Representative Al Green (D TX9) has done us the favor of providing an image that clarifies the nature of our current political moment. This of course was the photo of Green holding a hand-written sign that read “BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOT APES” as Donald Trump passed by on his way to the podium to deliver the State of the Union speech. There is no better expression of the obscene disgrace into which we have plunged ourselves as a nation.
In a sane world Green’s sign would be a complete non-sequitur, a declaration so obvious that the reason for it would be utterly inscrutable. In the world created by our 2024 election, Green’s expression was a very necessary, dignified and restrained protest. Reading commentators accusing Green of being somehow uncouth or disruptive must make any rational person queasy. After Trump tweeted out a video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as chimpanzees with human faces, a sign reminding the “president” that black people are not apes is the very least that common decency requires. The mere suggestion that Green was somehow in the wrong is ludicrous.
Perhaps what is most distressing in this moment is the response (or lack thereof) of Green’s fellow Democrats. Democratic leadership had reportedly pleaded with all of the party's members NOT to stage any kind of protest, out of fear of the political blowback that might result from a repeat of Green’s noisy protest of last year. When Green was ejected from the House Chamber for holding up his sign Democrats refused to rise for Trump as he ascended the podium, but other than that they registered nothing but collective embarrassment at Green’s protest. Embarrassment for what?
The obvious question seems to have eluded Democrats: how could Green’s sign possibly be more embarrassing than the obscenity to which Green was responding? Democrats seem hypnotized into the belief that they must treat Trump with all of the dignity due to the presidency, despite the fact that Trump conducts himself in office with all of the dignity of a monkey throwing his own feces at everyone who comes within range. If Trump covers himself in disgrace (which he does repeatedly), then there is absolutely no political downside in taking any and every opportunity to point out that plain truth.
Indeed, by registering “embarrassment” at righteous expressions like that of Green, the Democrats have trapped themselves into a political game that Trump has rigged for them to perennially lose. If Democrats are the only party in American politics who are actually acting to preserve the dignity of the American presidency, Trump and the Republicans are free to make them into jackasses (donkey pun intended) every day of the week and twice on Sunday. The GOP is free to pretend to care about the dignity of the presidency as Trump spews racist invective and tweets out childish and vulgar rants. Republicans clutch at their pearls when someone like Green registers any fraction of the opprobrium that Trump’s obscenity merits. In the face of such hypocrisy, unless Democrats can affirm the simple fact that the presidency can have no dignity while the holder of the office behaves like a vile bigot, they will be made into fools constantly, and deservedly so.
What should have happened at the State of the Union? In a more just universe, Trump would have been removed from office for tweeting out his racist filth, so the speech would have been delivered by J.D. Vance. Barring that, everyone would have conceded Green’s point and sat to listen while Trump was forced to deliver his “speech” staring at Green’s sign.
Those scenarios only being possible in imagination, in actuality the Democrats should have walked through the door that Green had opened for them, quite literally. As the marshal came to escort Green out of the Chamber, Hakeem Jeffries should have risen to declare that unless Representative Green and his sign were allowed to stay, the entire Democratic caucus would follow him. When Trump and the GOP “called his bluff," Minority Leader Jeffries should have lead all of his Democratic colleagues to the exits (inviting whatever Republicans might have a conscience to join them).
So brash! So theatrical! Anyone who ridicules what I propose in such terms has been sleepwalking through Trump’s entire presidency. Apart from cruelty and humiliation, Trump’s entire program of “governance” consists entirely of brash theatrics. The only way to contend with such a political strategy is to beat Trump at his own game. If the Democrats had walked out with Green they would have owned the media coverage of the State of the Union. No message that Trump tried to get out would have had the slightest impact, even among the most diehard elements of his base. All anyone would have talked about is “what the Democrats did.”
Trump understands that in our progressively more ADHD culture, if they are talking about you, you are winning. By unabashedly stirring up controversy and provoking chatter, Trump has sold people a lot of BS. He only wins, though, because his antics go uncontested. He is the only one who ever has the audacity to turn his “values” into spectacle, thus everyone focuses on the spectacle and doesn’t look too hard at the “values” they embody. On the rare occasion that anyone asks him why he would accuse immigrants of eating house pets, incarcerate kindergarteners, or shoot at helpless people floating in the ocean he mumbles a string of lies and moves on to the next obscene gesture.
If Democrats had walked out with Al Green, there would assuredly have been a lot of tut-tutting, tsk-tsking, and snickering. But as soon as anyone asked them why they had done so, a simple answer was near at hand: “Because Trump is a racist.” Fair enough. Game over.
