One of my favorite films is the Patrick Swayze cult classic, “Road House.” In my favorite scene Swayze, a badass “cooler” of a nightclub terrorized by thugs, is teaching his staff of bouncers how to handle the thugs. “Be nice . . . Be nice . . . Until it’s time not to be nice.”
Swayze’s “Dalton” dealt regularly with thugs. And as he knew, niceness is overrated.
Take Mike Pence.
Pence is the consummate gentleman. Everything about him is proper. Calm. He oozes moral earnestness and sanctimonious superiority.
And he is a malevolent, lying bastard.
I just watched him lie, for the umpteenth time, about the “greatness” of the Trump response to the coronavirus. He spoke eloquently and oh so calmly about “personal responsibility.” And he lied. And his lies kill.
Every city and region has its own unique form of malevolence.
In the Midwest, where I live, good Christian folk are inclined towards a particularly passive-aggressive form of malevolence. The Minnesotan version was brilliantly parodied in the film “Fargo.” The Hoosier version is put on display every day by Mike Pence. He is the perfect passive-aggressive and sanctimonious complement to his brutish boss, who epitomizes the worst kind of in-your-face bravado associated with the Big Apple—worst because it is dominating, cruel, and cowardly (By contrast, De Niro, a man of culture from the “Mean Streets” of Manhattan, would kick Trump’s lame ass in a heartbeat, and in a good cause).
Unlike Trump, Pence lies to us calmly and with no apparent rancor or malice.
As a propagandist, he greatly reminds me of the pig named Squealer in George Orwell’s famous allegory Animal Farm. Except that Squealer is always bouncing around, frenetic, while Pence always acts like he has just taken 50 mg of Xanax. But he exhibits the same insipid obsequiousness toward power, and the same deliberate malevolence masked as sincerity.
So, Pence lied today, for the umpteenth time, about the coronavirus. And when asked twice by reporters how he can speak about “personal responsibility” while Trump denounces masking and says every day that the virus is basically over, and his campaign packs thousands of unmasked people into auditoriums, his answer was this: “the First Amendment is very important. We believe in freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.”
In other words: “I’m prating about personal responsibility, but in fact we really don’t care whether you practice distancing or take any special measures to promote public health, and indeed we really want you to listen to the President, and act like there is no virus, and go shopping and be part of large crowds that celebrate the President. Make America Great.”
Pence literally is killing us with faux kindness.
But with such gentility.
And every single one of the medical professionals who takes the stage with him, either repeating his lies or providing them with cover, is joining him in a dangerous and degrading public ritual of denial and deceit.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, scrappy former captain of Manhattan’s Regis High School basketball squad, has for months tried to be a voice of reason and public enlightenment within this cabal of liars. But he long ago ceased being anything other than a tool of Trump and Pence. He speaks the truth when he can, always in ways designed to avoid displeasing his Leader. But whatever he does in private, he is perpetually willing to take the stage when called upon, to evoke credibility, and to avoid commenting directly on the manifest failures of the administration, and to reassure everyone that the administration is serious. Meanwhile all around him people are either ignoring him, contradicting him, or literally behaving in ways that directly contradict his recommendations.
Fauci, surely a man of honor, has become a supporting player in the Ceausescu-like staged performances of Trump and Pence.
When I said this on Facebook, one of my friends, a terrific political scientist who I won’t name only to protect her formidable scholarly reputation, said “I wish Fauci would just turn to Pence and say ‘Fuck You!’”
Exactly. That is exactly what he should do. He should say it, look Pence right in the eyes, and then just walk calmly off the stage. That would be a real public service. And it would clearly go viral, and be a “thing,” the kind of thing that Trump and Pence hate—bad PR that could damage poll ratings.
But instead Fauci smiles, and speaks scientifically as if he is in a college auditorium and not in an event staged by an autocratic administration, and behaves like a good member of the Pence “team.” Like a New Yorker who has spent too much time in the shadows of a man from Southern Indiana, Fauci behaves himself.
It’s a shame. I doubt that Fauci behaved this way on the playgrounds and in the basketball gyms of New York City. But now he is A Serious Professional, and he has The Ear of The Leader.
Fuck it.
The Pence task force is an exercise in deception and a cover for a malign and murderous policy.
And Pence himself is an especially insidious and passive-aggressive leader of this task force.
And with the air of civility and gentility, he is giving the finger to us all.
It’s long past the time for all self-respecting public servants to give him the finger right back, with a loud “Fuck You!”
There is only one way to promote public health today in the U.S.
It is to call the Motherfuckers out and send them packing.
Democracy in Dark Times 