His supporters will never understand it, but Trump is the worst president in American history— worse than Nixon, worse than Buchanan, worse than Hoover, Harding, Andrew Johnson, Pierce, Tyler (who actually joined the Confederacy), Fillmore… Trump was worse than any of them… worse than any two of them. But that’s no longer enough to express the depravity of his time in office. Yesterday, David Rothkopf and Bernard Schwartz came up with another way to express why Trump is a serious danger to America: Trump Is a Combination of Every Threat We Have Ever Faced in Our History.
Most people think of members of Trump’s MAGA cult as morons and although many are morons, that’s just coincidental to their membership in the cult. I had a long talk with a neuroscientist the other day who told me that intelligence— lack of intelligence— is not a determining factor. He suggested two others that are: a propensity towards authoritarianism and susceptibility to manipulation and suggestibility. Susceptibility to Trump’s manipulative tactics stem from various factors, including psychological vulnerabilities, social pressures and a desire for belonging and acceptance.
Tens of millions of people, MAGAts, aren’t with us; they’re fully bought into the cult; unreachable. “For the past nearly 250 years,” wrote Rothkopf and Schwartz, “when the United States faced a grave threat, our people rose up and sacrificed whatever it took to defeat it. From the American Revolution to the Civil War to the menace of the Nazis or Soviet communism, we were willing to do what we had to do to defend what we valued most about this country. Today, as it did once before, in 1861, the greatest peril confronting the country comes from within. Then as now, it was a threat that sought to divide America, and it was a threat founded in racism, contempt for our Constitution, and a twisted sense of what was worth preserving from our past. The new threat, of course, is led by Donald Trump.”
As Noah pointed out last week, as Ulysses Grant approached his last full year in the White House, he spoke at the annual reunion of the Army of the Tennessee in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 29, 1875, about the importance of ensuring an educated citizenry and maintaining the separation of church and state in order to protect the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The modern GOP has fought against both. Grant: “The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.”
Yesterday, Alan Grayson told me that Huxley’s classic book about banning books, Brave New World, has been banned by a zealous right-wing school board near where he lives. That was required reading when I was in high school. Last week we looked at how so many people under 40 have never heard the term “robber baron.” That’s the way the education system has devolved. Classic books, masterpieces that teach critical thinking (the ultimate enemy of authoritarianism)— from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger and 1984 by George Orwell to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and Beloved by Toni Morrison— have been banned by MAGA cultists in schools and libraries across the country.
“In recent days,” continued Rothkopf and Schwartz, “we have watched as the vast majority of leaders of the Republican Party, including many of Trump’s former foes, from Marco Rubio to Ted Cruz, have lined up behind the twice-impeached, frequently indicted former president. Nikki Haley can stay in the race as long as she likes, but the primaries are now effectively over. The worst president in our history is, arguably, stronger within the leadership ranks of the Republican Party than he has ever been. He is now the most dangerous presidential candidate in U.S. history. As a consequence, the great question before the rest of us is whether enough of us are ready to do whatever is necessary to defeat this threat as we have all those that have come before.” Interesting phrase “whatever is necessary,” isn’t it? Do you hope someone else does it?
Joe Biden by any objective metric has been one of the most successful presidents in modern U.S. history. He has led the creation of more major legislative initiatives benefiting the American people than any president in 60 years. He oversaw the creation of more than 14 million jobs during his first three years in office. He has brought down inflation and reduced the prices of vital medicines to affordable levels. He has restored American leadership worldwide, expanded our vital alliances like NATO, and stood up to our enemies. All presidents face challenges and make missteps. But it is hard to deny that in the wake of the U.S. economic recovery, the passage of the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the CHIPs and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the expansion of NATO, and the creation of new Indo-Pacific alliances, Biden’s record is formidable.
That a president with this record is in a horse race with a candidate who is a menace to the country, who led an insurrection, who is a pathological liar whom courts have found to be a fraud and a rapist, and who has no real ideas, no credible policy proposals, no record of actually ever achieving anything for the American people is chilling.
You would have thought that the sight of mobs carrying Trump flags and weapons and chanting for the death of Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021, would have been alarm enough. You would have thought the same of Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, in which he confessed his impulse to abuse women. You would have thought the two dozen women who accused him of abuse would have had that effect. Even if none of those things were quite warning enough, you would have thought the findings in the E. Jean Carroll case would have been enough. After all, respected federal judge Lew Kaplan wrote, “The fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused— indeed, raped— Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case.”
It should have been enough. But so far, it has not been.
You would have thought that Trump reaching out on national television to our Russian adversaries for aid during the 2016 campaign would have been enough. You would have thought the conclusive findings of every major U.S. intelligence agency that Russia sought to aid Trump’s campaign would have been enough. You would have thought that Robert Mueller’s finding 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump would have been enough. You would have thought Trump kowtowing to Vladimir Putin and taking his word over that of our intelligence and law enforcement communities would have been enough. You would have thought his illegally withholding aid to Ukraine to seek dirt on Joe Biden would have been enough. You would have thought his impeachment for that would have been enough.
You would have thought his second impeachment for January 6 would have been enough. You would have thought his continually spreading “the Big Lie” about our elections would have been enough. You would have thought that the fact he sought to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power between U.S. political leaders for the first time in our history would have been enough. You would have thought that his continuing to advocate for the January 6 rioters and his promises to pardon these “hostages” would have been enough.
You would have thought that indictments on 91 different criminal counts would have been enough. How could they not be, given that he stole national secrets, defrauded banks and insurance companies, and orchestrated a nationwide effort to do the same to voters?
Or perhaps it would be that he increased the national debt by over $8 trillion, that his only major legislative accomplishment in four years in office was a tax cut that benefited the rich. Or perhaps it would be that he, as he so often brags, is the man behind stripping away the rights of women to control their own bodies, to get an abortion if they need one, that would have sent the message that he should never again be a candidate for any office of any kind in the United States.
Or, finally, after all that, perhaps it would have been Trump’s promises to be a dictator from day one, to fire all who are not loyal to him, to throw his opponents and media critics in jail, to round up undocumented immigrants into concentration camps, that would lead some, more than a tiny handful within his own party, to say: No, this is too far. This is what America has stood against, fought against since our founding. But no.
Trump wants to be a king like the one we overthrew. He wants to trash the Constitution, divide America, and promote white supremacy, as did enemies from within 160 years ago. He embraces the tactics of the fascists we fought in World War II. He is publicly an ally and part of global right-wing nationalist movements.
He acts like our enemies. Not like any one of them but like all of those we have ever faced combined into a single threat even more insidious than the others.
So, ask yourself, is that enough to make you do more than you have done? Is that enough to commit for the next 10 months to do more than you have ever done during an election year? To give more? To canvas more? To spread the word more? To help get voters to the polls? To ensure every member of your family, your friends, your co-workers do the same? The stakes are too high to do less than everything you can. The stakes are too high to allow this man to continue to play any role in American public life.
On CNN Friday evening, George Conway noted that Trump is “somebody who can’t control himself. And, he can’t control himself because he’s a deeply disturbed, a morally bereft human being who has no conscience, has no morality, has no empathy, has no remorse and is sadistic as we saw during the trial.”
