Trump and Democracy

As you watch this video in which Ronald Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis discusses Trump, consider this:

• Everyone whose family that is even remotely connected to the U.S. presidency–past, present and future–will rue the day Trump took office, and, ironically, this will apply to Trump’s family at least as much as the descendants of James Monroe, et al.  The institution has been indelibly tainted, as the very word “Trump” will be forever associated with the drubbing of what at one time were core American values: truth, honesty, compassion and fairness.

• We all know people (see pic above) who “can’t deal” with the news media on the basis that “I’m too sensitive to handle all this stress.”  As Davis puts it, ” If you’re one of these people, it’s your sensitivity that is the problem right now.”  She’s right, of course.  Sitting on the sidelines and rooting for someone else to rise to the occasion is not a responsible position.

• What we’re experiencing right now is the textbook way that modern-day democracies fall into descent and ultimately die.  They don’t end in military coups; they erode from a slow and methodical process by which the institutions that had served to maintain democracy are chiseled down to the point that they are no longer effective.

When we hear Trump (and now Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro) refer to the mainstream media as “fake news,” we need to know exactly what we’re dealing with.  And if we sit around and watch, we will deserve exactly what we’re going to get.

Davis says her father “would be horrified at Trump’s America.” Funny, I think mine would too.  My dad was a conservative, but he made huge sacrifices for this country, and it’s hard to imagine that he could countenance America’s becoming the object of pity and contempt on the world stage.