SAVING OUR DEMOCRACY THROUGH TRUMP OBSESSION

In case you haven’t noticed, we are obsessed with Donald Trump. He gets far more news coverage than any of his predecessors. We incessantly talk, tweet, post and blog about him. Late night and early morning talk shows digest the Donald’s every move. Four films at this year’s Sundance Festival were about Trump. Psychotherapists are treating patients for “Trump Anxiety Disorder”. Drained by the antics of our 45th president, people are unplugging from social media just to clear their heads.

So, in the vernacular of Brokeback Mountain, why can’t we quit him? What sense does it make to fixate on someone we know will fill our hearts with angst, agony and anger? Why not go on a lean Trump diet of a morsel or two every now and then?

The answer is that Donald J. Trump poses a lethal threat to the core principles of our 242-year-old democracy. Ignoring the elephant in the room doesn’t mean he’s not there. We have every reason to be anxious and angry. Yet, our deliverance from this morass will come from continued vigilance, not escapist denial. And come it must, for our very way of life is at stake.

If you think that last sentence was mere hyperbole, then consider what this president said Monday night in response to a warrant authorizing the search of his attorney’s office: “It’s an attack on our country . . . ; it’s an attack on what we all stand for.” Of course, “what we all stand for” is a nation of laws. The search warrant was sought through those very laws, by top U.S. Justice Department officials appointed by Trump. It was also authorized by a federal judge, representing a separate branch of government. It was as American as apple pie. Yet the president of the United States saw the search as treason simply because it might have adverse consequences for him. Only in an autocracy ruled by a strongman tyrant would that premise make sense.

Therein lies the problem. Trump approaches the presidency as if our constitutional democracy doesn’t exist. He may think he has a bigger nuclear button than his North Korean counterpart, but what the Donald really wants is Kim Jong-il’s title: Supreme Leader. Trump is perpetually mystified and profoundly frustrated with the parliamentary ways of Congress. And he has no time whatsoever for the annoying intrusion of a judiciary he can’t control. As he has said so many times, “I alone” can fix the country’s problems. If only he could find a way to rule the kingdom by himself.

And that is precisely why it is so important for us not to turn our backs on this presidency. Two Harvard professors, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, wrote a book called How Democracies Die. They cited four markers, all of which have Trump written all over them: They are:

1. Rejecting or showing weak commitment to democratic rule.
2. Denying the legitimacy of political opponents.
3. Encouraging or tolerating violence.
4. A readiness to stifle or limit civil liberties of opponents, including media.

Hanna Arendt, a noted political philosopher of the Twentieth Century, wrote about the characteristics of totalitarianism more than 80 years ago. The ideal subject for totalitarian rule, Arendt wrote, “is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exists.” According to the Washington Post fact checker, Trump made more than 2,000 false or misleading statements during his first 355 days in office. He has relentlessly gone after the news media, insisting that everything they publish or broadcast is “fake news.” Polls show that a substantial portion of his base believes him.

If Donald Trump ruled this country in the authoritarian style he craves, there would be a total Muslim ban, a complete rollback of LGBTQ rights, a wall around Mexico, eviction from the country of 800,000 young immigrants brought here as children, deportation of millions more, all without due process. To one extent or another, those objectives have either been scaled back or blocked by the courts, or by the actions or inactions of Congress. So far, our democracy is holding, even against the will of a man determined to undermine it.

Yes, the news media has covered Trump more extensively than any other president. And, yes, most of the coverage has been negative. But it’s negative in the same sense that a story about a devastating hurricane is negative. By definition, news is an aberration, something unexpected or contrary to custom and tradition. When Trump, on almost a daily basis, issues statements that are patently false, that’s news. When the president calls impoverished African countries “shitholes”, that’s news. When he says one thing and then does the complete opposite, that’s news. When he repeatedly demeans and insults other governmental leaders, including members of his own cabinet, that’s news.

At this very moment, according to news reports, we are on the verge of a constitutional crisis. Trump wants to fire Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and other Justice Department officials in an attempt to shut down the Russian election interference investigation. So far, his own advisors and other Republican leaders have held him back. But, as we know, Trump doesn’t take kindly to advice that runs contrary to his impulse.

Clearly, our democracy is facing more peril than it has in at least 50 years. Now is the time for more Trump news, not less. Now is the time, for us to tune in, not out. A recent poll showed that one in five Americans have participated in protests against Trump. That’s just the vigilance we need to protect our democracy. After all, that is really, in the president’s words, “what we all stand for”.