In a Washington Post article last week George Will wrote of Donald Trump: “…the problem isn’t that he does not know this or that, or that he does not know that he does not know this or that. Rather, the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something.”
When someone as conservative as George Will makes a statement like this, you have to ask yourself, “How did Donald Trump ever become president of the United States?”
As usual, the answer to that question is not simple and has a long history that places responsibility on all of us.
Let’s begin with a summary of essential background information that provides the political context for understanding why there is a Trump presidency.
In response to the Great Depression of 1929, President Franklin Roosevelt got Congress to enact federal programs called the New Deal that exponentially expanded the federal government’s role in American life.
Republicans fought him every step of the way, believing that the free market would eventually recover and get things back on track. Roosevelt, however, saw millions of Americans standing in bread lines and decided the government had to act.
This has been the center of conflict between Republicans and Democrats ever since, and is why Republicans continue to oppose Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Compensation, Obamacare, Wall Street Reform, Food Stamps, and other federal programs.
When Bush’s two unfunded wars and a disastrous tax cut mainly for the rich ran the economy into the ditch, they opposed President Obama’s recovery program as well.
It’s what Republicans do.
When Ronald Reagan declared government to be the problem rather than the solution, Republican politics got worse as that comment laid the foundation for an aggressive anti-government sentiment to gain significant influence in the party and push it to the far right.
That shift is why Senate Republicans under Mitch McConnell’s leadership chose to oppose everything – absolutely everything – President Obama proposed, an unprecedented level of obstructionism that produced legislative stalemate. Hardly anything of consequence got done for almost eight years.
Most Americans didn’t care whose fault the stalemate was. They just wanted something done about the problems we faced as a country, especially an economy that was not working for the average family.
When that didn’t happen, they became disillusioned with both parties, as the approval numbers for Congress hit all time lows.
That opened the door to an outsider who had money, name recognition, and a simple message: “Everything is a disaster and I am the one who can make things great again.”
From that point on Donald Trump controlled the political narrative of the campaign. Washington was corrupt and inefficient, made worse by a “fake news” press that criticized outsiders like him who wanted to “drain the swamp.”
Trump quickly realized that he could tap into the angst of middle class voters without knowing anything about the issues. His appeal was all emotional, playing on their fears rooted in changes in American culture and exploiting their frustrations over an economy that no longer gave them a chance to improve their lives.
Republicans didn’t know what to do with or about Trump, and Democrats thought he would undo himself either before he got the nomination or afterwards. Both responses played to Trump’s favor.
In the end Trump got votes no one ever thought he would: 88% of traditional Republicans voted for him; 81% of evangelicals, and a close to a majority of so-called “Reagan Democrats” who vote either Republican or Democratic depending on the candidate.
Still, even with that it was his victories in a few key electoral college states that put him in the White House.
But here is the point to bear in mind. Going forward those of us dismayed by Trump’s unthinkable victory must remember that he not only lost the popular vote, but currently has a majority of the country opposed to him and his policies at unprecedented levels.
That includes Republicans as well as Democrats, conservatives and liberals. So the hope for the country is that all of us who are anti-Trump will put party and ideology aside and do what is right for America.
We can ill afford for partisanship or political ideology to determine how we view Trump. All of us who know deep down that he is unfit for office must be as firm in our opposition as his supporters are in standing behind him.
That is the only hope for forcing Democrats and Republicans in Congress to put country before party. We cannot afford to think in usual ways about Donald Trump. As I have said before, these are no ordinary times and he is no ordinary president.
This man has the power to create chaos here at home and abroad and has already shown that he is willing to use his power to that end. The next step is for him to get us into a war.
What George Will was underscoring, however, is that Trump does not know anything and does not care that he doesn’t know anything because he doesn’t know the value of being knowledgeable.
That is why he denies that facts are facts and calls any news story critical of him “fake news.”
The future of our country lies in the 60% of Americans who disapprove of Trump’s leadership realizing that opposition to him is now a moral imperative. That is because what governments do and don’t do involves right and wrong, justice and injustice, truth and falsehood, all of which makes citizenship a moral responsibility.
A minority of Americans made an immoral choice in voting for Donald Trump regardless of the reason why they did. The rest of us cannot let that immoral choice stand.
That is why George Will called for action in the article mentioned above when he said: “So, it is up to the public to quarantine this presidency by insistently communicating to its elected representatives a steady, rational fear of this man whose combination of impulsivity and credulity render him uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict.”
Quarantine Trump. What an excellent idea.
Politicians may not pay attention to you and me individually, but they do pay attention to numbers, and if contacts with them run against Trump and polls support that sentiment, it will get their attention.
I suppose, then, that everything I am suggesting comes to down to moral engagement. To say and do nothing is to become complicit in political immorality.
A minority of voters elected a spoiled teenager as president. Our nation deserves better than that, but we are the only ones who can make sure we get it.
It is still true in spite of everything that our democracy is of the people, for the people, and by the people. We just have to vote to prove it, and I believe we have a moral obligation to do so.
linnposts.com 