This piece will be appearing this weekend as a newspaper op/ed in my very red congressional district (in which I was the Democratic nominee for Congress in 2012) — VA-06.
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A Look Into the Magic Mirror
It appears sometimes in fairy tales that people must look at things reflected in some sort of looking glass to be able to see what’s really there.
So in that spirit, let me invite those who approve of Trump to imagine that they are watching a movie in which the United States is dealing with a national emergency (like some sort of pandemic) and which depicts a President of the United States providing good leadership to the nation.
(There are many such movies – like Independence Day, or Deep Impact— and virtually without exception, the President they depict provides good leadership, the kind we want in a President.)
What would that leadership look like?
That national leader would demonstrate an excellent understanding of the challenge facing the nation. Such a President would show a real, passionate commitment to the good of the nation. Considerations of personal interest would be completely set aside as this President focused solely on fulfilling his obligation to the American people (who have entrusted him with profound responsibilities on their behalf). Divisions and animosities would be smoothed over, as the nation rallies together to act as One to meet the vital challenge at hand.Tell me, does that describe the kind of leadership we’ve seen from Donald Trump?
Indeed, hasn’t Trump’s performance in this whole coronavirus episode been precisely the opposite of all that? Hasn’t it been so remarkably the opposite that one cannot imagine any of our past presidents – even the worst of them – falling so far short in all those ways?
Trump showed from the outset a complete misunderstanding of the situation, even though – as has been well-documented – this President was getting the situation explained, and the alarm sounded, by experts (both inside the American government and from other sources). And he continues to speak and act like what he thinks should govern our course even against the counsel of those who know the most about such epidemics. From the outset, and even into the present moment, Trump has shown himself to be preoccupied not by the good of the nation, not by the suffering and loss of life threatening the American people, but with how he looks and how this pandemic will impact his re-election chances in November. He has made the pandemic an occasion for feuds and fighting – with Governors who criticize him, with the press that reports things that make him look bad, with refusals to provide help when asked and with making assertions of his having “total control” when he does not. He’s shown no inclination (or ability) to bring the nation together to fight the pandemic with the kind of unity that characterized the United States in World War II with its great “wartime president,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt.And so I ask: If you can see the vast discrepancy between how a good American President would be portrayed in the movies in this situation – whether portrayed by Harrison Ford or Michael Douglas or Morgan Freedman – and how Donald Trump has been playing his leadership role in this real-life drama, how can you possibly approve of this President?
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Here’s something remarkable-- two things are true that one would expect could not both be true:
The first thing is that of the five men who have been the leaders and standard-bearers of the Republican Party over the past 32 years, all but one have demonstrated and expressed serious disapproval of and opposition to Donald Trump as President.
We know that the first and second Bush – the Republican nominees for President in 1988, 1992, 2000 and 2004 – rejected Trump. We know that there was hostility between Trump and the 2008 Republican nominee for President, John McCain. And we know that the 2012 Republican nominee for President, Mitt Romney (who called Trump a “fraud” in 2016), found -- after declaring that “I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial justice” in the impeachment trial -- that Trump was “guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust,” and voted to remove President Trump from office.
(Of all the Republican nominees for President who lived into the Trump Era, the only one who has not shown opposition to Trump is the 1996 nominee for President, Bob Dole, who is in his 90s.)
Given that these men – who collectively represent the leadership chosen by Republican voters to represent them over the past several decades – have judged Trump so negatively, it is remarkable and strange to consider this second true thing: namely, that 90% of the people in the Republican base support Trump.
What can that strange combination mean: that the Republican electorate would so profoundly disagree with a whole generation of leaders those same voters had chosen to be their standard-bearers? What has happened that – in sharp contrast with the Republican leadership of the recent past – Republican voters would declare Trump a fine President who is making America great again?
Did the Republican Party somehow change into something fundamentally different from what it once was?