Eric Schmitt tried to present himself as an intellectual at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
He came off like a little boy trying on his father’s clothes in the mirror.
It was all swagger and no fit.
Schmitt thoughtfully entitled his remarks, “There Can Be No Unity Between Good and Evil.” Even the subject of the hearing — smarmy FBI Director Kash Patel — must have been wondering to himself about how that could possibly be helpful.
The problem wasn’t merely with the content of Schmitt’s falsehood-laden messaging. His role, after all, was to parrot Donald Trump’s reprehensible words dividing the nation at a time of national strife, as no American president ever has before.
But Schmitt’s speech — which you can watch here or read here — was nothing more than a faux-intellectual diatribe delivered with the gravitas of Daffy Duck doing a TED talk.
Early on in his remarks, Schmitt sounded like a U.S. Senator:
Over the past week, leaders from across the political spectrum have come out and condemned Charlie [Kirk]'s murder and political violence more broadly. For that, we’re all very grateful. We should be grateful. There have been calls together to come together in the wake of Charlie’s murder and I want to do that. Someday, I pray we can be united as a country again and go forward again as one people under one flag.
That sounded fine to me. My reaction in this space had been that “we should all as Americans deplore — without qualification — Kirk’s murder. It’s a moment that could bring us all together in revulsion, across the great political divide.”
Unfortunately, Schmitt’s gratitude lasted just a few paragraphs. He cited some random polling which he claimed showed that liberals are fine with political violence and conservatives aren’t. That junk doesn’t deserve further mention here, much less — with no vetting or validation — at a U.S. Senate proceeding.
As for “coming together,” it was probably not all that helpful for the senator to spew lies like this one:
The George Soros empire has financed a vast ecosystem of radicals all working together — dropping off bricks at riots — to unleash a tidal wave of violent anarchists on our streets and prop it up with an army of researchers and experts and journalists and propagandists who downplay political violence.
Nothing like serving up propaganda to call out propaganda. It might soothe the sensibilities of MAGA faithful, but Schmitt’s just another politician making stuff up.
But what sets Schmitt apart is his veneer of solemnity while delivering such truly unserious drivel. With no self-awareness, Schmitt persists in trying to dress up the basest political tripe in a wardrobe of make-believe intellectualism.
Behold the philosopher Eric Schmitt holding forth with large words:
Upstream from the dehumanization and demonizing political violence and rhetoric tearing apart our country, is a divide on how we view America and Americans. Are we good? Are we evil? Is there something inherently special about Western civilization or is this 2,000-year project rotten to the core? And if it is something worth fighting for, which I believe it is, how do we do it?”
What?
Now, I’ve written quite a few clunky paragraphs in my day — and mixed more than my share of metaphors — but I’m not certain how to decode Schmitt’s gibberish.
We’ve all heard our nation described as a grand “experiment,” but arguably not one spanning 2,000 years. With apologies to those who maintain Jesus was an American.
And who describes “Western civilization” as a “2,000-year project?” Mind you, this wasn’t a slip of the tongue: it’s in his speech text and was faithfully repeated in his live remarks.
Are we good? Are we evil? Does dehumanization flow upstream? Were the Dark Ages part of Western civilization? Is this the sort of work product you’d get if Plato impregnated Laura Loomer?
I’m not so sure about those questions, but I am about this one:
Does Eric Schmitt truly not comprehend the outrageous hypocrisy of viciously attacking people’s character and motives who disagree with him — and calling them “evil” — and then whining like this?
And I would point out we’ve heard years of the left — their loudest voices — calling anyone on the right an extremist MAGA Republican, a fascist, a Nazi, an existential threat to democracy.
Check yourself. And don’t give me this both sides bullshit!
It’s hard to counter such eloquence from such a towering intellect.
Still, here’s a thought: If you truly hold the worldview that in American politics, everything comes down to good versus evil — and that you’re good and those of us who disagree with you are evil — say it all you want. It’s a free country.
But don’t bother pretending to be smart about it.
(Note: this is the first of a two-part post. Tomorrow’s installment will examine Schmitt’s premise that political violence in America is not a “both sides” matter.)
