Jennifer Rubin gives a brief rundown on all the prices Americans both for and against Trump have paid:
The sycophants who continue to rationalize [Trump’s] conduct got practically nothing from the Faustian bargain. His Supreme Court justices did not overturn abortion precedent, undo protections for the “dreamers” or deny LGBTQ Americans freedom from discrimination. The tax cuts for the rich never delivered on promises of sustained prosperity (and surely did not pay for themselves). The price they (and we) paid was intolerable. We have suffered from a pandemic that has killed more than 124,000 Americans, an economy akin to the Great Depression, a Russian patsy masquerading as a friend of the troops, a self-dealer who corruptly promoted his own holdings as president and a racist entirely out of step with a country yearning for racial justice.
We dare not repeat the error of 2016. We know — because we know Trump — a second term would be equally if not more calamitous than the first. Character this twisted is destiny. Unfitness this severe is irreparable. [WaPo]
Rubin misses perhaps the most damaging aspect of the Trump Presidency, one term or two – the damage it does to the very concept of democracy.
Democracy has been taking it on the nose, as America is, or has been, its leading example – my apologies to the Brits. Along with Trump and all the corruption he’s inevitably entailed, there’s also the inefficiency exhibited in the face of a pandemic, the dirty politics of Senator McConnell (R-KY) and many other Republicans, and, perhaps worst of all, the systemic racism which was born with this country, that even existed during the American gestation, and has stubbornly persisted until this very day.
The combination of these problems, exacerbated by time, should force us each to wonder if democracy will be irreversibly damaged, endangering all the things we value in democracy: our freedoms, our prosperity – or at least those of us who are permitted either.
For my part, my advice to the reader is to consider that, although a 2nd Amendment absolutist may disagree[1], it’s not the government, but our government, and that identification is the first step up the edifice we may have to conquer in order to save democracy. Once we recognize it’s our government and not some external force over which we have little to no control, the logical next step is to begin to study how to make it work for our benefit.
Again, not for my benefit or your benefit, but for our benefit. When it comes to government, there’s little of benefit in the study of the private sector when preparing for the public sector. Their goals are incomparable, they are apples and oranges, and therefore the methods of one, designed and optimized for one set of goals, do not transfer to the other. Government is concerned with the common weal, as the old phrase goes, and solutions must focus on the same, whether it’s the common defense, or the public health.
I recall, back in my days of reading libertarianism, the comment that, in Europe, the first rate people went into government, while the second raters and worse went into business; in America, the reverse held true. While I didn’t know what to make of it then, I think it’s become blindingly clear that, at least in the case of the Republican Party, all the quality people are, or have already, leaked away or declared themselves as NeverTrumpers. Those that are left are, for the most part, second raters and much, much worse, either adherents to ideologies of folly, gross incompetents, or both.
We need to change that. We need first raters in all parties. We do not improve because one party or the other has blindingly great ideas, but because one or the other has good ones, that then are hammered at by perceptive, honest, and fair critics from the other parties, thus improving those that can be improved, and destroying those that do not hold up to intellectual challenge. Let’s not pretend that personalities such as Limbaugh, Gingrich, McConnell, Hawley, or any of the other Party hacks of the GOP are worthy of any such adjectives. We need better people to step in.
But, most importantly, we must once again dedicate ourselves to our political system, realize that it was founded on the principle of humility, the humility to realize that We don’t know, but let’s give it a good-hearted try, rather than the unprovable God’s behind us, my pastor says so, we can’t be wrong!
I don’t care how many times you say you “believe, and that’s enough.” This isn’t heaven, this is just earth with just humans, so we need to use the tools we’ve developed to try to govern. Get rid of your arrogance. It’s hurting us. Not you, not me, but us.
The time for repentance, redemption, and rebuilding – the GOP and America, principally – is almost upon us.
1 As in, I need my guns to defend myself against the government! It’s a common justification, along with concerns about self-defense against crime.
