“Sometimes I miss the good old days when Donald Trump could be shocking,” writes Gail Collins in the New York Times on Nov. 15. “It’s really hard to imagine something he could say now that would throw us for a loop.”
Collins and much of the media nevertheless seemed thrown for a loop after Trump’s remarks on Veteran’s Day. “[H]e celebrated the men and women who’ve fought for American democracy by promising to ‘root out’ his liberal opponents,” Collins wrote. “Otherwise known as ‘the Communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.’” (READ MORE: Putting the ‘Rat’ in Democrat Suddenly Makes Trump Hitler)
She continued:
Don’t know if any other president has called people he disagreed with “vermin.” …
Of course, we don’t think of our mental health system the way D.J.T. seems to. He recently predicted that officials like Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating him on several fronts, would be diagnosed as “suffering from a horrible disease, TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME (TDS!)” and “in a Mental Institution by the time my next term as President is successfully completed.”
Does this sound like a threat to you?”
Well, no. I’ve just heard too many of Mr. Trump’s locutions — and those of his opponents — to be shocked anymore.
Nor are the words “vermin” and “disease” politically singular. The famous Welsh socialist Aneurin “Nye” Bevin used “vermin” to describe half the British electorate 75 years ago. (Rather like Hillary Clinton describing 60 or 70 million Trump voters as “a basket of deplorables.”)
Yet when Bevan coined “vermin” for British conservatives back in 1948, nobody was very exercised. Now, when Donald Trump says it — and envisions the vermin in a mental institution — well, all hell breaks loose.
Politics today lacks the entertaining repartee Bevan afforded us back then. And when Winston Churchill paid him back in kind, everybody relaxed.
The late Paul Addison described the “vermin” and “disease” episode in his masterful book Churchill on the Home Front (1992). It occurred in the House of Commons in July 1948, shortly after Bevan launched the British National Health Service. It was, Addison wrote, one of the most bitter exchanges during the 1945–51 Labour socialist government. Replying to Bevan’s “vermin” speech, Churchill, Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, retaliated:
We speak of the Minister of Health, but ought we not rather to say the Minister of Disease? For is not morbid hatred a form of mental disease, moral disease, and indeed a highly infectious form? Indeed, I can think of no better step to signalize the inauguration of the National Health Service than that a person who so obviously needs psychiatrical attention should be among the first of its patients.
(Always thoughtful and judicious, Addison noted that this was not an attack on the institution: “In case his assault on Bevan should be taken to imply hostility to the NHS, Churchill added: ‘I trust however that no one will in any way relax his or her efforts to make a success of the new health scheme.’”)
Churchill was, of course, irked by the use of “vermin” to describe his party. Or any politicians, really, because Churchill respected opponents and supporters alike.
Bevan died in July 1960. Hearing the news in the House of Commons smoking room, Churchill launched into an impromptu eulogy: “A great man … a tremendous advocate for socialism and his party.” Then, pausing in mid-sentence, Sir Winston asked, “Are you sure he’s dead?”
As between “basket of deplorables” and “vermin,” there is not much to choose. But it’s sad that there are no Churchills — or Bevans, for that matter — on the political scene today. Not even a Ronald Reagan or a Tip O’Neill. Such is the humorless, strained, and hateful atmosphere of modern politics.
Richard M. Langworth, CBE, is author or editor of 10 books on Winston Churchill, including the quotations book Churchill by Himself, an expanded edition of which will appear in 2024.