Virtue Signaling Matters. Here's Why.

We try to take a brief break from extolling the virtues of Radical Moderation for the holidays and this happens. What the hell, America?!?!

But now that we're here, we've got a couple things to say.

First, in case any of this needs to be more explicit, this is exactly what we've been trying to avoid and exactly why we think Radical Moderation is worth pursuing and worth protecting. We'll have more on this in the coming days, but before we get there we want to address something troubling we're seeing in the immediate aftermath of the riots.

...this is exactly what we've been trying to avoid and exactly why we think Radical Moderation is worth pursuing and worth protecting.

Many folks on social media, particularly those coming from the left, are legitimately and understandably angry at Trump and all those who allowed him to take power. They are righteously angry and legitimately smug that they saw this coming (though of course Lindsey Graham did too).

But despite the legitimacy of their anger, they're also falling victim to immoderate errors in a potentially dangerous way. We've seen a lot of friends and relatives and internet commenters argue that the statements made by McConnell and Graham condemning Trump's actions and the chaos at the Capitol, and the resignations by Cabinet members like Elaine Chao and Betsy DeVos in response to the riots, are meaningless because they're self-serving or hypocritical.

And, let's be clear: of course these statements are self-serving and hypocritical. That's just how politics works. But that doesn't mean the statements themselves are not good and not necessary and in fact not vitally, crucially, and existentially important.

There's a lot of criticism of virtue signaling these days, as though words have no meaning at all. We're somewhat sympathetic to that position, insofar as the words have to match your behavior at some point or they are, indeed, meaningless. But these resignations by Cabinet members, the speeches by McConnell and Graham, aren't nothing. When norms are shattered, particularly in a public and extremely violent way, one of the most important things we can do in the immediate aftermath is to publicly recognize the norms that were broken and help to rebuild a public consensus around them.

When norms are shattered, particularly in a public and extremely violent way, one of the most important things we can do in the immediate aftermath is to publicly recognize the norms that were broken and help to rebuild a public consensus around them.

Particularly in the fragile and immediate aftermath of what looks a lot like an attempted coup, the most important thing in the world is to look at the world and say "this is not normal. It is not right. It is not acceptable." Failing to do that opens the door to an even further erosion of those norms and the slippage of reality as we start to accept the unacceptable as a matter of course.

That this does in fact happen (and frequently) is in evidence in failed democracies all over the world. We ourselves have lived in a country where these norms were not shared and not protected and where this kind of political violence is commonplace and where coups are simply everyday politics. Because of that experience we are even more deeply grateful our political establishment has pulled together in some haphazard way to limit the violence and restore order. These signals matter and if you don't see why they matter it's because you're privileged enough to never have seen it when those signals don't happen. When the opposition does not condemn violence and destruction of property; when the opposition does not agree to protect the Constitution; when the opposition does not stand down.

Do we think DeVos's resignation is self-serving? Of course it was. Quitting the job you didn't need two weeks before it was over anyway is not an act of heroism. But it still matters. It still matters that she spoke out, released an unequivocal letter, and did her part. (It may have even been a quite principled move.) McConnell and Graham, insofar as they are highly influential Republicans, are signaling to their base that these norms matter and their signaling matters. It matters by lessening the chance of violence moving forward, by quelling the uncertainty of those on the fence, and by supporting a peaceful transition of power in less than two weeks.

Too little too late? Maybe. Probably! But it's not nothing. And saying nothing would be FAR FAR FAR worse. Instead of saying "f--- those guys" like many of our friends and internet interlocutors, maybe we can say "yep, too little and much too late, but I'm glad we can at least find agreement on this tiny little scrap of ground and start moving forward."

Do we want accountability? Absolutely.

Do we want accountability? Absolutely. There should be investigations to find out whether the Capitol Police and other federal law enforcement agencies were complicit in this riot. Trump should be summarily removed from office via the 25th Amendment or impeachment. The GOP members who aided and abetted his criminality and corruption (like Graham) should grovel and ask for forgiveness. But because we probably won't get much of that, we're happy that at least we have influential and very conservative Republicans agreeing publicly, in speeches and letters to their constituents and to the President himself, that what happened on January 6th was not who we are, it was inexcusable, that it broke countless norms that define us as a people, that this was a violation of the principles our country stands for and a horrifying rejection of the norms of rule of law that keep us all, in our dizzying political diversity, safe.

It's not enough, but it matters deeply and awfully. It matters so so so much.

None of these people deserve medals. They put the country in danger and unleashed a massively unstable demagogue. We need more accountability than we'll get, but public resignations and condemnation from influential GOP members matter. It's not enough, but it matters deeply and awfully. It matters so so so much.

There's also some dawning hope, in the form of truly principled politicians from both sides of the aisle, who are working to pull the splintered parts of the American psyche back together, to remind us of our shared principles and commitments, and figure out a way forward. We'll be highlighting some of these folks in the coming days, but we'll leave everyone with Representative Chip Roy's speech on the House floor, one that is a breath of fresh air coming from a member of the GOP.

We hope there are more like him. But for now let's start at least acknowledging how fragile and dangerous this period of time is and how much the words of our public figures, even those words that come too little and too late, matter for how things move forward in the future.