Failure of the American Moral Compass

03 Jan 2017
Prague, CZ

Just under 63 million people voted for Trump, which represented about 46% of the electorate. Some basic demographics are shown below.

The 3 figures above show that Trump won the white, male vote and the older (greater than 45 years old) vote. However, it would be a mistake to totally discount the number of younger and female votes he received. The objective here is to understand the implications of his victory when we consider two of Trumps most disturbing campaign statements. Statements that should have resulted in not only failure to win primaries, but certainly a failure to win the election.

The Litmus Test
A litmus test is a simple test used to determine if a substance is an acid or base. The meaning has been extended from the chemistry or biology lab into everyday life to mean a dichotomous test or a pass/fail test. In general use, it refers to a test in which there are only 2 outcomes and depending on which one you pick, you either pass or fail the test.

Human Rights

Americans often think that the US Constitution is the ultimate standard for human rights. However, there are several documents, of human origin, as opposed to some document written by an unsubstantiated god, which are equally or even more decisive in spelling out basic human rights, freedoms, and values. The first is the Human Rights Charter of the United Nations and the second is the Humanist Manifesto (v 3).

Both the aforementioned documents extend the basic human rights in the Bill of Right of the US Constitution. Collectively the three documents represent a comprehensive description of fundamental human rights.

The Moral Compass
The idea of a "moral compass," like the litmus test, is simple and straight forward. It is assumed that if your moral compass is working, it will effectively guide you on moral issues. That is, your moral compass should keep you aligned with the three above-mentioned texts without you having to constantly looks issues up to see where you should stand. A functioning moral compass should automatically align with the texts on human rights, just like a real compass automatically aligns with magnetic north. Since the term "human rights compass" is not in common use, we shall retain the term "moral compass."

Consistent with the three texts mentioned above, torture and extrajudicial murder represent violations of the most basic human rights. I contend that it is uncontroversial that torture, in all forms, is a wholly unacceptable component of the human condition, as is extrajudicial murder carried out by governmental authority. I further contend that even a quasi-functional moral compass should quickly and easily reveal these as horrific, sadistic, and barbaric deviations from the path of basic human rights. Like a corporation, a government does not have a moral compass. The moral nature of a government is an extension of those who administer the government and the citizens of the country.

Trump's Quotes

(1*) Trump, Feb. 17, 2016: "Torture works. OK, folks? You know, I have these guys—”Torture doesn’t work!”—believe me, it works. And waterboarding is your minor form. Some people say it’s not actually torture. Let’s assume it is. But they asked me the question: What do you think of waterboarding? Absolutely fine. But we should go much stronger than waterboarding."

(2) Trump, Dec. 3, 2015: "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families,"

The question now becomes: Of the 63 million people who voted for Trump how many were aware of his positions on these 2 issues? A Google search produced 30 million combined hits and a Google video search produced 1.4 million combined hits for the 2 quotes. These numbers, in my opinion, suggest that the average voter would have heard about these 2 positions and most likely would have heard about these positions without having to extensively research for them. Additionally, these 2 positions were in the public domain for at least 9 months, which would have further increased the chances that an average citizen would have encountered these 2 positions. The Google search further revealed that these positions were widely covered my mainstream and alternative media.

In my mind, these 2 positions can be easily evaluated with a litmus test. These are simple pass/fail issues. Both of Trump's statements are total and unequivocal fails. They are completely incompatible with human rights as presented in the previously mentioned documents. As such, they should have been disqualifying statements for anyone with a functioning moral compass. A person with such positions, should not, in theory anyway, have been able to advance in the primary process.

The Flaw of Relativism

Nonetheless, Trump did advance and ultimately, just under, 63 million people, all with a moral compass, failed to correctly interpret the results of this litmus test. It's true that we live in a relativistic world, however, you cannot balance a litmus test by specifying some offsetting position, no matter how appealing. Human rights are not measured on a sliding scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Basic human rights are measured on a pass/fail basis. These 2 failures are like the holocaust. There are infinite fails, and nothing finite (like more jobs or building infrastructure) can be placed on the opposite side of the scale to act as an offset. So, how did so many people fail to recognize this grotesque imbalance? How could so many people fail to see the inhumanity of Trump's positions? How could so many moral compasses have failed to align with the magnetic north of basic human rights?

The election of Trump, while disturbing all by itself, is much more disturbing when you consider that millions of voters, either ignored or were completely failed by what should have been a moral compass shaped by the best of Western values starting with the enlightenment and extending through to today. I have no doubt that the concept of a "moral compass" is as valid now, as ever; however, whether all Americans have a functional compass must now be seriously questioned. At the moment, and considering the number of people (63 million) who voted for Trump, despite, his horribly unenlightened and barbaric positions, it would seem that a significant percentage of the American electorate have a broken moral compass. These individuals would seem to lack the intellectual prowess to recognize the simplest, most obvious violations of human rights. Such an intellectual failure by so many does not bode well for the future of America.

* Trump quote 1 was reported to have been reversed. However, in my judgement, Trump's reversal on this position was not widely recognized or widely know, and I believe that the overwhelming majority of those who voted for Trump were under the belief, although, it may have been a false belief, that he favored torture. This means that the nature of their moral compass is still a valid question.

Sometimes it is nice to recognize the support of a fellow liberal who has written eloquently on the topic. To this end, I would like to suggest that you follow this link and read the work of David Remnick. While I may not fully endorse his assessment of Hillary Clinton, I have no problem endorsing his views regarding the election of Donald Trump.