Krugman describes having a friend send him an email suggesting he read an article about how Trump's brain works. He says a voice inside his head said, "No thanks, I would prefer not to. . . . I'm full."
Thanks exactly the way I have come to feel about the daily, sometimes hourly, avalanche of news that Donald Trump generates. And that is never more true than what I came back to from my break -- the weekend events in Charlottesville, the president's inadequate reaction, and everyone's feelings about that.
Condensed in this one weekend is a microcosm of the failure of the Trump presidency. As Walt Whitman might have said: It "contains multitudes," including: (1) the racist/fascist mentality leading up to the clashes and the murder; (2) including the several insufficient statements President Trump made supposedly to put it to rest, but which inflamed it; (3) the appalling, disaster of a press briefing on Tuesday , when the charge "temperamentally unfit for the presidency" finally focused, laser-like, for all to see; and then (4) what does it all mean for where we are as a nation, with this president, and what do we do about it?
That is a multitude too many for me to deal with in one post. It's something we'll come back to, as we will as a society, again and again. What I want to focus on in this one is the president's role as a moral leader, a role that Donald Trump is so woefully inadequate, as a human being, to fill.
HuffPost's Igor Bobic put it this way in his August 16th essay:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said the presidency is “preeminently a place of moral leadership.” By drawing an equivalence between white nationalist groups and people protesting on behalf of equality . . . Donald Trump has ceded that responsibility.
Trump ignited a firestorm of bipartisan criticism this week when he blamed "many sides" and "both sides" for the deadly violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and defended racist demonstrators there. Protesters . . . waved Nazi flags and burning torches, and shouted racist and anti-Semitic slogans as they marched, but Trump ― after describing racism as "evil" on Monday -- insisted Tuesday that many people at the rally “were there to innocently protest” the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
“What Trump did today is a moral disgrace,” Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer said Tuesday. Prominent conservative radio host Charlie Sykes called Trump’s equivocal condemnation of white supremacists a "moral dumpster fire."
On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) framed the issue in a similar way, tweeting: “There is no question who he [Trump] is. The critical moral question is: who are we? We can not surrender America to Trump.”
On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) framed the issue in a similar way, tweeting: “There is no question who he [Trump] is. The critical moral question is: who are we? We can not surrender America to Trump.”
Other Democrats, like former Barack Obama aide David Axelrod, wondered whether Trump would make some sort of effort to heal wounds and bring the nation together . . . . It’s become increasingly clear, however, that Trump has no interest in taking such steps.
During an angry news conference in New York on Tuesday, Trump parried questions about the so-called alt-right movement by asking, “What about the alt-left?” While in the past he’d been happy to issue moral judgments about other politicians, fellow heads of state, journalists and clothing retailers, here, facing questions about racism, he appeared to reject the role of moral arbiter.
During an angry news conference in New York on Tuesday, Trump parried questions about the so-called alt-right movement by asking, “What about the alt-left?” While in the past he’d been happy to issue moral judgments about other politicians, fellow heads of state, journalists and clothing retailers, here, facing questions about racism, he appeared to reject the role of moral arbiter.
“I’m not putting anybody on a moral plane,” he said, after a reporter asked whether he was placing white supremacists and those who protested against them on the same footing.
It wasn’t just pundits and politicians who urged Trump to live up to the moment. Historians, too, said that with his reluctance to single out racism and bigotry for condemnation, Trump has ceded the presidency’s moral authority and threatened America’s leadership at home and abroad.
Trump lost “the moral standing to speak for or about America,” Harvard Professor Theda Skocpol told HuffPost. “Every second he is in office he damages and endangers us. In this instance, he is directly encouraging organized, violent white supremacists who will bring public agony to many places for months to come.”
Jon Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer, called Trump’s remarks on Tuesday “morally ambiguous” at best. He predicted that Trump’s behavior will further erode the public’s trust in political institutions.
“We have to be in a position, both as a country and as a global community, where we believe what the president says, where you have some innate confidence that things are in fairly good hands,” Meacham said. “And I think for a lot of people, that level of confidence started low [with Trump], and it’s gotten to be almost nonexistent. So I think it’s an exacerbating moment.”. . .
Barack Obama biographer and Washington Post editor David Maraniss was more explicit, calling on all living former presidents to make a joint statement urging Trump to resign.
Veteran NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, meanwhile, said he doubts whether Trump can reverse the damage he’s done in the wake of Charlottesville. "He's going to have to find a way to stitch the country together again, and frankly, I don't know if he's capable of doing that in his own mind," Brokow said. He's the moral authority by the office that he has, and it's about time for him to exercise that."
Veteran NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, meanwhile, said he doubts whether Trump can reverse the damage he’s done in the wake of Charlottesville. "He's going to have to find a way to stitch the country together again, and frankly, I don't know if he's capable of doing that in his own mind," Brokow said. He's the moral authority by the office that he has, and it's about time for him to exercise that."
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People on both political sides are calling this a "pivotal moment" for Trump's presidency. Privately, a large number of Republican leaders are said to be aghast, horrified. One Republican strategist said that "Every member that I've talked to has been apoplectic" about Trump's news conference. This is not a good day for the Trump presidency. It is not a good day for race relations, nor for America.
And yet, the smoldering racism has been there for some time, putting the lie to the false narrative that Obama's election to the White House meant we were in a "post-race" society. It is a national conversation we need to have.
Services were held yesterday for Heather Heyer, the 32 year old activist who was killed by a neo-Nazi's ramming his car into the peaceful counter-protesters crowd. Her mother spoke eloquently about Heather's positive activism, saying that her Facebook motto was: "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." The mother said that she'd rather have her daughter here, but if that can't be, "let's make her death count."
Ralph
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