: “Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

And at a 2022 anti-vaccine rally, Kennedy said the following: “Even in Hitler Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did. I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died, true, but it was possible.” 

This isn’t to say that every Trump nominee announcement warrants a five-alarm fire, but the Kennedy nomination is particularly troubling given his distrust of vaccines and undermining of widely-accepted science. 

“So far, we’re making measles great again and we’re making cavities great again. But sure, ‘make America healthy again,’” Miranda Yaver, Assistant Professor of Health Policy & Management at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote in response to the announcement, referring to the slogan used by Kennedy after he dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump. Kennedy is also against fluoride in drinking water.

I was also astonished this week to see an email in my inbox about the Washington Post’s Global Women's Summit featuring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and…Lara Trump? The wife of Donald’s son Eric is the co-chair of the Republican National Committee and has been a vocal campaign surrogate, espousing lies about the 2020 election results among other things. The event next week also features Kellyanne Conway. 

But Pelosi isn’t the only elected Democrat participating: Governors Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM), Kathy Hochul (NY), Laura Kelly (KS) and Maura Healey (MA) will also be there. I reached out to Pelosi’s office to see if she knew about her co-headliners before signing on but haven’t received a response.

A real test of this modeled acquiescence will be the report that the House Ethics Committee was set to release about Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz. He resigned this week after learning that Trump planned to nominate him as his Attorney General. According to norms, this should have shut the door on the release of the report that sources say include, among other things, testimony from a woman who said Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17 and in high school.

“If leading members decide to go rogue and leak it to the press, they could destroy the bipartisan reputation of the committee,” Politico wrote Friday. “The panel is already widely seen as ineffective, taking months or years to issue reports on wrongdoing, holding little to no punitive power and staffed by members who generally don’t like having to police their own colleagues. Members’ decision here could be the nail in its proverbial coffin.”

Here we have a perfect distillation of the problem: Why should Democrats be concerned about destroying the reputation of a panel that already has little respect? By leaking the report, they could potentially protect the country from having a lawbreaker as the top law enforcer. By not leaking the report, they stand to lose democracy. 

The only thing standing in the way of the House Ethics committee from releasing its report on Matt Gaetz is our precious norms, which have been so thoroughly defiled by Trump that acknowledging their existence at this point seems silly. 

It’s not to say that all rules should be thrown out the window; rather, now is the time for Democrats to look at where the high road has gotten them, and decide if it’s time to take a road less traveled.