If only more Democrats had Michelle Obama's guts

The Associated Press reported Monday that the former first lady will not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration next week. Her husband will be there, however. So will the other former presidents and their spouses. So will the current president and the current first lady.

Michelle Obama didn’t attend Jimmy Carter’s funeral, so her decision to skip Trump’s swearing-in can be interpreted as less pointed than it seems. However, I’m not buying speculation about her health. She has said on more than one occasion that Trump’s white-power rhetoric (not her words) literally puts her life and her loved one’s lives at risk.

It’s fair to say that she “just hates Trump,” as Margaret Hartmann reported, but it’s also fair to say that she hates him for a good reason. And it’s fair to say that when someone endangers your life, you’re under no obligation to be nice to him. Indeed, being nice to him might actually embolden him, compounding the danger to you and yours.

Liberals like New York magazine’s Ed Kilgore might interpret Obama’s “boycott” as a sign of weakness. Last month, he said “the peaceful transition of power is central to our traditions as a constitutional democracy, which was precisely why it was so outrageous that the 45th president tried to disrupt it four years ago. His installment as the 47th president will be the last time Democrats have to bow to Trump’s power as a properly elected chief executive, but bow they must before getting down to the hard and essential work of fighting his agenda.”

I don’t see Obama’s decision as a sign of weakness.

She knows people will fairly and unfairly compare her actions to Trump’s. There’s no doubt about that. She understands the expedience that goes into bowing down briefly before “getting down to the hard and essential work of fighting his agenda.” Sheknows the trade-offs.

Yet she’s choosing to play according to her own rules. She is not going to extend to someone who threatens her life and humanity the same courtesy that she would to someone who does not. That’s not a sign of weakness, because courage like that is never a sign of weakness.

Honestly, the same can’t be said of her husband.

Trump tried in his first term to not only erase Barack Obama’s record as president, including Obamacare, but also erase Barack Obama’s image. Yet, at Carter’s funeral, Barack Obama sat next to Trump. According to the AP, he even “chatted and laughed” with him, like they were “old friends,” as if declaring to the world that politicians never mean what they say, whether it’s that Obama is an evil foreign-born puppetmaster or that Trump is an existential threat to democracy.

The same can’t be said of other Democrats, too.

At least five House Democrats who boycotted Trump’s first inaugural are going to his second, per Politico. California Congressman Jared Hoffman rationalized his choice, saying, “Like it or not, this guy was just elected by the country with full disclosure of all of his ugliness.”

Another takeaway, however, is Trump’s ugliness can’t have been so ugly given that at least five Democrats have now changed their minds.

At least four Democratic governors will be attending, according to the Connecticut Post, including Connecticut’s. Ned Lamont said he was going out of respect for the presidency, even though Trump’s agents have already threatened him and other governors with arrest and prosecution “if they don't comply with Trump's actions on immigrants.” “Look,” Lamont told Dan Haar, “I’m not looking to pick fights and I’m going down there out of respect for the peaceful transition of power."

All this sounds noble, but it looks like fear.

Because it is, according to Keith Ellison. Podcaster Dean Obeidallah asked the Minnesota attorney general why leading Democrats are suddenly quiet about Trump being a fascist threat to democracy.

“I have an answer for you,” said Ellison, a Democrat. “It’s like, ‘yeah, we think he’s a fascist and now that he has power, we’re scared, and so we’re trying to keep our head down so we don’t attract the negative attention of the fascist.’ I have been in so many [cover-your-ass] conversations, Dean, I’ve stopped counting people who have said ‘I’m going to keep my head down and hope I don’t get any attention by the bad guy.’ It’s really fear. That’s what you’re seeing. Many of the louder voices are quiet, because they fear he’s going to keep his promise.”

That promise of vengeance against his enemies, through the Justice Department or some other means available to a president, should put all the happy talk about democratic norms in a less flattering light.

Was Barack Obama chatting and laughing with Trump, as if they were old friends, out of basic human decency, even though Trump has tried to erase him and his presidential record? Or was he scared? (If so, George W. Bush put him to shame by completely ignoring Trump. )

Did at least five House Democrats change their minds about attending Trump’s inaugural out of deference to the will of voters who elected him despite “full disclosure of all of his ugliness”? Or were they scared?

Are Lamont and three other Democratic governors extending a courtesy to Trump, which by the way Trump never felt obligated to extend to his Democratic successor, out of respect for norms and institutions or fear of getting negative attention “by the bad guy.”

The Democrats’ defense of norms and institutions sounded righteous before the election. Afterward, however, and in the calm before the storm, such defense increasingly has the ring of appeasement to it.

The Democrats say they don’t want to normalize Trump, yet the highest-profile among them are about to do just that. And perhaps they are going to do that, not because of some passion for principle but because they are afraid of what might happen to them if they don’t.

"It's breathtaking that in the United States of America, a powerful person tied to the incoming president, credited as the architect of Trump's immigration policy, would threaten governors with prison for their state laws protecting immigrants,” said the Connecticut Post’s Dan Haar on the threat to Lamont. “That's not the stuff of a free country.

That’s the stuff of fear.

There’s no freedom with fear like that.

If only more Democrats were as free as Michelle Obama.