Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
The United States has an impressive legacy of leadership, boasting war leaders like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and FDR, and nation builders like Jack Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We have also elected notable scholars like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, ferocious defenders of democracy like John Adams and Teddy Roosevelt, and defenders of the social order like Lyndon B. Johnson.
However, we’ve also had our share of less brilliant luminaries like Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson, and Warren Harding, presidents whose ineptitude or inaction led to the Civil War and the Great Depression and the end of Reconstruction, respectively. Because of his implication in the Watergate scandal and its cover-up, Richard Nixon was forced to resign. But anyone—even the American people—can make an honest mistake. They are human.
Faced with this resume for elected leaders, the American, by and large, have done pretty well choosing their presidents. While occasionally duped or blinded by fear, the American has usually chosen leaders who are intelligent, conscientious, and courageous. In 2008, America elected its first African American as president, and while the Obama Administration may have seemed ineffective against a recalcitrant Republican-run Congress, they still managed to pass the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the most comprehensive health care plan in U.S. history.
It is all the more surprising then that Americans elected Donald Trump as president in 2016. Not only was he a profoundly inexperienced politician (no, being an outsider is not a plus), but he ran one of the crass and vulgar campaigns in recent memory. He was recorded talking about grabbing women’s private parts, bragged that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still be elected, and resorted to juvenile name-calling such as “Little Marco” or “Lying Ted” or “Crooked Hillary” to denigrate his rivals. He resorted to schoolyard bullying tactics when attacking his opponents, singling out their wives and other family members, implying that Ted Cruz’s father was somehow involved in the JFK assassination. Because of his juvenile attacks and vulgar displays of showmanship, most political pundits dismissed Trump, assuming that Hillary Clinton would become the female United States president.
Yet, somehow, the American people voted him in. Granted, Trump did not get a majority of the vote and squeaked into office because of the Electoral College, but in the end, he got into the White House because of the vote count. Pundits and political strategists scratched their heads and wondered how it happened—Was it Fox News? Did they finally succeed in brainwashing a majority of the American people? Was it a profound disassociation between the people and the government? Was it frustration with Washington gridlock? Or all of the above?
Whatever the reason, the White House had to ride herd on a renegade for four years, advising him not to bomb Iran or consort with dictators like Vladimir Putin in public. And , somehow, the country survived those four years, and the worst pandemic in recent history, despite this man’s incompetence. He allegedly violated the emoluments clause (forbidding US presidents from using their office for personal financial gain) numerous times, distorted the truth and misled the American public, and, after his defeat for reelection to the White House in 2020, spread the lie that the election was stolen and that he was rightfully president.
He then staged a rally in D.C. on January 6th, 2021, that led to the assault on the U.S. Capitol, an assault designed to disrupt the election certification results. Luckily, thanks to the courageous efforts of the Capitol Police, a few stalwart congressional interns, and—perhaps the most unlikely hero—Mike Pence, the attempted coup was averted. His epic bad judgement and selfishness—and sheer cluelessness (suggesting drinking bleach as a way to combat COVID—was monumental.
All right. Anyone can make a mistake, but this one was a dilly. A soon-to-be ex-president had attempted to seize power from the US Government. He incited a crowd to attack and disrupt a session of Congress, an attack during which people died. This was by far the worst behavior of any American president in our history. And then it came out that Mr. Trump had attempted to coerce election officials in Georgia to “find him” more votes, a charge which is currently being investigated by a grand jury. Last week, he was indicted by a Federal grand jury for withholding top secret documents from the government, documents that have since been revealed to contain information about the military and nuclear capabilities of foreign nations. The ex-president allegedly waved these documents around in front of declassified people during a lunch at one of his golf clubs. Okay. Tack onto that a civil judgement for a sexual assault case and more—yes, there is more, and you have to wonder how this criminal ever made it into the White House.
Anyone can make a mistake, sure, but now, in 2024, after January 6th, after the Mar-a-Lago document scandal, after the Stormy Daniels porn star payoff, and after the Georgia vote scandal investigation, Donald Trump declared his candidacy for Republican nomination for president and is leading the field in all national polls by anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five percent.
What the hell is wrong with the American people? Is the same nation that elected Lincoln and JFK and FDR? After all Donald Trump has done, all he’s said, and his bare-faced arrogance about doing it again, after his abysmally bad—and downright evil—track record, how could anyone believe he would be fit to lead this country again. It would be worse than letting the fox into the henhouse—again—it would be akin to handing ourselves over to a wannabe autocrat. He attempted to take over our government once; why would anyone let him have another shot at that? In which universe would that be a good idea?
And yet here we are. Trump is leading among all Republican candidates. His candidacy raises a series of interesting questions. Should Trump be convicted, he would be a felon and could very well be sentenced to jailtime. If the unthinkable happens and he’s re-elected, could he run the country from his prison cell? Would he be under house arrest, or could he pardon himself? Would he wreak vengeance on Jack Smith and the other prosecutors who convicted him and dissolve the Department of Justice? Or maybe just populate it with his own minions.
What has happened to the hearts and minds of the American people who want to re-elect this man? How is this candidacy even a possibility? This crass, avaricious, and selfish slug of a human being has somehow cajoled his way into the hearts of the Republican Party, the party that spawned Lincoln, Reagan, Eisenhower, and George H.W. Bush—all infinitely decent men. This devolution of our national soul is embarrassing, unbelievable, and incalculably destructive. What have we become—and worse yet, who will we become should we continue down this track?