September 21, 2020 - Hypocrisy Isn't the Word -

Many words have been written, and podcast pieces spoken, about the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and I can do her no more justice than others have done. It's a blow to lose her, and it's awful so much was resting on those shoulders, and yes, we must continue to fight, and of course to vote, and ... as I said, others have gotten their messages out already, inspiring messages, think pieces, encomiums, elegies. 

For some reason, in all of this outpouring, the thing that actually made me feel better was a few lines in a Slate article titled "It's Not Hypocrisy," by Lili Loofbourow, on (you know this already) the ghastly behavior of The Usual Suspects, the ones who refused to consider Merrick Garland and made up a special rule for the occasion - You Know Who I mean, I don't want their names sullying this page today. And the reason I felt better was that the article defined their mendacity so well, calling out how degrading it is. That's how it feels. 

Hearing Ms. Loofbourow say "It's degrading to be lied to," gave me that wonderful "you're not crazy" strength that comes with being able to name what's happening, to turn off the gaslight or settle the smoke. I'm not wild about the entire article, but I've pulled out the very choicest bits (boldface emphasis mine own);

'I think we have a habit of misnaming political experiences in ways that help us metabolize loss. I think, for example, that we have a bad habit of calling [the] double standard—which will be devastating to a country already struggling through various legitimacy crises—“hypocrisy.”.... [Y]ou’ll see many a person rolling their eyes at anyone pointing out that Republicans are hypocrites, as if it matters. One can sympathize with the eye-rollers—of course hypocrisy doesn’t matter. But that’s mostly because hypocrisy isn’t the word for what this is. Hypocrisy is a mild failing. It applies to parents smoking when they advise their kids not to for their own good; it does not apply to parents lighting the family home on fire for the insurance money while high-fiving each other over how stupid their fleeing children were for thinking anything they told them was true....

[I]t may help to register the lies they tell you as the calculated insults to your intelligence and to your citizenship and to your country that they are. Fully witnessing and registering insults and degradation is more painful than sneering that you aren’t surprised. But I’ll be blunt: People are more willing to fight people who insult and degrade them than they are to fight mere “hypocrites.”'