There were two animating ideas to the Trump/MAGA campaign. They claimed that America was number 1 and should stay that way. And they claimed that American workers were being shortchanged and replaced. But Trump has been systematically undercutting both objectives.
He has been destroying America’s prospects – destroying the advantages in science and education that made and kept America Number 1. And while he destroys America’s worldwide dominance he has been ruining the prospects of American workers.
He has been taking apart everything America has done for ordinary Americans, from medical to financial security, and from educational opportunities to job opportunities.
MAGA supporters want to claim America as theirs alone, Christian, Protestant, devout. That was never true. The flag America flew on the hill was a flag of welcome. The Declaration of Independence was a promise to treat all here equally as appropriate to their character and skill. It was a promise renewed in the Reconstruction Amendments. People came because America promised to treat them decently and without prejudice. And it was that influx of fine, hearty, loving people that made America one of the largest, and therefore one of the dominant countries of the world. It was the industrial revolution and the influx of people from all over the world to staff its machinery that created the Union juggernaut that won the Civil war and kept the states together.
Whenever we want to do something for the needy we’re told the rich – the very people who can take care of themselves – will be impoverished.
Whenever we try to protest, we are threatened that our own soldiers will gun us down instead of protecting us.
Whenever we try to discuss political options Little Donald threatens our broadcast licenses, their funding and their bank accounts if not their very lives as he recently threatened congressmen whose crime was to tell us all what the law says for all to hear.
Trump refuses to protect our children and families from obliteration.
He flouts due process as if his reputation depends on threatening our safety.
This is not a new issue. I’ve talked about it repeatedly, as the links should make clear. But the Congress and the Supreme Court and an important portion of the public has not seemed to care. Maybe the Epstein files will convince people that this is not an appropriate president. Maybe the weakening of our economy will have that effect on people. For many of us, the problem has been obvious for a long time – that this president neither knows nor cares what’s good for the country or its people.
What I want for Thanksgiving is an end to this nonsense. We need a patriot in the guilded palace formerly known as the White House, not a corrupt executive making deals for his own interests and at the sacrifice of the country’s.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran. He enjoys the help of his editor, Jeanette Gottlieb
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