September 4, 2020
We’re in trouble
A satire by Andy Borowitz seems to sum up where we are:
Queen Offers to Restore British Rule Over United States
“This two-hundred-and-forty-year experiment in self-rule began with the best of intentions, but I think we can all agree that it didn’t end well,” she said.
Defeating Trump in November is of crucial importance. However, many problems will remain. Those problems, their origins and possible solutions may raise the question I’ve speculated about before: does the fault lie in our leadership, our institutions or the people? Those categories are not mutually exclusive; leaders are chosen by the people (or by an institution: a political party or the electoral college); leaders influence tendencies among the people, and so on. However, we can analyze them as separate, if not entirely independent units. One of the areas of overlap is between the people and organizations which they form, such as political parties, and movements to which they adhere, such as the political right. I’ll discuss institutions, including those phenomena, another day.
Trump has demonstrated, negatively, that leadership is a crucial element. In brief, and leaving aside his personal deficiencies and administrative failures, he has fomented division when the country is in desperate need of reconciliation and unity; he has wrecked our foreign policy and our international reputation, playing up to dictators, trashing international institutions and agreements.
He makes no attempt to disguise his hope that Russia will help him win election, the latest signal being the decision by his Director of National Intelligence to suspend in-person briefings to Congress about election security. Trump’s subservience to Putin would have resulted in immediate impeachment and conviction had political roles been reversed, as would the use of his office to benefit his businesses. Here the failure of two institutions, the Senate and the Republican Party, come into play.
His only apparent path to election is his law-and order ploy. That it involves hoping for disorder and violence was made clear by Kellanne Conway’s parting shot: “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order,” i.e., you-know who. Protesters must avoid falling into that trap, and the media must expose attempts by Trump and right-wing agitators to create incidents.
The Presidency, for Trump, is a performance, hence his babbling about ratings for his news conferences. At times he seems to be imitating an old Saturday Night Live routine: “Good evening. I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not.” A few weeks ago it was “I’m the president and you’re fake news,” and at the recent convention/coronation, using the White House as a prop, he gave us “We’re here and they’re not.” Having the title, living in the mansion, seem to be the sum of his grasp of the office. He is a weak man pretending, to himself as much as to others, that he is strong. He is working out his personal failings at our expense.
Ultimately, the future of the country is in the hands of the people. Are we capable of self-government? November may determine whether democracy can survive. All of the experts warn that Trump might be elected. Contemplating that outcome, it is tempting to think that the Founders‘ concerns about popular rule were justified.
Our reputation abroad has suffered because of Trump, but will it improve with his departure? To some degree, necessarily, but have Americans demonstrated that, as a people, they are unfit to lead? Any such conclusion would not be based solely on Trump’s performance or on the fact that we sort of elected him, but on our behavior outside the polling booth. How much respect can there be for people who are so stupid and irresponsible as to gather in packed crowds, unmasked, in the midst of raging infection?
How much for a society which tolerates self-appointed militias wandering about armed with assault rifles?
Can a large federal republic, with a history of such assertive individualism, survive? Is our federal system a structural analogy to our destructive individualism? Can we, despite all that, work together?
Obviously, the people, as voters, bear some responsibility for the mess we are in. Trump’s national popular vote in 2016 was higher than Romney’s in 2012, 62,979,879 to 60,934,407. The fact that many millions of people chose Trump says something negative about our capacity for self-rule; so does the number of eligible voters who don’t bother to cast a ballot, 41.1% in 2016.
However, we cannot place all of the blame for our present situation on the people. In 2000 and again in 2016 they made a better choice than the electoral college; only once since 1992 has the Republican candidate for president won more popular votes than the Democrat. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton won 2,865,075 more popular votes than Trump. She did not win a majority but, including third-party votes, 54.047% voted against Trump. His share of the vote was lower than Romney’s, 45.953% to 48.572%, so we can’t fault the electorate as a whole, and the low turnout may be due in part to vote suppression, certainly a potential issue this year. Trump’s victory depended on the electoral-college votes of three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which he won by a total of fewer than 78,000 popular votes, which shows how accidental a President he is.
On Monday night, in an interview by Laura Ingraham, Trump underscored his inanity and his lack of any sense of proportion in his description of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin:
Trump has demonstrated, negatively, that leadership is a crucial element. In brief, and leaving aside his personal deficiencies and administrative failures, he has fomented division when the country is in desperate need of reconciliation and unity; he has wrecked our foreign policy and our international reputation, playing up to dictators, trashing international institutions and agreements.
He makes no attempt to disguise his hope that Russia will help him win election, the latest signal being the decision by his Director of National Intelligence to suspend in-person briefings to Congress about election security. Trump’s subservience to Putin would have resulted in immediate impeachment and conviction had political roles been reversed, as would the use of his office to benefit his businesses. Here the failure of two institutions, the Senate and the Republican Party, come into play.
His only apparent path to election is his law-and order ploy. That it involves hoping for disorder and violence was made clear by Kellanne Conway’s parting shot: “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order,” i.e., you-know who. Protesters must avoid falling into that trap, and the media must expose attempts by Trump and right-wing agitators to create incidents.
The Presidency, for Trump, is a performance, hence his babbling about ratings for his news conferences. At times he seems to be imitating an old Saturday Night Live routine: “Good evening. I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not.” A few weeks ago it was “I’m the president and you’re fake news,” and at the recent convention/coronation, using the White House as a prop, he gave us “We’re here and they’re not.” Having the title, living in the mansion, seem to be the sum of his grasp of the office. He is a weak man pretending, to himself as much as to others, that he is strong. He is working out his personal failings at our expense.
Ultimately, the future of the country is in the hands of the people. Are we capable of self-government? November may determine whether democracy can survive. All of the experts warn that Trump might be elected. Contemplating that outcome, it is tempting to think that the Founders‘ concerns about popular rule were justified.
Our reputation abroad has suffered because of Trump, but will it improve with his departure? To some degree, necessarily, but have Americans demonstrated that, as a people, they are unfit to lead? Any such conclusion would not be based solely on Trump’s performance or on the fact that we sort of elected him, but on our behavior outside the polling booth. How much respect can there be for people who are so stupid and irresponsible as to gather in packed crowds, unmasked, in the midst of raging infection?
How much for a society which tolerates self-appointed militias wandering about armed with assault rifles?
Can a large federal republic, with a history of such assertive individualism, survive? Is our federal system a structural analogy to our destructive individualism? Can we, despite all that, work together?
Obviously, the people, as voters, bear some responsibility for the mess we are in. Trump’s national popular vote in 2016 was higher than Romney’s in 2012, 62,979,879 to 60,934,407. The fact that many millions of people chose Trump says something negative about our capacity for self-rule; so does the number of eligible voters who don’t bother to cast a ballot, 41.1% in 2016.
However, we cannot place all of the blame for our present situation on the people. In 2000 and again in 2016 they made a better choice than the electoral college; only once since 1992 has the Republican candidate for president won more popular votes than the Democrat. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton won 2,865,075 more popular votes than Trump. She did not win a majority but, including third-party votes, 54.047% voted against Trump. His share of the vote was lower than Romney’s, 45.953% to 48.572%, so we can’t fault the electorate as a whole, and the low turnout may be due in part to vote suppression, certainly a potential issue this year. Trump’s victory depended on the electoral-college votes of three states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which he won by a total of fewer than 78,000 popular votes, which shows how accidental a President he is.
On Monday night, in an interview by Laura Ingraham, Trump underscored his inanity and his lack of any sense of proportion in his description of the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin:
“They [the police] can do 10,000 great acts, which is what they do, and one bad apple – or a choker – you know, a choker. They choke. Shooting the guy – shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, couldn’t you have done something different? Couldn’t you have wrestled him? . . . . but they choke. Just like in a golf tournament, they miss a 3 foot putt.”
A man is paralyzed; just like missing a putt.
Donald Trump’s character and mental capacity weren’t entirely a secret four years ago, but are much better known now, so even for lifelong Republicans there will be no excuse for supporting him this time.
Donald Trump’s character and mental capacity weren’t entirely a secret four years ago, but are much better known now, so even for lifelong Republicans there will be no excuse for supporting him this time.
We’ll know in November whether the Queen was right.
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1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/us/politics/election-security-intelligence- briefings-congress.html
2 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/elections/conway-says-the-more-violence- erupts-the-better-it-is-for-trumps-re-election-prospects.html
3 Statistics cited were summarized in my post of 12/29/16.
4. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/01/donald-trump-laura-ingraham-fox- news-interview
2. Borowitz posted the Queen’s remark just before the 2016 election; how much more relevant it is now.
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