Donald Trump and the Politics of Malice

Donald Trump is the holder of a dubious record. He is the only American president to be impeached twice - and that in just one term of office. He was indicted by the House of Representatives on charges of inciting insurrection and other things against the U.S. government on January 13, a week to the day after his supporters stormed and desecrated the U.S. Capitol building, an action that left five people dead. A week to the day after he was impeached, the formally disparaged president left the White House in the morning to make room for its new occupant, Joe Biden. Trump was in Florida by the time Biden was sworn in at his inauguration. 

In the days leading up to Trump's Senate trial much speculation will be made over his statements that allegedly pushed the mob of his supporters over the edge on January 6. Said he, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and congresswomen, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." And then sometime later, "And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." Whether those statements will lead to a conviction remains to be seen. Subornation may be hard to prove. His defense team may well argue that his statements were weak and that Trump couldn't have known that the marchers would do what they did. We shall see.

It may very well be true that Trump thought the January 6 demonstration would be just a peaceful, though loud, protest in his favor. It may also be true that his words that day were not meant to incite the violence that took place. But all that hardly matters. Go back to his early comments when he first declared his candidacy for president. At the primaries in 2015, when confronted by then-Fox News's Megyn Kelly about publicly calling women derogatory names, his answer was, "Only Rosie O'Donnell." There were slurs against Mexicans and Muslims. He mocked writer-reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a joint movement disorder, by making spastic motions in front of the crowd and cameras. Then there was this from 2016, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?" There was no condemnation of white supremacy when former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke endorsed him. He said he would bring back waterboarding for interrogating terrorists and advocated killing their families. There were the conspiracy theories, such as Senator Ted Cruz's father handing out communist leaflets with Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy, a story he got from the National Enquirer. He appealed to the large segment of the U.S. population that is sick of political correctness and thereby awakened a long-lost sense of purpose in this segment's lunatic fringe. Consider not only David Duke but Richard Spencer's National Policy Institute (the "Hail Trump!" people) and the Charlottesville melee. 

Many Christian leaders believe Donald Trump to be a man of God. But the man who actually was (and is) God said we would know the tree by the fruit it bears. A police officer died the day after he was assaulted by the rioters. Many people were injured and damage to the Capitol building was estimated to be in the millions. All the lies and invective of the past six years led to January 6, 2021 and Trump's second impeachment. And the tragedy of that day was set in motion the day he first sought to exploit society's factions to gain for himself the presidency. 

 

Dead Man Talking

                     "What a field day for the heat. A thousand people in the street. 

                        Singing songs and carrying signs. Mostly saying 'hooray for our side'."

                                                                    For What It's Worth, Buffalo Springfield, 1967

In the waning days of the Donald Trump presidency things are anything but smooth and peaceful during this time of power transition in Washington, D.C. Mr. Trump is clearly not going away quietly nor did anyone really expect him to. His subtle nudging of people to storm the Capitol building on January 6 and the subsequent trashing of offices and chambers proved just how upset he and his followers are that he lost the election. Before this happened I amused myself with silly imaginings of the outgoing president chaining himself to the Resolute desk in the Oval Office with the Secret Service men getting out the bolt cutters and hauling the screaming man away so the new one could come in and set up shop. Sad to say that what happened last week easily topped any imaginings I had. 

The job of POTUS is hard. It's the only world leader job where the president is not just his own country's leader but is also the de facto leader of the free world. The White House occupant must not only consider America's interests but balance them with the interests and protection of her allies as well. The daily pressure must be enormous and it shouldn't surprise anyone that it can break men. In fact, many are broken long before they get the top job. To begin with, each would-be president must be ferociously ambitious, otherwise they couldn't stand the manic campaign pace. There are the personal sacrifices of family time and friends, the cut and thrust of partnerships and betrayals, the egotism, the slander and the compromises in principle (and sometimes legalities) they all must partake of at some point - and all of it under the endless, hounding scrutiny of the media.  

There are few jobs that people don't get personally attached to, especially jobs in public office. It's a rare person who doesn't draw some self worth from their vocation. This makes a career in politics particularly dangerous to one's well-being because the business is, in the words of Bill Clinton, "the politics of personal destruction".

Lee Atwater was U.S. Vice-President George H.W. Bush's campaign manager in the latter's bid for the presidency in 1988. Atwater was notoriously vicious in attacking Bush's main opponent, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. Bush, of course, won and the new lows that Atwater brought into presidential campaigns made their way into political playbooks everywhere. Then something happened. Just over a year after Bush's inauguration, Atwater was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. His illness was terminal. As awful as that was, Atwater saw it as a blessing in disguise and became deeply repentant and reportedly made his peace with God. Faced with his mortality at age 39, he wrote personal letters of apology to those on the receiving end of his "naked cruelty", as he called it, and in early 1991, he wrote these words for Life magazine.

"My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The 1980s were about acquiring - acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul." Atwater died a month later at the age of 40.

"It is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime". There is more than just one take-away from Lee Atwater's story and I see an opportunity here. It's not enough to just preach concepts like "kinder and gentler" (the elder Bush) and "compassionate conservatism" (the younger Bush). We need to act on things the way Lee Atwater did and commit to learning Atwater's lessons on his dime while there is still time, before we have to learn them on our own the hard way.