Trump and Our Vanishing American Rights. Are They Gone Forever?
For years, Donald Trump was an unseemly amusement, known primarily to New Yorkers as a rich, sleazy real estate developer who took pleasure in not paying his bills, going bankrupt and suing people for sport. A brash, ribald womanizer to whom numerous affairs and divorces were both sporting and routine. Cultivating an almost maniacal desire to succeed at all costs, he turned his name into the most acclaimed real estate brand in the world, parlaying that into substantial wealth that was followed by a successful run as the host of reality television show, The Apprentice. There was nothing really left for Trump to pursue but the power his fragile ego craved and what better venue was there to do that than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Since becoming president, Trump has become more and more intoxicated with the authority of the presidency which fed neatly into his pathological need to be the ultimate decider. To wield nearly unlimited power over as many persons as possible; originally his real estate empire and now shockingly the country and the world.
There were plenty of hints in the past as to what was ahead. During the campaign Trump said, “The Justice Department is a political arm of the White House.”
And when China’s Xi Jinping’s was appointed president for life, Trump told Republican donors, “Look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot some day.”
In pursuing his goal of personal supremacy at the expense of the American rule of law, he has managed to initiate an all out assault on our democracy, hacking away at as many of our constitutional principles and values as possible. They have never seemed important to him and it’s likely we have his father Fred Trump whom he revered to thank. He was once arrested wearing the robes of the Ku Klux Klan at a rally for Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Donald Trump’s pursuit of money, wealth and power were goals that were taught to him and learned early on, with a special admonition that one should never let accepted norms of morality and decency stand in the way.
It’s far from a passing thought, that Trump’s most dangerous legacy will be prying open the Pandora’s box of bigotry, exclusiveness and cruelty whose proponents were always diminished somewhat by laying dormant in the shadows on our country’s dark underbelly. White Nationalists and neo-Nazis among others have felt enabled and emboldened by Trump and his words and policies. Noted racist Patrick J. Buchanan said, “Trump is the great white hope.” And former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke praised Trump after white nationalist rioted in Charlottesville, Virginia with Trump saying afterwards, “there were good people on both sides.” “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists.”
Trump is a genius at manipulating his base to support him. Accordingly, he reviles the United States being defined as a nation of immigrants, favors white culture and Christianity, guns, supports a horrendous assault on human rights and dignity and rejects any devotion to due process and racial equality. Intolerance has come to define him and his administration; as has lying, denouncing federal law enforcement agencies, promoting bigotry and racial divisiveness, coddling corporations, propping up our enemies, stacking the courts with reactionary conservatives, rejecting our allies and labeling the press as evil.
Trump has no interest in tolerance or altruism and human cruelty is just an unavoidable byproduct of his dedication to his pursuit of power and wealth. He realizes maintaining his kingdom depends on patronizing his base of white supporters, railing against all immigrants and social welfare programs and pushing for adherence to white Anglo-Saxon social traditions and patriotic jingoism. The glue that holds it all together is what he has done and is doing to the judiciary; turning it away from some semblance of impartiality towards an activist reactionary conservatism based on the constitution being subjectively interpreted based on original intent. Judicial appointments of young constructionist judges will change our legal landscape for many decades to come.
The questions we must ask ourselves are these. When Trump is gone, will his offensive onslaught on our democratic values and his support for autocratic oppression have become so ingrained in the American consciousness, that we will never recover? And what if anything can be done about it.