by Akim Reinhardt
There have always been assholes, and there will always be. It’s unavoidable. Putting up with assholes, and even being an asshole once in a while, are both part of the human condition. Occasionally wanting to be an asshole is normal, and most everyone is an asshole sometimes.
Sometimes.
Not being an asshole too often or too deeply is a sign of maturity. But some adults are chronically immature, so societies inevitably design ways to limit the frequency and depth of asshole behavior. They try to keep their members in line by defining acceptable behavior, creating guardrails to discourage people from transgressing, and shaming, censuring, or even punishing assholes who go too far.
But what happens when one or more assholes become very influential? What happens when assholes come to dominate a small group of family or friends, or a larger institution such as a business or a house of worship.
Or even a whole nation.
When the assholes move into positions of power and influence, they will do real damage. Such is the way of assholes. But over time, something perhaps more alarming will also happen: all the other assholes will get too comfortable with their assholery. As the old guardrails become dented and battered, asshole behavior will become normalized, the assholes will be emboldened, and then all bets are off. That’s how a few well-positioned assholes can screw everything up for everybody.
In a society where assholes are denied much influence and power, it’s possible to rein in asshole behavior, at least to a degree. But when assholes are in charge or set the tone, social controls break down, asshole behavior becomes publicly normalized, and all the lesser assholes soon feel free to really indulge.
I was reminded of this last month at the Maryland State Fair. An older black woman, perhaps in her late sixties or early seventies, was pushing a baby in a modest stroller along the walkway by the food vendors. She was heavy set and her gait was slow. Next thing you know, some young (late 20s?) redheaded asshole with a mustache was decidedly pissed about the stroller hitting his foot. He was angry and borderline yelling at her. She asked if she could get by. He sternly admonished her that if she said “Excuse me,” maybe she could. She said she did, maybe he hadn’t heard her. She and the child are by themselves. He’s accompanied by a late middle aged man and two women. All of them are amid a mass of sloshing humanity at the state fair. No one’s getting involved. It’s becoming uncomfortable. Finally, the grandmotherly woman is able to navigate around the asshole and make her way.
I waited til she was out of earshot, which isn’t far in a crowd that big. She’d already been through enough and I didn’t want to force a spectacle upon her.
Then to the redhead: “Hey, what’s wrong with you? It’s an old woman with a baby.”
Normally I would’ve said “What the fuck’s wrong with you, you fuckin’ scumbag,” but I decided to take the high road. Why? Because I’d seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, and smelled the fetid stench of it on him. He was not a run of the mill asshole. Rather, he was a very specific breed of asshole, a type that had previously been shamed into private grumbling but of late has felt increasingly comfortable letting it out in public.
This dude’s a fucking racist.
I don’t know if he’s a card-carrying klansman or some such. Maybe not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he were. Either way, it was pretty obvious. The sneering; the sanctimony; the aggression: all of it aimed at a woman decades his senior. There’s absolutely no way he would’ve talked to an old white woman like this, much less one pushing a baby stroller by herself through a large crowd on a hot, sunny day. You could tell; it was all he could do to keep from calling her an epithet. Afterwards, talking to his compatriots, he was so proud of himself, like he’d done a good job of policing “them.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with you? It’s an old woman with a baby.”
He offered some ridiculous explanation about the integrity of his foot I called him on it. Then the older guy piped in angrily: “Mind your own business.”
“He made it everyone’s business when he started shouting in public,” I said. “It’s all our business now.” The logic and truth of it was undeniable, so he played his ace card:
“Why don’t you fuck off.”
“Very classy. All the children must love you.”
After two moves he was taken aback and a little embarrassed. We said no more, briefly exchanged glares, and then went our separate ways.
I’m proud to come from a country that once invented Sesame Street. Only America in 1969 could conjure something as insane and loving and beautiful as Sesame Street, and then air it on public television for all to see, free without commercials. What a kind, honorable, hopeful thing. What a bright spot in so many early American childhoods. What a deeply beloved national treasure. What a graceful, creative pushback against the assholes.
You can often slide something beautiful right under the assholes’ noses because the assholes are usually too busy being assholes to notice. Their narrow, petty focus on ugliness often blinds them to beauty. But if the beauty becomes widespread, eventually they’ll notice. And then they’ll come for you. Like those Republicans who came for the Muppets during the 1990s Congressional debates about funding PBS, and have viewed its children’s educational programming as a menace ever since. Not all the Republicans, just the flaming assholes in their lot.
How dare Kermit encourage black, brown, and white children to hold hands. How dare Big Bird promote sharing, open-mindedness, and vaccines. How dare Elmo talk about why racism is wrong. Sound the alarms and slash the budgets! Sesame Street is “woke.”
Why did I confront those scumbags at the state fair? It’s not about injustice. I’m not interested in judging people. I have no desire to sit upon a throne and decide what is just. Rather, it’s about rebuilding the guardrails and establishing a new normal.
If you’re old enough to remember when the prospect of being shamed kept most assholes from going too far in public, or if you’re too young to remember but pine for an America that could be much, much better, then it’s important that we start pushing back.
The assholes have gotten far too comfortable letting it out in public. It’s past time that we began confronting them when they cross lines. We need to let them know: Freedom isn’t free. Yes, you are free to be an asshole in public, but there will in fact be a price to pay. Decent people will confront you. You will be shamed.
This is important. It’s about not letting assholes normalize their assholery.
We’ve spent a solid decade watching Donald Trump do just that: behave like a piece of human garbage from the White House, from his faux palace at Mar a Lago, and on the international stage while meeting with heads of state. A narcissistic psychopath has stood upon the bully pulpit since 2016, and used it to throw tantrums, to indulge every petty and selfish whim, and to rage at decent people who dare question his bullshit. As president of the United States, as the former POTUS/POTUS-in waiting, and as the president who recurs like a herpetic sore, Trump has repeatedly and firmly normalized all brands of shittiness.
Enough is enough. Preaching to the chorus, which is what I’m doing right now, is good for rousing the troops. But it will get us only so far. If anything is to change, then eventually the troops must engage. You don’t win the Civil War by singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” You sing the song to stir the soldiers to battle. Otherwise you’re just whistling Dixie. And at this point, we are all soldiers in the war for human decency.
For years, many decent people have felt helpless in the face of Trumpism. “What can I do?” they often ask. This is what you can do.
Be safe and pick your spots. Don’t engage if someone seems truly unhinged or inclined to physical violence. But when you see your shot, take it. Let the racist know it’s not okay. Let the sexist know it’s not okay. Let the homophobe know it’s not okay. Let the nasty little shit who relishes picking on the weak and the vulnerable know it’s not okay. Not the generally decent person who makes an ill-timed joke or a human error. But the actual fucking asshole who really believes this shit deep down. It’s up to you to be mature enough to recognize the difference.
That redheaded low life at the state fair and the older man with him (probably his lowlife father)? These weren’t regular people having a bad day; they weren’t otherwise decent folk who went a little too far. These were the genuine article, dyed in the wool racists.
Things have not eroded to the point that they felt comfortable calling the older woman and the baby “niggers” in public. But we’re headed in that direction, and it’s perhaps not as far off as most white people suspect. The more we allow public assholery to go by unchallenged, the more normalized asshole behavior becomes, the more confident the assholes get. And we’ve been heading in that direction now for as long as it took Odysseus to get back home after the Trojan War.
Enough is enough. It’s time to slay the suitors. Or at least drive them back to their basements and garages, where they can be ignorant, nasty assholes in private, so we can return the public square to a place of half-decency.
And half is plenty. For I am no Puritan. I’m potty-mouthed, I love humor that crosses lines, and I firmly believe that we can only get smarter by challenging group-think, rejecting dogma, and pushing boundaries. Given my druthers, I’d rather be a desperado among martyrs. And when defending the rights of Socratic gadflies, cutting satirists, and unpleasant humbuggers is what’s needed, then l call for that.
But this isn’t that moment. These days call for something else: a loud and firm refutation of public assholes.
There will be plenty of time down the road to argue the finer details of what’s appropriate in public and what’s not. But for now, those of us who agree on very basic principles of decency need to step up. It’s time to fight back. Enough is enough, and ten years is more than enough.
If someone is being a phenomenal asshole in public, in ways that would’ve received major pushback fifteen or twenty years ago, then one of us should say something. Again, be safe. Don’t put yourself in danger. Strike the right tone. Try to take the higher ground and let the asshole reveal their assholery to everyone. These dipshits can’t help but expose themselves, so let everybody see what’s really going on. Because it’s not about changing the asshole’s mind. Good luck with that. It’s about letting all your fellow non-assholes know that they’re not alone. And when we connect and unite on those basics, then the assholes will be the ones who feel alone and powerless, and they will start retreating back to their dark corners, where they belong.
And if they don’t like it there, they can get some fucking therapy and rejoin us when they learn how to behave in public.
Go forth and conquer.
Akim Reinhardt’s website is ThePublicProfessor.com