On stale titles
Personally, I think the American vogue for use of government-assigned titles for people who no longer hold the position is gross. That title is stale. There’s only one President; the rest are former Presidents. David Petraeus is not a general, though sadly he once was. Former DDIA Mike Flynn needs to be kept away from defense intelligence.
The MAGA crowd prefers to call him “General Flynn” and you can sorta see the problems from that.
- It treats high-ranking public service as a recognition of personal superiority, rather than a position we entrust to an individual for a limited time.
- It’s authoritarian. We are reminded that “these people are our betters” when stale titles are used.
- This benefits conservatives, as retired military voices trend conservative/authoritarian; they are over-weighted in our national conversations.
- It over-weights the past and its winners. We should generally respect somebody appointed as an ambassador in the 1990s, but the attitudes and positions that got her there may not be popular, appropriate, or useful now.
“General Flynn” gives reverence to winners from the political past, even if the voters have since rejected the positions that got them there.
On breaking Trump
TFG is taking advantage of the “keep your expired title” convention. He and his partisans are allowed to call him “President Trump,” which serves as a dog whistle: normal people hear it like “President Ford”, MAGA hears it as “the actual President, Trump.” It can act like a motte-and-bailey defense: when called on it, lower-level functionaries can say “oh I just meant it like President Ford.”
An awful lot of bullshit MAGA legal theories depend on Trump still being President now (religious sects might say he is just “occulted” during this period). These fringe beliefs can have consequences. MAGA appears to be considering outright voter fraud, and maybe that makes a little sense if you think it’s on behalf of the person who truly and secretly is the President.
I would love to see TFG, under oath, answer the question, “do you believe you are still the President?” Either way he answers it is a disaster.
If he says “no” and does the smirking walkback the next day (“of course I am”) he’s in potential perjury trouble, and the press will have a field day, running around to aides asking “he said no, he said yes, tell us what he really thinks.”
Personally, I think if he is asked “are you the President?” that he should plead the Fifth.