The Heroes of 1/6 and 10/7 vs. the Disgraceful Moral Flexibility of the MAGA Right and Global Left
This short post was drafted on the evening of 10/6 in Boston, as we are approaching 365 days to the hour of when Hamas launched its invasion of southern Israel and began its grotesque carnival of atrocities, gleefully live streamed for all the world to see, and ushering in a horrific year for people in the conflict zone and around the world.
And yet while the most immediate lesson of the morning of 10/7 was obvious to anyone with eyes, millions of those who saw those same videos acted as if they saw something different. Just as MAGA Republicans covered themselves in shame, when they diminished, deflected, justified, and even celebrated 1/6, the global left covered itself in shame by doing the very same for 10/7. Within hours, the world witnessed all sorts of lies and obfuscations— from claims that only military targets had been hit; to insinuations that Israel had done this to themselves; to sober-minded expressions of empathy for Hamas’s motives; to jubilation in Hamas’s success.
Moreover, just as tens of millions of MAGA Republicans learned nothing from their shameful behavior over the past 3 years and 10 months— and are indeed prepared to double down on their betrayal of the Constitution— the same seems true for millions on the global left. In particular, it appears that there will be many events today that attempt to drown out Jewish and Israeli commemoration of 10/7 by appropriating it as a day to accuse Israel of genocide. Some will even celebrate Hamas’s inspiring “resistance.”
It is easy to say what’s problematic about this behavior. The most straightforward question to ask is: What would it take for them to stop diminishing, inverting, justifying and celebrating obvious sins?
This is a version of the question my coauthors and I kept on asking ourselves during Trump’s presidency. As we report in our recent article on “partisan moral flexibility” (see the great synopsis by lead author Minjae Kim), we ran survey after survey to probe the limits of Trump supporters’ tendency to reinterpret his demagogic lies as authentic expressions of deeper truths about their legitimate grievances. But even when Trump lied about life or death issues (COVID) or the integrity of American elections, Trump supporters were able to justify it.
And then we saw analogous behavior by the global left after 10/7. To be sure, our research had uncovered “moral flexibility” among Democrats as well as Republicans. So perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised that the global left’s behavior after 10/7. But Trump never actually shot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue, whereas Hamas’s crimes against humanity were broadcast for everyone in the world to see.
And still, I wonder:
There has to be a limit, no? Maybe the crimes are just too abstract and remote. If they were close up and personal, surely they could not be denied.
In the case of MAGA Republicans, I wonder what they would actually have done had they been in the Capitol on January 6th. Would they have helped the insurrectionists get to Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, or would they have helped to protect them, even at some risk to themselves? I’d like to think that many of the people who are now poised to vote for Trump would have done the right thing that day, but they’re just too distant from that time and place to really think through the implications of their position.
In the case of leftists who aren’t willing to take a break to allow Israelis and Jews around the world to grieve for just one day, I wonder what they would have done if they happened to be in southern Israel on the morning of 10/7 and were in position to help.
Personally, I am terrified at the thought. It certainly isn’t outside the realm of possibility that I could’ve been there. And I’d like to think I would have done what I could— at great risk to myself— to help save as many victims as possible and indeed to kill or capture as many terrorists as I could. But I’m in my mid-fifties, am not in particularly good shape, and have no military training. I’m not even handy around my own house. So even if I were somehow brave enough (I’m pretty sure I’m not), I would’ve been useless. Come to think of it, I would have been pretty useless at the Capitol on 1/6 as well. And so if I were there on either day, I probably would be deeply traumatized today if I were lucky enough to still be alive.
And if I were there and I came out OK, I would also have cause to be very grateful for those who were brave and had the wherewithal to fend off the attackers and save the innocent. In the case of 1/6, this is the Capitol Police. Is there a greater American hero than Eugene Goodman and his comrades?
In the case of 10/7, this is an array of Israeli military, police, officers and civilians who leapt into the fray at great risk to themselves. These heroes included female tank crews. They included retired generals armed only with pistols. They include many from Israel’s Bedouin community. They included the tatzpitaniot or ‘spotters’ (of whom my wise and wonderful niece was one, until July 2023, & then again for months starting on 10/8). They included Sderot police officers who valiantly fought the terrorists who had taken over their station. They included the female security director of a kibbutz. They included the son-in-law of my good friends, a commando who heroically saved many innocents and killed many who were doing evil that day and intent on doing much more. And of course, there are many, many more heroes.
The point should be clear. If you truly want to reckon with what happened in a particular time and place, you need to reckon with what you would have done had you actually been there. And if you’re truly honest with yourself about 1/6 and 10/7, you must realize that there were only four possibilities for you in those times and places:
a. Join those doing evil
b. Join those heroically risking themselves to counter evil
c. Be a victim of the evildoers
d. Be saved by the heroes
As for me, I know that I would be in category c if I weren’t in d. And I’m certain this is true for virtually all the keyboard warriors and slogan-chanters who are willing to justify and even celebrate those who are in category a. (The rest would’ve been in category a) If they were there, they would have been desperate to be saved by the heroes, just as I would have been. Which makes their attempts to rewrite the meaning of those days utterly disgraceful.
Their disgrace runs deeper still. Because not only did those heroes save the would-be victims of that time and place (which could have been them just as it could have been me), these heroes also prevented much greater catastrophes from unfolding. That is, if you truly want to reckon with what happened at those times and places, you have to reckon with what would have happened if there weren’t enough heroes to stop the evildoers.
This takes us back to the limits of partisan moral flexibility. In particular, would MAGA Republicans actually be willing to justify and even celebrate the murder of Nancy Pelosi or the hanging of Mike Pence? And how many slaughtered, raped, tortured and kidnapped Israelis is enough for leftists to see as too many? If Hezbollah had invaded northern Israel on 10/7 as well, there could have been tens if not hundreds of thousands of victims. Would that be sufficient for them to wonder whether the cure wasn’t worse than the disease?
Ultimately, the two questions I have raised— Wouldn’t you have been desperate for the heroes to save you if you were there? and Aren’t you glad the heroes prevented an even greater calamity? are unanswerable. For both rightist and leftist moral partisans, the best they can do is to avoid these questions by pretending they’re irrelevant since hypothetical and trying to drown them out by screaming the grievances that they think justify the terrorists. Which of course makes them complicit in the terrorism.
As for the rest of us, we should honor and remember the heroes of 1/6 and 10/7. Thank God they were there to save us. And we should work towards a world where such heroism isn’t needed, and where the pain of the victims and the heroism of the saviors isn’t drowned out by those who are blinded by moral flexibility.