The Death Of Honor
by Paul Krugman
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/818815387907293186
The whole Streep-Trump thing reminds me of a theme that has been running through my thoughts a lot lately -- namely, the death of honor.
What do I mean? Well, I probably wouldn't have used that word if I hadn't once had a conversation with a young former Marine. He had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and been badly wounded (fully recovered). You might think this would make him glad to be done, but he was finding it hard; "There's no honor in civilian life," he said. And I think I know what he meant. It's not just lack of heroism. None of us can know how we'd behave facing what he faced.
But even the ordinary rules of taking responsibility for your actions, what my parents called "being a mensch", -- seem to have vanished. Of course many people weren't mensches even in the old days, but it was at least an aspiration, and there was some backlash against anyone obvious lack of honor. But now we're about to install a man who is clearly incapable of taking responsibility for anything, of ever admitting to a mistake or a personal fault. He mocks the disabled then cravenly denies having done so. Time was when such a man would have been utterly shunned. Now, it's hard to avoid the sense that his lack of honor and menschhood, his cowardly-bully persona, is part of what his supporters like -- it makes him one of them. For all the economic and social analysis I like to engage in, at some level I really don't get it. What happened to us?
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There are those who say Trump wasn't mocking the reporter. Visual evidence suggests otherwise.
But let's go with the idea that Trump wasn't mocking the reporter's involuntary hand movements and position, but rather that Trump just likes to mock his opponents imagined (by him) twitches, facial contortions and physical spasms in general. Would that be more honorable? Hardly.
Krugman has a sad but true argument. The ascension of Trump means there is no honor.