Last week it was the business leaders who voiced their disapproval of the occupant of the Oval Office. This week, it was the rabbis’ turn.
On Wednesday, the Jewish Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements, representing a majority of American rabbis, issued a joint statement that they would not participate in the traditional White House conference call preceding the High Holy Days because of Donald Trump’s equivocal response to the racially-charged events in Charlottesville, Va.
Less than 24 hours later, the White House announced that it had no intention of holding the conference call, so the rabbis couldn’t boycott the call.
Sound familiar? Like those business councils that were disbanded so that the business leaders couldn’t resign?
But the petulant one, heedless of the rabbis moral rebuke, would have none of that.
What about the rule of law and freedom of the press, so central to our democracy?
This week, after whining that the media had misrepresented his comments about Charlottesville, Trump came to the defense of Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff who was convicted of criminal contempt of court for disregarding a federal judge’s orders to stop illegally detaining Hispanic-looking people on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally.
On Tuesday, at a campaign-style rally in Phoenix, Trump responded to cries of “Pardon Joe” by saying that Arpaio would be just fine, but that he didn’t want to cause any controversy just then.
By the end of the week, Trump was again courting controversy by granting the Arapaio pardon.
Arpaio had faced a sentence of up to six months in prison.
The pardon violates long-standing Justice Department policy, which requires a waiting period of at least five years and an expression of regret or remorse, no sign of which has been given by Arapaio.
But Trump didn’t let policy or the disrespect shown by Arpaio to the judiciary stand in his way.
No, Mr. Arapaio, you weren’t just “doing your job.” And, no Mr. Trump, you do not stand for “law and order.”
Moreover, Trump’s criticism of the media recalls his earlier attacks on the media as the “enemy of the American people.”
Trump’s indifference to criminal conduct and his willingness to pardon implicitly licenses those who might use violent means to suppress political protests and to attack journalists reporting on controversial events.
Legitimization of bigotry, a pardon that blocks a federal judge’s effort to enforce the Constitution and constant attacks on our constitutionally protected free press strike at the roots of our democracy.
Undermining our democratic institutions will not make America great, but will destroy it.
In short, Trump has made explicit his contempt for the Constitution which he took an oath to defend.
Meanwhile, Trump’s political appointees to federal departments and agencies are quietly going about their work dismantling regulations that protect our air and water; reopening public lands for new mining and drilling; opening investigations into judicially-sanctioned affirmative action at universities and colleges even though an analysis shows that despite affirmative action blacks and Hispanics are more underrepresented at top schools than 35 years ago; cutting back on overtime pay regulations; and reintroducing transgender discrimination to our military.
And that’s just a sampling of the ways in which the Trump administration is reneging on his promise to make America great.
Jay N. Feldman
Port Washington
