One is the exploitation of nuance — the parsing of so many examples and exceptions and close calls that the thing itself becomes less meaningful. Some nuance is always key to discussions of sexual harassment or racism. Racial essentialism and harassment allegations without due process threaten Americans’ sense of justice. Yet too much nuance can blur moral clarity and make everything so relative that it’s no longer true enough to act on.
The other reason misogyny and white supremacy lead similar lives is that both rely on “good people doing nothing.”
What Trump has painfully shown us is that millions of Americans have turned tolerance on its head. Tolerance used to mean exercising our highest aspirations of inclusion — even when we were uncomfortable or unfamiliar with someone. But now tolerance has come to reflect how much hatred we will accept as a means to an end.
In that dangerous silence, we can only guess what that end will be. And we cannot hear our ideals disappearing, lie by hateful lie.
Trump and his enablers must be held accountable for their white supremacy. Racism must also be your last straw.
The president of the United States cannot be a white supremacist.
One way for each of us to achieve this is to act on the difference between opposition and criticism. The former is active and bold. It offers an alternative vision of power relationships, wrapped in specific goals, and meets them. Criticism, on the other hand, is witty, cerebral and insightful — but has all the staying power of a wave. Facebook outrages have their place, but true opposition is organized.
Time’s up. We have to choose the republic we believe in.
David Dante Troutt is professor of law at Rutgers Law School and director of the Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity. His most recent book is “The Price of Paradise: The Costs of Inequality and a Vision of a More Equitable America.”