America has always been a country of symbolic gestures, from dumping tea into Boston Harbor to flying jets in formation over football stadiums. The actions themselves don't mean much, but they recall some aspect of America that we cherish—the willingness to fight against tyranny or to display in some peaceful manner our military might. Valentine hearts, Easter eggs, Independence Day fireworks, and, in recent years, the ubiquitous and oft-maligned pumpkin-spice latte—they all define a nation of people who, when younger, grew bored of hearing about symbols in their English classes but would prefer to maintain them in their everyday lives.
But America, a beacon of independence, has always allowed room for the iconoclast—the one who questions the worth of some of these symbols. There is room for the traditionalist and the rebel, but there will never be room for the malefactor—the individual for whom the misery of others is collateral damage and whose rebellions satisfy no requirements but his own.
I refer, of course, to our malefactor-in-chief, the churlish child-man, the aging felon, Donald Trump.
In our personal lives, we would never be able to bear such a person as a neighbor, an associate, or a colleague. We would never choose him to be the godfather of our infant, the coach of our children, or a teacher in our community, yet upwards of 70 million Americans are ready to vote him their next president, despite his alarming—some would say irrational—behavior of the past few weeks. He has become cruder, more pugnacious, and less coherent. He's the relative you don't want at your table because he will do or say something awful. He likes to double down when called out, but even though we've grown accustomed to it, sometimes enough is enough.
The incident in Arlington National Cemetery last week must be difficult to countenance, even for his most ardent supporters. His asinine behavior while shooting a campaign video there recently and his dumb-ass thumbs-up smirk with 400,000 graves as a backdrop are hard to unsee, nor can they be chalked up to simple egoism. Instead, some hideous amalgam of stupidity and malice was at work in the purposeful disparagement of a tradition by which we honor our lost fighting men and women—those individuals he has famously called suckers and losers. One would think a draft dodger like Trump might be more sensitive to the families of those killed in service to their country, but as he would gleefully admit, he doesn't do sensitive.
No, he doesn't. Donald Trump is the one who cuts you off on the highway, who stiffs the waitress in the coffee shop, who refuses to pay his taxes but demands that you pay yours, who refers to women who contradict him as "nasty." The men who contradict him he refers to his lawyers.
I have tried for nearly a decade to avoid the Hillary Clinton gaffe about deplorables—have tried to recognize that people who admire Donald Trump are not him—that supporting a convicted felon is part of the freedom our democracy grants us. But last week's repugnant spectacle at Arlington should disqualify Donald Trump from ever holding an elected position, especially one in which he must swear an oath to protect this country...and, oh yes, be named Commander-in-Chief.
The problems we face in our country today—immigration, inflation, poverty, racism, and prejudice—can at least be addressed, if not solved, if we have leaders invested in the solution. A malign presence in the White House, though—one whose concept of government centers on punishment and retribution—will exacerbate these problems until solutions are no longer feasible. Trump likes to claim America has become a banana republic; of course, if he can turn it into one, he can become the strong-armed leader that those nations engender.
In truth, I don't worry as much about democracy. It's pretty stable and resilient. It has overcome worse scourges than Donald Trump—including him, once. But though I understand the apprehension people feel at giving him a second chance at dictatorship, I can also foresee, in the not-too-distant future, an open rebellion against those who wish to run our country with the unread Bible in one hand and a Supreme Court ruling in the other. Americans have relegated those kinds of people—from Hitler and Stalin to Pol Pot and Noriega—to the ash heap of history. Donald Trump will end there—we can only hope to limit the damage until that happens.
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