When This Blows Over

Danielle Allen Special to The Washington Post
Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century,
I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler
could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald Trump's rise,
I now understand. Leave aside whether a direct comparison of Trump to
Hitler is accurate. That is not my point. My point rather is about how a
demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country.
To understand the rise of Hitler and the spread of Nazism, I have
generally relied on the German-Jewish émigré philosopher Hannah
Arendt and her arguments about the banality of evil. Somehow people
can understand themselves as "just doing their job," yet act as cogs in
the wheel of a murderous machine. Arendt also offered a second answer
in a small but powerful book called "Men in Dark Times." In this book,
she described all those who thought that Hitler's rise was a terrible thing
but chose "internal exile," or staying invisible and out of the way as their
strategy for coping with the situation. They knew evil was evil, but they
too facilitated it, by departing from the battlefield out of a sense of
hopelessness.
One can see both of these phenomena unfolding now. The first shows
itself, for instance, when journalists cover every crude and cruel thing
that comes out of Trump's mouth and thereby help acculturate all of us
to what we are hearing. Are they not just doing their jobs, they will ask,
in covering the Republican front-runner? Have we not already been
acculturated by 30 years of popular culture to offensive and inciting
comments? Yes, both of these things are true. But that doesn't mean
journalists ought to be Trump's megaphone. Perhaps we should just shut
the lights out on offensiveness; turn off the mic when someone tries to
shout down others; re-establish standards for what counts as a
worthwhile contribution to the public debate. That will seem counter to
journalistic norms, yes, but why not let Trump pay for his own ads when
he wants to broadcast foul and incendiary ideas? He'll still have plenty
of access to freedom of expression. It is time to draw a bright line.