What He Should Have Said

I was never much taken with Eric Holder, Attorney General in the Obama Administration. A man of enormous dignity and accomplishment, he never lit any fires for me. He seemed a little too well considered and cautious, much like Barack Obama, himself. Both seemed invested in projecting sweet reason, as if fearful of coming off as angry black men. Speaking as a person who tries (and fails) to project moderation, I could have fallen for a little more anger.

Holder was actually a little more appealing this week. In an interview with Chris Hayes, he spoke about Virginia and the victory in the effort to match the gains of Republican gerrymandering. All of the questions from Hayes were softballs, but he asked Holder to square the contradictions of his record. Holder is a natural opponent of chicanery and strongly favors non-partisan commissions when it comes to fixing the borders of House districts.

Holder answered the question with some heat, noting that these were not normal times. Commissions would be best in the long arc of history, but Republicans had made high-mindedness a nicety. Everyone is now repudiating Michelle Obama. Instead of “We go high,” the party mantra is now “Whatever it takes.” I personally applaud the shift from scrupulosity to street fighting, and I’m glad to see Holder in a knives-out moment.

The problem is what came after that. Channeling his inner attorney general, he shared his vision of the reversals ahead. After the midterms, he told Hayes in the exchange, he could imagine hearings and reports that would put the Trumpists on display in all their anti-democratic excesses. Americans would learn about constitutional betrayal and the unprincipled assault on the values of the country. It was the fever dream of a committed moderate, which means that it wasn’t a fever dream at all.

It was also out of synch with the mood of the electorate and the millions of Americans who were seduced by Trump and are ready to hear a radically different message. If Democrats are successful in the next two years, it will be because they set aside airy abstractions and make common cause with the common man. We’re talking about the price of gas, affordable housing, the fertilizer monopoly, and the Epstein class of truly terrible, entitled men. Some people are managing to propagate that faith, but others continue to ring the Bell of First Principles.

I regret to say that those principles are now secondary. We have to meet the electorate where it’s at, which means meaty issues like drunken cabinet secretaries, grotesque corruption, and unnecessary wars a world away.