Trumpism and “respectable callousness“

Dominic Preziosi, editor of Commonweal (an independent lay Catholic publication), had some thoughts during the days that the Republican Party celebrated white supremacist, Charlie Kirk, as a martyr to the cause of the White Man. Preziosi wrote:

Washington Examiner’s Peter Tonguette recently wrote that Donald Trump’s “greatest sin may be in mainstreaming the idea that offensiveness is a sustainable posture in public life.” That may not be his greatest sin—the list is long—but there’s no denying Trump’s singular role in the debasement of our discourse. He lays down an ever-lengthening trail of cruel, vulgar, racist, and hostile statements, many of which are also lies. [my emphasis] (1)

Preziosi gives a good description of the current US version of what sociologists and commentators in German call “röhe Bürgerlichkeit” (respectable callousness).

Their debasement of language is of a piece with their debasement of government, civil society, and the truth. Mike Lee, Republican senator of Utah, joked on social media about the shooting of two Minnesota legislators and their spouses in their homes. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has referred to migrants as “dirt bags,” and J. D. Vance to Chinese laborers as “peasants.” And then there are the president’s own offhand insults, which have become so routine that we hardly even notice anymore. Washington Examiner’s Peter Tonguette recently wrote that Donald Trump’s “greatest sin may be in mainstreaming the idea that offensiveness is a sustainable posture in public life.” That may not be his greatest sin—the list is long—but there’s no denying Trump’s singular role in the debasement of our discourse. He lays down an ever-lengthening trail of cruel, vulgar, racist, and hostile statements, many of which are also lies. If many Americans have become desensitized after a decade of mucking through this verbal effluence, that just underscores the harm that has been done. As Peter Wehner wrote in The Atlantic, Trump’s mode of communication “has reshaped the emotional wiring of many otherwise good and decent people.” [my emphasis]

The cruelty is the point, in other words. The ICE raid in Chicago Tuesday on an apartment building was a straight-up act of government terror. We’ve gotten used to thinking of acts of terror as being done by non-state actors like revolutionaries or demented assassins. But the program of repression during the French Revolution was called the Reign of Terror, or simply the Terror, and American politicians still use it to characterize repressive governments of which they disapprove. Governments of which we approve practicing terror against their own people is, of course, something completely different. But terror can be government. In Chicago:

Dan Jones was jolted awake around 1 a.m. Tuesday to the sound of federal agents trying to break through his apartment door. They couldn’t get past his double lock, so he went back to bed.

But when he woke up hours later for work, he walked out and found broken doors littering the hallway — and his neighbors missing. …

The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people in the raid. DHS said some of those arrested “are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes and immigration violators.”

The feds also claimed the South Shore neighborhood was “a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates,” but DHS gave no evidence to support the assertion, and authorities did not confirm that any of the people arrested were members of the Venezuelan gang.

Alleged Tren de Aragua members have been charged and detained in the city as recently as August. But the Chicago Sun-Times has found little evidence tying them to violence in Chicago. [my emphasis] (2)

This is part of the strategy that Trump articulated – although Trump is hardly “articulate” at all these days – to US generals and admirals this week when he told them to prepare to fight the Enemy Within, i.e., the American people. It was a call for civil war against Democratic-majority cities and states. It is a ham-handed but systematic and conscious effort to accustom members of the Trump cult to accept civil war against their fellow Americans.

It's also notable that the Trump regime here was using xenophobia and concocted claims of foreign gang affiliation to justify what was clearly an act of racial and xenophobic terror. The Nationalist International in many countries including those in the EU is making xenophobia a key element to establish authoritarian rule, while supposed pro-democracy parties like the British Labour policy deliberately inflame xenophobia in the same terms as the far right parties.

As Preziosi wrote in September:

[St. Charlie] Kirk’s “invitation” to debate - “prove me wrong” - emphasized the crush-your-opponent mode of interaction he favored, not an openness to exploring contentious issues honestly. He didn’t elevate the discourse; he degraded it. He leaves a damning record of smears against Black women, immigrants, Muslims, and transgender people, among others. He made fun of the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi and demanded capital punishment for Joe Biden. He wanted executions to be televised and said that children should be forced to watch “as initiation.” His standing as an exemplar of Christian values only demonstrates how successfully his movement has distorted Christianity to suit an authoritarian, ethno-nationalist worldview. Whipping up hate against transgender people doesn’t make you “pro-family,” it just shows you hate transgender people. Asserting that the right to bear arms is worth the many gun deaths this country suffers every year doesn’t evince belief in the sanctity of life; it reeks of the culture of death. [my emphasis]

This is the culture the Trump cult is promoting and attempting to impose by illegal force.

From 2024: (3)



The overt and explicit support of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza by Donald Trump’s government – but also by Joe Biden’s – is also a major factor contributing to the domestic promotion respectable callousness. Criminal conduct by the government in foreign policy can never be fully separated from such criminal conduct by the government at home.

The critical theorist Seyla Benhabib recently argued that “international support for the Gaza genocide is very much part of “the rise of an autocratic and sovereigntist Internationale whose goal is to once again free state sovereignty completely from the constraints of international law and to transform it into a claim of impunity for state actions.” (4)

Notes:

(1) Preziosi, Dominic (2025): American Babel: Charlie Kirk and the corruption of political language. Commonweal 09/17/2025. <https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/preziosi-kirk-charlie-assassination-trump-maga-language> (Accessed; 2025-03-10),

(2) Hernandez, Cindy (2025): Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated'. Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ Chicago 10/02/2025. <https://www.wbez.org/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-immigration-raid-on-chicago-apartment-building-leaves-residents-reeling-i-feel-defeated> (Accessed; 2025-03-10).

(3) From ‘Bloodbath’ to ‘Vermin:’ Analyzing Trump’s Rhetorical Tactics. Wall Street Journal YouTube channel 05/02/2025. (Accessed; 2025-03-10).

(3) From ‘Bloodbath’ to ‘Vermin:’ Analyzing Trump’s Rhetorical Tactics. Wall Street Journal YouTube channel 05/02/2025. <https://youtu.be/QCtdF3HwVrI?si=LJSYMxW7fEQJ47u1> (Accessed; 2025-03-10).

(4) Benhabib, Seyla (2025): Gaza und die Ära der Straflosigkeit. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 10:2025, 51-52. My translation to English.