It is impossible to read, watch or listen to the news without recoiling from what is happening in the United States. It seems as if all the great accomplishments of western civilization from the Renaissance to the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment and even the Industrial Revolution are under attack by barbarians bent on their destruction. Nothing is sacred, including the extraordinary progress made in human relationships and moral justice in our commonweal the last 250 years.
Trump plays the antichrist, directing the carnage without regard for historical truth, time-honored traditions, or moral convictions. He believes only in power and is driven by greed, self-interest, egotism and a perverted need for revenge. Ignorance supersedes knowledge as his guide.
Think about it:
Trump does not value human life. He casually ignores the suffering of others, personally and in regard to wars and natural disasters such as hurricanes.
Trump is both amoral and immoral. For the most part, he has no moral compass, but other times when he acts out of malice, he must know that he goes against established moral standards.
Trump acts like a feudal warlord, seeking booty and riches for himself and his family, bartering government resources for personal gain without regard for consequences.
Trump is anti-science. During the Covid crisis he equivocated and constantly criticized medical advice that resulted in untold American deaths despite his administrations’s development of a vaccine. He ignores evidence of climate change, hamstrings federal health agencies and ridicules scientists like Anthony Fauci. His appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services reflects his contempt for the scientific community.
Trump is anti-intellectual in that he is contemptuous of scientists, academics and others whose experience and education make them indispensable in understanding and solving major issues. In this he plays to the long-held American bias that sees studying ideas as inferior to common sense action.
Trump is a tyrant who continually attacks the media and press, judges and courts, law firms and universities who potentially have the power to oppose him and his abusive presidency. Doing so is the mark of authoritarians throughout history.
Trump’s ignorance of how government works and the role of “rule of law” in the United States is appalling. He sees both as mere obstacles preventing him from having his way; his refusal to uphold the rule of law threatens the very foundations of our government. He has violated “due process” repeatedly in an effort to deport immigrants, legal and illegal, and most recently is floating the idea to suspend habeas corpus.
Trump has approved and encouraged the purging of offensive books from libraries across the nation, including those at the military academies where cadets are not trusted to read even Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Dictating what people can read is de rigueur for authoritarian governments from Russia and China to Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Trump’s economy is the new mercantilism, protectionist, backward looking, and jingoistic. It looks to resurrecting industries which have been surpassed by technological progress, new and different markets and inescapable global dependence. Regrettably, his decisions and actions are too often dictated by partisan politics rather than sound economic ideas.
This is where we find ourselves today, under the foot of a megalomaniac devoid of a conscience or empathy egged on by a complicit political party.
This is not the time for complacency; it is the time for outrage and action to save our republic.