In his Monday New York Times column, Paul Krugman descended deeper into Democratic hackery, advocating the public shunning of those who would dare interact with the President of the United States, with a strong whiff of the authoritarianism he supposedly sees and opposes in the Trump regime: “The Uses of Outrage.” Krugman has read his left-wing Twitter feed and is on board opposing the “normalization” of the dictator Donald, to the point of encouraging the shunning of anyone who would interact with the president of the United States.
Are you angry about the white nationalist takeover of the U.S. government? If so, you are definitely not alone. The first few weeks of the Trump administration have been marked by huge protests, furious crowds at congressional town halls, customer boycotts of businesses seen as Trump allies. And Democrats, responding to their base, have taken a hard line against cooperation with the new regime.
To those Democrats with cooler heads who suggest toning down the outrage, Krugman argued:
Outrage at what’s happening to America isn’t just justified, it’s essential. In fact, it may be our last chance of saving democracy.
....
It’s true that white working-class voters, the core of Donald Trump’s support, don’t seem to care about the torrent of scandal: They won’t turn on him until they realize that his promises to bring back jobs and protect their health care were lies. But remember, he lost the popular vote, and would have lost the Electoral College if a significant number of college-educated voters hadn’t been misled by the media and the F.B.I. into believing that Hillary Clinton was somehow even less ethical than he was. Those voters are now having a rude awakening, and need to be kept awake.
Krugman graciously referred to Trump as a "would-be autocrat," indicating he's not there yet, "and other Republicans are his willing enablers." He has it all figured out:
How does this happen? A crucial part of the story is that the emerging autocracy uses the power of the state to intimidate and co-opt civil society -- institutions outside the government proper. The media are bullied and bribed into becoming de facto propaganda organs of the ruling clique. Businesses are pressured to reward the clique’s friends and punish its enemies. Independent public figures are pushed into collaboration or silence. Sound familiar?
It does sound familiar. It sounds just like liberals harassing and boycotting business people who dare make supportive noises toward Trump, the way Krugman is doing.
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This means supporting news organizations that do their job and shunning those that act as agents of the regime. It means patronizing businesses that defend our values and not those willing to go along with undermining them. It means letting public figures, however nonpolitical their professions, know that people care about the stands they take, or don’t. For these are not normal times, and many things that would be acceptable in a less fraught situation aren’t O.K. now.
Krugman comes off authoritarian himself when he lectures the populace on what is no longer O.K. to do.
For example, it is not O.K. for newspapers to publish he-said-she-said pieces that paper over administration lies, let alone beat-sweetening puff pieces about Trump allies. It’s not O.K. for businesses to supply Mr. Trump with photo ops claiming undeserved credit for job creation -- or for business leaders to serve on “advisory” panels that are really just another kind of photo op.
He even encouraged readers to shun anyone who dare be seen with Trump as enemies of the people.
It’s not even O.K. to go golfing with the president, saying that it’s about showing respect for the office, not the man. Sorry, but when the office is held by someone trying to undermine the Constitution, doing anything that normalizes him and lends him respectability is a political act.
I’m sure many readers would rather live in a nation in which more of life could be separated from politics. So would I!...
Despite that denial, Krugman certainly seems to be enjoying making everything political and flaunting his own intolerance in doing so. On Friday he tweeted his approval of golfer Rory McIlroy being smeared as a bigot for playing a round with Trump: “This kind of shunning is actually important: A dishonest, authoritarian president must not be normalized.”
