The gold-plated airhead: a fitting metaphor of these days.
There are some people who think the whole Donald Trump phenomenon is just an exercise in throwing around third-grade insults to cover for a complete inability to comprehend or counter complex thoughts. A childish celebration of ignorance and selfishness — a weaponized “safe space” — foisted upon the Republic by a cynical, race-baiting GOP and an insultingly aloof Democratic establishment.
And those people would be right.
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As an example of this pox on the landscape of reason, take this response of a partner at Jones Day — Biglaw’s basket of deplorables — to a straightforward account of the history of the Electoral College written by Mark Joseph Stern. Does partner John Vogt quarrel with Stern’s analysis of Madison’s notes linking the College to the same white supremacist logic of the three-fifths clause? Or does he raise real workability concerns over the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact? Perhaps he thinks the real problem with the Electoral College rests in the wholly unintended cap on House apportionment?
Hard-hitting analysis in my inbox from @JonesDay partner John A. Vogt https://t.co/tdxjr0Nf60 pic.twitter.com/QWrWtiNSTA
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) December 20, 2016
Top-notch argumentation!
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Perhaps it’s for the best that federal judges use cartoons to benchslap Jones Day — they may not be able to deal with the big words.
But that’s the whole worrying crux of the political moment. Dodging direct argumentation like a cur is not only acceptable, it’s almost considered a sign of weakness to engage in the dirty business of point-by-point refutation.
After all, trying to refute Stern would expose Vogt’s complaints — whatever they may be — as wholly bereft of merit. That’s the troll’s guiding maxim: best to hurl an unwarranted, empty barb and be thought a fool than pen a response and remove all doubt.
And now that’s the guiding maxim of American deliberative democracy.
As the moment’s most accomplished logician might say: SAD!
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
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