How To Eulogize Dead Fascists And Their Enablers
Notes on suspending comity when bad actors die.
When the former FBI Director Robert Mueller passed away earlier this year, Donald Trump repulsed all decent people by celebrating the occasion. “Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” Trump wrote. “He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
This was an obscenity for two reasons: First, because it is generally (though, ahem, not always) antisocial to rejoice when people die. Moreover, the greater one’s position of power and responsibility, the more imperative it is to be circumspect about these things, and the weaker your claim to being treated with dignity in death. There is a big moral difference between the masses celebrating the death of a tyrant, and a public figure celebrating the death of a rival or subordinate.
Second, more importantly, it was rooted in a lie. Trump’s implication, clear to all, was that Mueller had been a dirty cop.
You don’t have to bow at the altar of the security state or the FBI or even Mueller himself to note that this is false. Mueller was born into privilege but did not exploit it for personal advancement or to live an easy life. He enlisted in the Marine Corps during Vietnam, and became a decorated officer, awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for valor. He spent most of his legal career in federal service.
Someone who investigates and prosecutes crimes for decades will almost invariably “hurt innocent people” in the course of things. People are imperfect, as is “the system.” But by all accounts Mueller conducted himself with unusual professionalism. Insofar as the country is going to have a national police force, we are better off when it’s run by someone who follows rules and places the law over ideology, than when it’s run by a fanatic or a partisan operator.
Trump smeared Mueller because Mueller brought that ethic to bear as special counsel investigating ties between Trump’s first presidential campaign and the Russian government—an appointment Mueller accepted from Trump’s own Justice Department. Mueller did that job with arguably too much rectitude, and Trump hates him, because he exposed so much scandalous and illegal behavior.
But what if it were the other way around? What if Trump’s grievances were well founded? If Trump had done nothing wrong and Mueller was just out to get him? Would Trump, with the world watching, have been justified in pissing on his grave?
Because Trump is president, I think the answer is no. But under circumstances like those, Trump would’ve also been under no obligation to honor Mueller in any way. He would have been perfectly justified in saying nothing at all.
As luck would have it, we can point to an analogous, real-life example: