Staying True

The Oval Office emptied for cleaning

Donald Trump is not President of the United States.  Legally and technically he is, of course.  And O. J. Simpson is legally and technically innocent of murder.  What’s legal and what’s true are not always the same thing.  And it’s not just because Trump failed to win the popular vote.  As ridiculous as the Electoral College is, it is our accepted mechanism for choosing the president, and it did so in keeping with law and tradition. But even though he lacks the democratic legitimacy we demand of every other elected official – even dog-catcher and county judge – that’s only the beginning of what’s missing in our present presidential vacancy.  Things have felt very strange since Inauguration Day, and it’s a feeling of something disordered, something uneasy, and – most strikingly – something lost.  America no longer has a leader. 

American presidents nurture and protect the institutions of American democracy. This one attacks anyone or anything who dares hold him accountable or constrain his power. He calls the media the “enemy of the American people”; he pressures CNN to remove some of its anti-Trump commentators; he accuses the intelligence agencies of acting like those in “Nazi Germany”; he attempts to delegitimize a federal judge (appointed by George W. Bush) by calling him a “so-called judge”, and blames in advance the entire federal judiciary for any terrorist attacks yet to come.  When Congressman John Lewis, who marched with Martin Luther King and was brutalized by racist policemen, criticized Trump, Trump characterized him as “all talk”.   There seems to be no democratic or moral authority he respects.

American presidents make informed decisions, consult with experts and vet policies through appropriate agencies. This one signs amateurish executive orders composed without legal expertise, with no outside consultation of Congress or federal departments, and implements them carelessly, with predictably confusing and chaotic results. He rarely attends national security intelligence briefings, and may not be paying attention even when he does!  He doesn’t read and requires information be brought to him in small, easily digestible bits, with lots of charts and maps.  He believes everything he sees on pro-Trump conservative media like Fox News, or right-wing propaganda sites like Breitbart; and he irresponsibly passes on their stories, including those unsupported by evidence or reason.

American presidents take clear policy positions and stand behind them.  This one changes his positions weekly, daily, hourly. He’s even been all over the map on his signature issue: controlling immigration.  On healthcare, he ran on the promise of repealing Obamacare and replacing it with “something terrific” that would cover more people and cost less. But at one point during the campaign he expressed support for the Obamacare individual mandate, as well as other provisions of the law, such as coverage for those with existing conditions. But once elected he called for abolishing the individual mandate, while inconsistently promising “insurance for everybody”.  And now he has finally spelled out principles constituting the vague outlines of an alternative plan, though hardly a terrific one, since it would cover fewer people at higher cost.  At the same time the White House is failing to endorse a Congressional Republican replacement plan based upon exactly those principles!  And only now, nearing the end of this very long process, has he suddenly discovered what every remotely informed person has known for years: that health care policy is “very complicated”. Was he aware of any aspect of healthcare policy before this earth-shattering insight?  Is he aware now?

American presidents are confident and articulate, able to communicate and persuade. This one spews word salad, and whines about negative coverage.  He exposes his staggering, pathetic need for approval in front of the Washington press corps and the entire world, as in his embarrassing meltdown of a press conference on February 16, humiliating himself in what one commentator called a “seventy-seven-minute emotional striptease”.

American presidents disclose their business dealings by, for instance, publicly releasing their tax returns. This one, during the campaign, claimed his taxes were being audited by the IRS and he could not release them until the audit concluded, though the IRS denied there was any legal constraint on releasing them. He promised that he would make his taxes public after the audit finished, but after the election he (through an aide) simply denied he had any obligation to do so, and, of course, he hasn’t.  He’s denied he has any business connections in Russia, for instance, but such connections are well documented. It’s reasonable to wonder if he doesn’t release his taxes because either they would reveal the depth of his financial entanglements with the corrupt Russian oligarchy, or they would reveal he pays little or no taxes.

Receiving delicate national security information in public

American presidents don’t use their power and connections to profit themselves financially. This one uses the presidency to expand his hotel empire in the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia.  He pressures department stores to stock his daughter’s clothing merchandise.  He frequently stays at Mar-a-Lago, his own private club in Florida, which is now charging higher prices for customers hoping to buy access.  American presidents put their business interests in a blind trust, so their positions and policies won’t be influenced by the desire for profit. This one put has put his interests in a trust administered by his own immediate family, doing nothing to eliminate conflict of interest, and probably violating the Constitution’s Emoluments clause.

American presidents protect the democratic process from interference by hostile foreign governments.  This one has done nothing in response to Russian disruption of last year’s election.  His campaign was awash in connections to Russia and its unscrupulous leader Vladimir Putin, and his administration is as well. But multiple American intelligence agencies have concluded that during last year’s election technical experts with Russian intelligence hacked Democratic Party computers, found information there embarrassing to the Democrats, and released it through willing accomplices in Wikileaks, and certain sections of the FBI, with the intent of helping Trump win.  And all that occurred while his advisors kept ongoing communications with Russian intelligence, and while the candidate himself publicly called on the Putin government to release additional damning information they had on his political opponent. He has eased some of the punitive sanctions his predecessor recently applied to Russia in response to their election interference, and may ease other sanctions against them.  Reasonable people can be forgiven for wondering if there was any direct collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, though such collusion would be tantamount to treason.  But these worries aren’t exactly allayed by Trump’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge that Russia hacked the election, or to voice even the slightest criticism of Putin or his government (though that may be changing), or to call for an investigation of this mess.

American presidents have a mature understanding of how the world works. This one indulges in the most baseless and laughable conspiracy theories. For years he indulged fever dreams about Obama’s place of birth.  In office, he has claimed that Obama is behind his administration’s constant leaking; that as president Obama personally ordered wiretapping of Trump Tower; that he only lost the popular vote because millions of illegal immigrants voted against him; that anti-Trump protestors are paid Democratic operatives.

American presidents sometimes lie; sadly, it’s a job requirement. But this one lies all the time!  He lies about pathetic things, like the size of the crowds at his inauguration, the size of his Electoral College victory, or how many times he’s been on the cover of Time magazine. And he lies about important things, like how many non-citizens were detained under his travel ban, whether rescinding the ban would allow refugees easy access into the country, whether he offered to send American troops into Mexico or yelled at the Australian Prime Minister.  He’s lied about crime statistics, New York Times subscription rates, cutting spending on military aircraft, Obamacare coverage numbers, etc., etc., etc. Et freakin cetera!

The dishonesty deserves particular consideration, because the dishonesty is at the heart of the Trumpian madness. It’s not just that Trump and his underlings lie promiscuously and indiscriminately. It’s not even that they lie without the slightest compunction or accountability, though that is deplorable.  It’s they have no respect for even the notion of truth; to them, the truth is whatever they want it to be. They just say whatever will help them win. And ultimately it isn’t even winning that matters to them, it’s appearing to win. All the other pathologies flow from this essential dismissal of reality for the sake of appearances.  The disregard for democracy, competence, dependability, consistency, transparency, public-mindedness, patriotism, maturity, the truth – it all comes from one simple position: that no principle can distract from the overwhelming, unquenchable need to appear to be always winning.

But the American president should care about democracy, competence, dependability, consistency, transparency, public-mindedness, patriotism, maturity, and the truth.  Obviously many presidents have failed to sufficiently defend these principles. But most cared deeply about them.  And the ones who didn’t still made great pains to pretend they did. That is, they understood that we, the American people, care deeply about them.  It’s the widespread popular commitment to those principles that has made American democracy work for so long.  And we shouldn’t accept as president a strutting ego-on-stilts who flagrantly flouts and mocks them, who clearly doesn’t give a damn about them.  It’s not clear if he even understands them!  In its open contempt of those values, the Trump presidency represents a clean break from our past. And even if we never have another president like him, he very well may do them permanent damage. 

And that’s why it matters that Trump is incapable of “being presidential”.  When he steps up to the microphone and lies, and whines, and accuses, and equivocates, and rants, and brays like a jackass, he’s betraying what’s best in America. It may seem that his demeanor isn’t important, but it reveals who he is and what’s missing in him. Being presidential doesn’t just mean conforming to outdated notions of propriety or formality. Approaching the job with sobriety and circumspection shows that the president takes seriously the grave responsibility of leading America, of protecting and shepherding our republic through our very real troubles. The president has the power to build and the power to destroy, and the nation and the world are right to expect that power to be in the hands of someone of maturity and responsibility.  That this needs to be said at all reveals the depth of our crisis. 

It has fallen to us, the honest citizenry, to hold our democratic values tight. We take our lives and our children’s lives and our country’s future very seriously, even if Trump’s every utterance proves he does not.  We need to keep our standards high, we need to keep loudly criticizing Trump when he violates those standards, and we need to keep reminding those of our fellow citizens who have momentarily forgotten, just how vital those standards are. That’s how we stay who we are.  A rather strange set of circumstances has landed Trump in his current job, but he is simply not worthy of it, nor worthy of us, and all the Electoral Votes in the world cannot make him so.  And our duty as honest Americans for the next four years is to keep that firmly in mind.