I live in a household that accommodates a Republican and a Democrat, one conservative, one more liberal, and, having a few years to my memory, I have to say the threat to our America here and now resides in the White House.
We are in the waning months of Mr. Trump’s tenure in a job he performs in perfect synchrony with nothing but himself. I cannot imagine any self-respecting Republican claiming him, let alone anyone voting for him.
My husband and I are of one mind that Mr. Trump is not a recognizable Republican: He holds no philosophy, no idea dear, no thought worth having. He is willful, erratic, and to give him credit he is manipulative and shrewd. He himself provides evidence daily that his decision-making is merely selfish.
To begin with the most obvious, Mr. Trump demeans the Presidency with his name-calling, his bullying. His manner of speaking is an affront to oratory. As a rule, he relies on repetition empty of message, like this:
It’s bad, you know bad, so bad, really very bad, many many bad things, everyone knows it’s bad, (and, in a crescendo of exaggeration) it’s the worst bad thing in history.
At the same time and in vague but recognizable words, he applauds his fans who take up arms and take to the streets.
Mr. Trump’s obsession with building a wall along our southern border became a monument to irony in these days of the pandemic when Canada, to our north, closed its border to us. Canada bars entry to the virus Mr. Trump ignores. Mr. Trump, eye on the south, wants to bar “aliens.” If this is not racist, tell me why Mr. Trump is not building a wall to keep out Canadians.
The concept of a wall has a built-in connection for Americans who recall the words of the Republican presidency of Ronald Reagan, who addressed his opposite number in the Kremlin with these words: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!” referring to the guarded concrete barrier built in Berlin to divide East from West, 1961 to 1989, during the Cold War. President Reagan’s bona fides as an anti-wall Republican have never been questioned.
Mr. Trump, in the early days of the pandemic, seized an opportunity to obliterate the power of what he calls the blue states. He saw New York overwhelmed by the cost of a health care crisis and he opposed financial relief from Congress to the states. Then the virus headed west and south and his mistake became country-wide.
Instead of caring for millions of Americans sickened and impoverished by the spread of the virus, Mr. Trump devotes his time to twittering, typing away like a jilted lover in a dime novel, words of victimhood, recrimination, and ATTACK in capital letters.
Meanwhile, some Republicans feel the glare of the mounting repudiation of the Republican party’s current standard-bearer. In response and like their leader, they offer distractions and shift the conversation, but my husband and I never expected I would be the target.
I, the Democrat, an anarchist? I, married to a military veteran, want to defund the police? I, the Jew, want to depose G-d?, as if anyone could.
This is not the first time the office of President has been disgraced, but this is the first purposeful demolition of our government by a sitting President in my lifetime. Mr. Trump has removed one Inspector General after another from their watchdog posts in the executive agencies of our national government, replacing them with his yes-men.
He has corrupted the office of the Attorney General, our nation’s guardian of our system of laws, the very foundation of our country. He has sidelined and sabotaged our nation’s leading medical experts at our NIH and our CDC, and, for that matter, he has discredited the entire realm of medical science.
Mr. Trump heralded his intention to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by oil and gas companies. He announced this as the states of California, Oregon and Washington were burning before our eyes and while our people in the Gulf states were experiencing cyclones and storms of unlivable proportion and frequency. In the face of such devastation, only a fool would sanction further injury to our environment.
Incidental to a news story a few months ago, we learned Mr. Trump prefers not to read his daily briefs, though you would think reading is a requirement for most jobs, not just that job. You might also think, as I have, that he spools out lies because he cannot dazzle us with his knowledge.
What else? He wants to eliminate the payroll tax, Mr. Trump said, though this would bankrupt Social Security, which he fails to mention (a lie of omission).
In advance of the upcoming election, he sours the outcome by proclaiming it will be a “fraud” perpetrated by absentee balloting. No wonder. In the 2016 election, Mr. Trump lost the popular vote, 25 percent of which was cast in absentia. His enemy.
Mr. Trump litters his life with people he fires, and loyalty is not one of his attributes. He has turned against and otherwise bad-mouthed Europe, Latin America, the World Health Organization, China, Hispanics, Blacks, military service and disabled veterans, and the people of his own country who are registered Democrats. It is a mystery why anyone thinks Mr. Trump can be counted on by Israel. For him, Israel is today’s sop.
Notable Never-Trump renegade Republicans have captured the essence of Mr. Trump in their op-eds and videos. He is a menace to all of us, they say. He has been annis horribilis, a mistake to begin with, a four-year foray into folly and harm.
These holdover Republicans would never forsake the Constitution. Mr. Trump would, and has, and will.
Republicans are lucky that a democracy requires more than one political party, otherwise there would be no way back for a party that has broken faith with basic decency and the founding principles of our nation.
What bothers me most?
- Mr. Trump perpetrated the unforgivable separation of hundreds of children from their parents.
- He encouraged us to assert our freedom from wearing a mask, the freedom to sicken ourselves and to kill our neighbors.
- He labels Mr. Biden a socialist, but no one dares ask Mr. Trump if he is a fascist.
- He would compromise our military if he could.
- If he had his way, there would be one news outlet, his.
I look forward to hearing Joe Biden without the incessant background noise.
Rebecca Rosenblatt Gilliar
Great Neck
