Do you remember the good old-days, when George W. Bush ran an uplifting if somewhat shallow campaign, proclaiming himself “a uniter, not a divider” and a “compassionate conservative” while his facial expressions oscillated between those of a deer caught in the head-lights and the smarmy smirk of a candidate who knows he has stolen the election for high-school class president as well as his best-friend’s date for the senior prom?
Last night at Mt. Rushmore, though predictable, I found it unsettling, that Donald Trump unabashedly confirmed his role as ‘a divider, not a uniter’ with compassion for no one other than himself and passion for nothing beyond his re-election. Don’t people know, haven’t they learned, when the guy in front of you with a guilty look on his face proclaims “I am not a crook” you have found the right man? And when the guy admits he is a crook, you have also found the crook?
When Trump publicly flouts the health recommendations and policies of his Administration’s top scientists and intentionally puts his Secret Service guardians, his Presidential entourage, his political cronies and enablers, not to mention his audience of supplicants, in the harm’s way of a sickening, deadly and invisible virus working its way through the United States, attacking young and old, black and white, Republicans and Democrats, Christians, Muslims and Jews and the rich and poor, indiscriminately, it is clear that Trump is a divider, not a uniter. As if three and one-half years into the Trump presidency we need more evidence of that.
Perhaps Trump put all these people and his presidency in harm’s way so he can proclaim at least one victory against racial and social injustice: that the virus and Trump do not care whom the virus attacks. Unfortunately, after attacking anyone and everyone the virus can attack, the virus does discriminate with a vengeance among its victims. The corona virus kills more elderly and people of color than anyone else. So last night was just one more example of Trump failing to stay on message, and blundering into tomorrow’s crisis in order to escape today’s.
I noticed something else unsettling about Trump’s performance last night, though it actually is nothing new. Trump is doubling down on a failed policy of denying the severity of the threat and pretending it does not exist. How can he believe that after steering America into the iceberg he was warned to avoid, the passengers and crew will reward him with re-election?
His confidence demonstrates at least two things, neither or which bode well: Either Trump is totally disconnected from reality or his supporters are, or both.
Trump has staked his candidacy on the principle that he alone knows the answer to and can solve every crisis and that he can do no wrong. Trump supporters should realize by now that is only true when each crisis is one of Trump’s own making. It is easy to solve a crisis you create. Since you know how you got yourself into the pickle, it is only a fake pickle. That makes is easy to forge a solution and proclaim yourself the new Houdini who managed to extricate himself from a seeming insoluble bind.
But it is something quite different when the crisis is external, unexpected and unprecedented. It is something quite different when you know that you are completely unprepared, uninterested, unwilling, incapable and incapacitated to deal with the crisis. It is something quite different when you start to realize that before election day your “unconventionality” will finally be understood to be nothing more than sheer incompetence at your job.
The saddest thing about the Trump presidency is that it didn’t have to be this way. Trump did not have to be the most divisive, destructive and despicable president in U.S. history.
Perhaps the most jarring but predictable aspect of Trump’s Mt. Rushmore spectacle was his admission that he cares more about the stone faces of our nation’s historical monuments than he does about turning to stone the living faces of his adoring supporters and acolytes.
Trump spent more energy and breath on preserving monuments to the good and bad in our history, than to bringing the country together to understand our history, how we got here and the way out of this quagmire.
As I said earlier, it did not have to be this way. Do you remember the good old days, when George W. Bush was wandering and meandering through his first term as president with few accomplishments and no claim to leadership and inspiration? And then 9/11 happened, and suddenly gentle George – “Shrub” as some called him — became the bright and hot and determined burning “Bush,” vowing to bring justice to those who planned and executed this attack upon the United States within its own shores.
George W. Bush, suddenly had a purpose and a resolve, a challenge not of his own making, against which he could lead the nation to rise above and to conquer.
The Donald, after struggling through three years of a deeply chaotic presidency marked by corruption, scandal, presidential attacks on his own attorney general, the rule of law, and America’s friends and international alliances, after pretending to solve a series of crises of his own creation, was suddenly presented with the golden opportunity of his presidency.
Donald J. Trump, suddenly could have had a purpose and a resolve, a challenge not of his own making, against which he could lead the nation to rise above and to conquer. It would have been and could have been so simple. All he had to do was call in the brightest scientific minds in the government, encourage them to collaborate with one another and private industry to defeat this existential viral threat to our society and the world.
Re-election would not even require Trump to defeat the virus. All he had to do was take his experts’ advice, accept their guidance as our national policy and take credit for unleashing and motivating such a brilliant team to take on the challenge of the century.
Trump could indeed become “a very stable genius”; the President of an Administration who had the best scientific minds available whom he unleased to vanquish the corona virus – a threat that was and is much more immediate and tangible than climate change or even the threat posed by our unresolved history of racial and social injustice.
Last night, at Mt. Rushmore, all the pageantry of July 4th that we love so much was on display. As uplifting as it could have been, I found it depressing. It seems we live in a country that was once the land of unparalleled achievement and success, freedom and liberty. Instead it seems we live in a country that is rapidly becoming the land of wasted opportunity.
When the roar of the flyer-over at Mt. Rushmore stopped, when the speechifying ended, when the crowded crowd began to disperse and quiet descended upon the valley, it was reported that you could hear a sound like hammers tapping nails. The sound was much like the sound of chisels gently tapping on the rocks as they carved the faces of those about to pass through the corona crucible to become etched in stone, below four stone-faced presidents who were true leaders.
I fear and I hope that this will be the last and lasting image we have of the Republican Party that is no longer the party of Lincoln.