This piece appeared last week as newspaper op/ed in the very red congressional district (VA-06) in which I live.
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It’s a frightening time, what with this pandemic sweeping through the country, killing so many of our fellow Americans and many others around the globe; and what with our being forced to put our economy on hold to protect ourselves against this killer-virus, with all the disruption that means for our health and prosperity.
But that’s not what frightens me most. In two steps, I can explain what worries me even more.
For the first step, consider this picture from just this past week (writing on April 5th):
President Trump fired the Inspector General for American Intelligence, for having done exactly what he was supposed to do (with a Whistleblower report) to protect the integrity of the American government. (Just as he’d fired Lt. Col. Vindman for doing his patriotic duty and testifying truthfully to Congress.) If doing one’s duty is contrary to Trump’s interest, you’ll be punished for doing your duty. Trump has attacked, and his administration fired, a distinguished naval captain for protecting the lives of his sailors, because that captain felt it his responsibility to complain about the failure of the government to see that their urgent needs be met. (Then the 4800-person crew of that aircraft carrier applauded the departing captain whom Trump was punishing for being the kind of man who would endanger his career to fulfill his responsibility as a military leader.) On the pandemic, Trump continues to refuse to use his powers (under the Defense Production Act) to accomplish what so urgently needs to be accomplished. (Just as FDR got American industry performing almost miraculous feats in the production of ships, planes, and tanks to meet the challenge of World War II, so Trump could harness America’s productive might to meet the intense challenge of this coronavirus moment defeat this enemy -- just as any previous American President would have already acted to save lives.) And Trump continues to fail to set up a system of distribution that serves the needs of the states and their people. But instead, Trump compels the states to bid against each other, sending the national stockpile to commercial interests who price-gouge the states who are already reeling from the stresses of dealing with so much sickness and death even as their budgets have been destroyed. (Meanwhile, hospitals are reeling and heroic health-care workers are getting sick -- and some are dying -- because Trump stood in the way of getting those workers the protections they need.) While declaring this a “National Emergency,” Trump has used the resources he controls to reward the states whose governors have supported him while denying urgently needed help to states (like Michigan and Washington) whose Democratic governors have complained about how the President isn’t doing his job. So this President punishes all the people in a state because their governor has said something Trump didn’t like. Trump has continued to defy the experts – like Anthony Fauci -- who say that lives would be saved if he’d declare a national stay-at-home order. Instead he allows a dangerous patchwork in which some states – all of them led by Trump-supporting Republican governors – continue to allow kinds of unfettered human contact that all the experts say are sure to increase the ravages of the pandemic. Unable to hold his rallies, Trump now has daily briefings in which his role is almost uniformly self-serving, often to the detriment of the nation. The briefings are useful only for what the public health experts have to say, while the President focuses on fortifying his political standing while congratulating himself frequently for the great job he’s been doing.Consider what that list shows! (And every week gives us an astonishing list of presidential conduct of this sort.)
I have no doubt that if any of those guys up on Mount Rushmore (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt) were to surface here to witness just this one week, knowing nothing else, they’d be appalled. “No President of the United States should wield his powers that way!” they’d say.
(And no President ever remotely has—until now.)
And I imagine those American greats on Mount Rushmore would suffer a second shock-- to discover that some 40% of the American people could see a President acting in such ways -- week after week -- and approve of what they saw.
But that’s what happened.
(It’s worse than what Trump boasted about, that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes. Despite Trump regularly committing acts (like those listed above from this week) that are much more destructive than just shooting someone on Fifth Avenue – because as President he impacts the whole nation -- Trump continues to receive a remarkable level of unwavering support from the Republican base.)
That’s what frightens me most.
It frightens me to see people in a state like nothing I’ve ever seen, one that seems beyond the reach of reason and truth. I worry: How will whatever-that-is that’s taken possession of that substantial part of the American people play itself out in American affairs now and in the years to come?
From the pandemic, we will bounce back. From this, I’m not so sure.