The accommodationism has begun, and I can boil it down to one historically based concept — one articulated by many a "good" German in the mid-1930s: "Look, we don't agree with Hitler's Jewish policy, but at least the man makes the trains run on time; and given the latter, we're willing to tolerate the former."
Also sprach David Brooks this morning. "It’s not my cup of tea, but I can see why some good people might be willing to tolerate Trump and Bannon’s personalities in order to pursue" a crackdown on "reigning dysfunction," a "concentration of hyper-macho belligerence," an embodiment of paleoconservative "nationalism," and, in general, that grandaddy of understatements, a "philosophic change of course."
Such is the thinking of the "the best imaginable Trump voter," writes Brooks. "This is the Trump supporter who wasn’t motivated by racism or bigotry. This is the one who cringed every time Donald Trump did something cruel, vulgar or misogynistic."
This, in other words, is the "good" Trump supporter who was and remains willing to tolerate racism, bigotry, cruelty, vulgarity, and misogyny — if only Trump will make the trains run on time, for the benefit of that (temporarily protected) voter. If other voters must suffer, if other segments of American society must endure Trumpism's racism and cruelty, so be it. At least the good Trump voter will get his or hers.
"This voter needed somebody to change the systems that are failing her," continues Brooks in a whirlwind of accommodating cluelessness. What "systems" would those be? The ones that spared us a great depression, that reined in the worst abuses of Wall Street, that saved the auto industry, that expanded healthcare, and for years advocated a vast infrastructure program which would employ millions of underemployed Americans?
The good Trump supporter saw none of this, but of his or her ignorance, we should be understanding, implies Brooks. Of Trump's manifest racism and cruelty? Pshaw. These are tolerable things to good, white working-class Americans. Who can blame them for merely wanting the trains to run on time — even if some of those trains will mow down the innocent?
It seems to me that Brooks's "best imaginable Trump supporter" is, in fact, the worst. He or she is the accommodationist; the soulless, weak-minded compromiser with pure evil. And congressional Democrats would be fools to act as accommodationists as well — to any degree.
It's a Faustian bargain to assist in making the trains run on time, when doing so must also tolerate Trump's racism, cruelty, and hypernationalistic madness. One cannot separate the two. That's been tried — and its inhuman, catastrophic outcome remains as a witness to accommodationism.