We missed it. The former president calling our government a swamp was anathema. Demonizing government workers was repugnant. Both were also silly. After all, for four years, Donald Trump had the power and obligation to fix what he thought was broken.
We discounted his words, called his antics distractions, thought he was foul-mouthed and dismissive of decency just to shock and desensitize. We imagined he was salacious or outrageous because he was lying and knew better or was stupid or crazy and didn’t. We missed it.
It wasn’t social shock and awe to grab attention. He was doing so much more. Trump was stating his firm intension. Our country was not a swamp. There was no deep state, and those who died for our country were not suckers. He was not exposing what the country was; he was telling us what he would make our country into.
Give him the chance and he would turn the executive branch into an ATM machine, Congress into a rubber stamp and the judiciary into a body that would rescind the rights of the people. Corruption of the executive branch, obliteration of the balance of power, diminution of the rights of the people: game, set, match. Donald J. Trump was presenting his plan to end democracy. He was airing his manifesto. It’s amazing how successful he has been.
A manifesto is a public declaration of policy and aims. Before, those who tried to defeat us from within whispered in corners and hid their intent. They worried about the reaction of the people. They even might have felt shame. Trump is shouting his manifesto.
He isn’t worried about the people disliking it, and he feels no shame. So exactly what is he suggesting?
Specifically, he is saying he will decrease our rights — for example, federal abortion restrictions — and brags about it. He likes the idea. Give him the chance, and he will take away more of our rights. As much as he wants to decrease our rights, he wants to expand his own. He wishes to be above the law — not unlike when he spoke of shooting someone on Fifth Avenue and getting away with it. When he argues the president is above the law, he is not saying what is; he is saying give him a chance and he will make it so. It’s amazing how far he has gotten.
On Feb. 29, the Supreme Court of the United States helped Trump’s endeavor. On that date, the Supreme Court decided to hear Trump’s legal argument of presidential immunity and thereby halted the federal case related to Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s election interference efforts. The court now controls if and when there will be a trial determining Trump’s guilt or innocence. The court has slowed the process and in so doing risks placing a former president above the law. As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” The right to a speedy trial is the right of all of us: the defense, the prosecution and the people. So regardless of what the court does next, it has undermined democracy at Trump’s behest and to his advantage.
On March 4, at Trump’s behest and to his advantage, the Supreme Court decided that while states may disqualify presidential candidates from appearing on ballots due to age or national origin per Article II in the U.S. Constitution, states cannot disqualify candidates per the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Some say Trump is untouchable. Really? He was found liable for sexual assault in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman’s; he also was found liable for defaming his accuser. He was convicted of fraud in his business dealings and defrauding students at Trump University. His tax-exempt private Donald J. Trump Foundation dissolved under court order after it was discovered Trump and his family were self-dealing. Whatever else happens with the other cases and whatever else the Supreme Court does, America should know enough to determine the next stop for Trump can never be the White House.
If he returns, Trump’s policy will be to maintain, not solve, the county’s problem to use them against his opponents. Trump’s government will be of, by and for Trump. President Joe Biden solves problems and serves us. Trump can still identify five different animals and sometimes, not always, knows against whom he is running. Biden juggles military actions abroad, a wonky House of representatives at home and navigates through problems toward solutions successfully and without theatrics. Biden turned around the enemies Trump made and restored our economy after COVID. It’s amazing what the added costs of self-interest and corruption are.
On “The West Wing,” a fictional U.S. president asked: Why can’t good government and good politics be the same? Shouldn’t they be? On Nov. 5, 2024, President Biden is asking us the same.