Charles Joseph Albert
We all know people whom we otherwise admire with whom we disagree on political questions such as whether government should be bigger or smaller, or whether healthcare is a right or a privilege, or even whether the recent climate change is anthropogenic or natural in origin. It is likely that that one’s beliefs on these sorts of issues come from fundamental moral convictions: a conservative mentality seems to be linked to a reverence for law and order, and a liberal world view is correlated with an aspiration for fairness. In any case, both inclinations are moral, and valid, and important to the well-being of any country.
However, we also know that throughout human history, there have been political issues in which one side clearly holds moral superiority. We can all, conservatives and liberals alike, agree that Stalin was not justified in starving to death entire peoples in Soviet Russia. We concur that Pol Pot was indefensible in butchering over a million Cambodians. We can recognize the odiousness of James Henry Hammond’s promotion of slavery in America. These people are understood to be moral failures, their positions are abnegations of the most basic human rights.
I want to distinguish between the more weighty moral questions and the mere differences of political opinion because in this time of political hyperbole and extreme partisanship, we seem to be often conflating the two. This is a mistake. We need recognize the absolute necessity of embracing and celebrating divergent political opinions: this is a fundamental strength of democracy. But we should also recognize and condemn immoral attacks on the values that had once made America great.
There has been a steady current criticism of President Trump in the liberal media since even before he took office, with much lamenting over his cronyism, his pettiness, his sexual immorality. And yet many people of good faith found they could support the man despite these personality flaws.
However, we soon learned that Trump’s flaws went deeper than mere personality. The Trump presidency has, to my count, crossed five moral lines in the sand--any one of which should have been sufficient for all Americans of good faith to recognize as an unforgivable failure, a complete and unarguable disqualification to be President:
1. Erosions of Democracy
Trump’s embrace of Russian interference and his subsequent obstructions of the Mueller investigation should have been enough to get him impeached, and surely would have were it not for an appalling display of party over country by the Republican Party.
The conclusions of Part 2 of the Report are very clear: Trump obstructed, he withheld information, and he directed his staff to break the law. Mueller concluded by pointing out that he didn’t have the authority to judge the criminality of Trump’s actions, urged Congress to act. But the Republican controlled Senate made sure that didn’t happen.
However, even the appalling complicity of Mitch McConnel couldn’t protect Trump from his own fully documented attempts to instigate a deceitful Ukrainian investigation into Joe Biden--at the expense of our relationship with that critical political ally--was enough to get him, rightfully, impeached. It should have been enough to get him removed from office, but once again, the Republicans and McConnell rushed to his indefensible defense.
Currently, the cuts and reductions at the Post Office by Trump’s allies come at the expense of the greater population--as we have seen in countless recent stories of delayed deliveries and lost mail--and have as the principal beneficiary only Trump. If his mnuchen, Steve Minion, had just been able to get away with the sabotage, Trump would have won bragging rights for the elimination of a government-subsidized program that is the only means of delivery for many rural communities. He would also get revenge on one of his enemies, Jeff Bezos. But most importantly, as he has admitted himself in a rare and ill-advised moment of candor, he gets to suppress mail-in votes.
2. Asylum
Every civilized country in the world allows asylum-seekers entry into their borders. To refuse to allow refugees in is, for many, a death sentence. Good people may differ on whether a particular immigrant family’s story is valid. But the fact is irrefutable that many who have been turned away by Trump’s closing of the southern border are now dead. This is as fundamentally unAmerican as any evil imaginable. Indeed, Trump’s anti-abortion supporters, who have claimed a higher moral ground for his packing of the courts with “right to life” candidates, are completely kneecapped by this act alone.
Less immediately life–or-death but equally immoral was the administration’s policy of separating children from their parents, which is universally understood to cause long-term harm. Thousands of children brought here to legally apply for protection at our borders have been immediately stripped from their families and put into the custodianship of an indifferent and inept bureaucracy, for no better reason than discouraging future refugee families.
3. COVID-19
Trump’s inept and callous initial response to COVID-19 has resulted in the avoidable death of tens of thousands more Americans than if we’d had a competent and intelligent president. In those first few weeks, his leadership offered nothing more than denial of science, magical thinking, and more concern for his reelection chances than for the welfare of others.
In May 2018 he disbanded the federal pandemic team. In January 2020 he refused to act even as other countries and even US states like California began to create response protocols. By the end of February the federal government had still done nothing, and Trump was promising his base that it was less dangerous than the flu and would go away “like magic.” Meanwhile, California put together an entire shelter-in-place program. All through the spring, he continued to peddle quack remedies and urge people to rebel against state governments who were actually trying to combat the spread. In the pinnacle of callousness, he even held the rally in Tulsa, driving infection rates up 200%.
Let’s compare the death rate in California to that of the nation. This is the most conservative approach I know to calculating the excess number of deaths due to Trump's ineptitude, the inexcusable negligence of his handlers, and the unbelievable gullibility of his supporters.
California currently has 30 deaths per 100,000 population. If the entire country’s COVID response had been managed by an equally competent administration, there would be fewer than 99,000 total deaths, instead of over 180,000 actual. This is ignoring how many fewer would be dead in California if there had been any competence in Washington. And it means that the blood of over 80,000 is on the hands of Trump and everyone reprehensible enough to still be supporting him.
4. Denial of Reality
Even before Trump was a candidate, his birtherism should have been a red flag clearly signaling his unfitness for the highest office in the land. And his insistence that Hillary Clinton deserved to be “locked up” for her emails or for Benghazi, despite lacking any evidence to support those claims, was yet another indication that this man was unfit for office. After all, he would be in charge of the Justice Department.
The president must be the leading defender of the constitution and the rule of law. Trump has instead demonstrated a complete disregard or even ignorance of it. The excuse offered by his supporters is that “all politician lie,” but the Trump administration has elevated alternate facts such a pitch as has never before been seen. Even the most cursory glance into the Trump record on lying yields an embarrassment of data that should blanch the soul of even the most ostrich-like partisan.
History will not judge kindly this country’s dangerous dip into Nerovian levels of self-delusion. Trump’s inability to grasp reality in all questions of national interest--health science, economics, diplomacy… even meteorology--could not any more clearly indicate his complete lack of fitness for his post.
5. International Standing
During Trump’s campaign for president, he often claimed that the United States had become a laughing stock in the world, that the shameful legacy of Obama was that we were bullied by allies and adversaries alike. He promised to replace the Iran nuclear deal with something more advantageous to America, and to deal more firmly with the nuclear threat of North Korea. He has failed miserably. The entire world is now closer to nuclear war than it has ever been. But he has vindicated his “laughing stock” claim, for it is now impossible to find a country anywhere in the world which still respects the leadership of United States. Trump has made us irrelevant in many international meetings.
It is not immoral to allow America to fade into international irrelevance… except that the mendacious and authoritarian regime of China is the only other superpower. And the murderous thugs of the Putin regime to continue to destabilize democracies around the globe. And it is immoral to lack concern for the fate of humanity outside of the US borders. And so is the inability to recognize that injustice anywhere is equivalent to injustice everywhere.
So there you have it. Five primary reasons why it is unAmerican to support Trump in 2020. I have not mentioned his unconstitutional attacks on peaceful protesters, his hundreds of unconstitutional instructions to his staff which were only aborted because they refused to carry them out, or any of the other signs that the man is the least fit President in this country’s history. It is conceivable that, with the right spin, some of that might be overlooked.
But these five iron-clad reasons that every true American must vote for Biden in November cannot be hand-waived away. Only lamentable ignorance or an amoral hyper-partisanship can do that.
Either way, may the historians of the future have mercy on your wayward soul.
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