THE ADVOCATE V O L . 8 0 P A R T 5 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 649
ENTRE NOUS
I had three discussions with the President that I can recall … and … I made
it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and
putting out this stuff which I told the President was bullshit. … You can’t
live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based
on its view unsupported by specific evidence that there was fraud in the
election.
—William S. Barr, former attorney general of the United States
When William Barr testified before the select committee
charged with investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on
the U.S. Capitol,1 he did not mince words. The fact that he
had to resort to profanity is entirely forgivable. We use profanity
either when we do not personally have the vocabulary to express ourselves,
or when there simply are no words that exist to adequately describe
a situation. Barr called Trump’s ridiculous positioning about a “rigged” and
“fraudulent” election—a perverse attempt to remain in the White House—
exactly what it was: bullshit. He called it a number of other things too
(maybe there was vocabulary for it after all) including “completely bullshit,”
“absolute rubbish,” “idiotic,” “bogus,” “stupid,” “crazy,” “crazy stuff,” “complete
nonsense,” and “a great disservice to the country.”
Barr was merely saying what anyone with even a modicum of knowledge
about democracy and how democracy ought to work has been thinking for
years now. It was strange, however, to hear it coming from a man who so
regularly backed up the former president when he took other audacious
and ridiculous positions. If The Washington Post is to be believed, it racked