"The lamps are
going out all over Europe, we shall not see them again in our lifetime."
Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary on the eve of
World War I.
Across
the world, women and people of conscience have marched in protest to what they
perceive as the election of a scoundrel and a liar, a narcissistic,
misogynistic impresario of Orwellian dimensions.
All
hopes between the election and the inauguration of a change in personality, a
more presidential and healing persona have already been dashed. Republicans in congress have bent
to the will of this force of darkness and pessimism. Our hopes that the separation of powers will protect
us from this aberration, a perversion of our democratic government, grow dimmer
with each day.
The
inappropriate cabinet picks, the angry dystopian inaugural address, the rancor
and divisiveness pervading this pathologically driven man has already defined
the direction in which he intends to take our country. The Presidential powers
conferred upon him are a threat to the tired, the poor, the dispossessed. Jobs
that will never return, factories increasing the corporate bottom line with one-tenth
the workforce, are the new reality, despite his promises. And the Republican congress is rushing
to install vouchers instead of health care as a right of all Americans. You will have access and choice, they
say.
Now,
we are faced with how to chase this lying Caligula from office. How does the congress stiffen its
spine and do the work at hand? How
does the Republican Party reclaim its dignity? Only by placing country over party. The jury is out. But with a proven liar in the White
House, how will the world believe our government when a crisis arises?
Policy
will be the prevailing battlefield, and not one that tweets about the size of
the crowds at his coronation.
In
1933 Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler were elected to office. Both the United States and Weimar
Germany were in dire economic straits. A world-wide great depression. The streets of Berlin suffered
demonstrations of starving people, needing billions of marks to buy a loaf of
bread. Germans, overwhelmed by
French and English policymakers who devised war reparations unable to be paid,
marched Unter der Linden.
Victims desperately sought to find a way out. Hitler made promises of a one Volk, one Germany, one
Fuhrer. He offered hope but a dark vision of the reasons Germany was suffering. He found his mantra, his dehumanizing
of a whole segment of the German polity. Roosevelt, on the other hand, offered
hope: "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." No scapegoat, but positive moves to
revive the flagging American economy, marred by soup kitchens, starving
veterans camping in Grant Park and on the Mall in Washington, chased away by
troops commanded by Douglas MacArthur, unemployment reaching 25%. Grown men selling apples in the street,
unable to feed their children.
Hitler
offered scapegoats, the Jews, the Bolsheviks, the conjured enemies. Not unlike Vladimir Putin, the manifestation
of a failed one-horse Russian democracy, now an authoritarian kleptocracy.
Hitler
was able to silence dissent by murdering his critics, and establish a climate
of the legitimate fear of being killed or being sent to concentration camps.
Roosevelt
offered a new deal to America, government jobs, WPA, TVA, CCC, infrastructure
projects, public works projects and a hopeful, cheerful optimism, not unlike
his successor; Ronald Regan did 50 years later. Hitler offered war, "lebensraum," expansion to the
east, and the night of broken glass (Kristalnacht), racial hared and violence, the
promise of conquest of other nations to alleviate German yearnings for
prosperity and expansion, but through war, prodding internal economic growth.
Trump
offers blame on the Chinese, immigrants, loose borders, Hispanics, Muslims and
thinly veiled threats against minorities and people who are not as fortunate to
have been born the scion of a real estate magnate.
On
the inauguration stage, we saw a white guy with children from three different
wives in stark contrast to a dignified African American, the exemplar of class,
fidelity, and integrity who became President of the United States. Great credit goes to our citizens for
electing him. Did he make mistakes?
Surely. But his decency,
thoughtfulness and character was a credit to the Presidency and to his country. Throughout
history we have learned that character is the hallmark of great leaders. Trump has none. And that is already being demonstrated.
When
we think of America as exceptional, it is. Exceptional in the antiquity of its system of government and
the gullibility of its people. We
need to be able to issue a vote of no confidence rather than having an
albatross hanging from our stretched necks for four years. The Constitution needs an
amendment. And the interstate
compact of awarding all the electoral votes of the individual states to the winner of the national popular
vote needs to move ahead to abolish the anachronism of the Electoral College allowing a winner who
claims a mandate though he received three million less votes than his opponent.
This 18th century instrument, based upon slavery needs to be relegated to
history's dustbin.
Trump's
raised fist, his anger, his ego, belies his fragile character, his inability to
withstand criticism, and his ad hominem attacks on his critics, rendering him unfit
to occupy the White House.
He is a boy-man, a privileged, spoiled, tweeting, grotesque caricature
and a humiliation to our country.
And
now, people who did not bother to vote are realizing that they should have.
