Instead, Americans receive never-ending rants from a detached president during this moment of crisis. President Donald Trump obsesses over perceived personal affronts, petty grievances, slights, betrayals and matters not relevant to issues crying out for serious, measured responses.
Worse, Trump has undermined his own administration’s attempts to guide us through the pandemic with absurd, science-denying comments over the possible benefits of injecting disinfectant and the perils of excessive Covid-19 testing. He has further plunged the country into a completely counterproductive debate by politicizing the wearing of masks.
This president has the attention span of a gnat. Trump couples that with an alarming ignorance of American history and a complete disinterest in matters of public policy. He has focused on defending military bases named for Confederate traitors and fighting the release of tell-all books by his former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, and his niece, Mary Trump.
Bolton’s book is both shocking and unsurprising as he lays out Trump’s misdeeds, unfitness, and incompetence in the performance of his presidential duties. Mary Trump, whose book has yet to be released, tells readers everything they need to know in the title: “Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man.”
Trump demands loyalty yet inspires none outside of his immediate family.
According to a recent Monmouth University poll, the president’s approval rating has dropped to 41%, and he is polling behind Joe Biden by 12 points. With numbers like these, the GOP must brace itself for what could easily be a devastating election night on November 2nd.
This would likely take down the Senate, much as Trump cost the GOP House in 2018. The never-ending disruptive chaos and daily White House inanities reflected in these dismal numbers have finally caught up to the president.
The GOP must return to the politics of inclusion and addition, not exclusion and subtraction. The demographic death march on which Trump has led the GOP will result in an electoral train wreck unless the party changes course. Rather than denying demographic reality, try embracing it by reaching out and broadening the appeal to constituencies beyond a shrinking base.
Speaking to people of color, religious minorities and the LGBTQ community will demand a policy platform that is socially tolerant and sensible, constructively engaged on the international stage and supports reasonably regulated free markets.
Trump and “Trumpism” make it virtually impossible to accomplish these objectives with the constant policy and rhetorical drumbeat of xenophobia, nativism, isolationism, protectionism, and, at times, nihilism. Trumpism’s glorification and celebration of ignorance, demagoguery, and wanton cruelty is no way to build a party platform and governing majorities on a national basis.
Social tolerance means accepting a diversity of views on issues like reproductive rights, support of LGBTQ issues, immigration reform and universal background checks.
As one of the last two pro-choice House Republicans in 2018 (currently there are none), I understand the political consequences for not strictly conforming to GOP orthodoxy on issues beyond reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood.
I deviated from GOP doctrine on embryonic stem cell research; the outrageous federal intervention in the Terri Schiavo case in 2005; repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; marriage equality, nondiscrimination and hate crimes protections for the LGBTQ community; legalizing the Dreamer or DACA population; and voicing opposition to unsustainable positions on defunding and repealing Obamacare.
For these and other matters of doctrinal apostasy, I was routinely called a RINO (Republican In Name Only), squish and capitulator by the self-designated chiefs of the Republican/Conservative purity police, who much prefer excommunication to conversion — even though the positions I held were broadly supported by the American people.
These self-righteous, sanctimonious frauds have revealed themselves as phonies in the Trump era and have abandoned any pretense of fidelity to principle or good character. Ratings, clicks, cash and access trump all else.
On the international stage, the GOP must reengage with traditional democratic allies, isolate hostile foreign actors and stop the assault on the American-led, rules-based order and multilateral institutions, imperfect as they are, that have largely advanced the national interest over the past 75 years.
Never in my lifetime could I have imagined an American president manipulated so easily and ignominiously by a Russian autocrat to advance Russian national interests. Trump insults faithful democratic allies, undercutting the intelligence community, attacking NATO and condemning the European Union.
More astonishing is Trump’s passive, non-response to reported Russian bounty payments made to Taliban insurgents who killed American troops in Afghanistan, about which Trump said he wasn’t even briefed because the intelligence was inconclusive. If this doesn’t succeed in offending Republican sensibilities, nothing will.
Walking away from agreements on trade and climate change will not solve problems. Trashing multilateral organizations and alliances does not protect American interests, as the world is not self-ordering absent American leadership and engagement.
America First, a term fraught with historical baggage, increasingly feels like America Alone. At a time when there is a bipartisan and international consensus on Chinese trade and human rights abuses, Trump is simply incapable of marshaling friends, partners and allies to address this common threat.
By isolating America and failing to advocate for democratic values, containing China becomes an even more daunting and delicate undertaking. The GOP must help America reclaim the mantle of global leadership. The alternative will be a globally destabilizing political vacuum filled by nations and actors that do not share our values or interests. Whatever its faults, Pax Americana beats all the other alternatives.
With an increasingly leftward-drifting Democratic Party under pressure from extreme elements, there is an opportunity for the GOP to speak to the political center of the country. That, however, requires serious, constructive engagement on issues like climate change, immigration, gun safety and other issues not traditionally in the Republican wheelhouse or comfort zone.
As the far-left wing of the Democratic Party continues down a frightening path openly hostile to industrial and agricultural America with policies like the Green New Deal or abolishing ICE, the time to engage and offer real policy alternatives is here and now.
Sadly, Trumpism is simply unable and incapable of responding with the kind of leadership this moment demands. Republicans find themselves left with the leader of Abraham Lincoln’s party defending confederate statuary and waging war on masks during a pandemic. It saddens me deeply that an electoral disaster might be the impetus to force a desperately needed course correction.
After Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful 2012 presidential race, the Republican National Committee wisely performed a very useful autopsy that identified ways to broaden the GOP’s base and appeal to new voters. The GOP discarded those findings.
Instead, a program and platform tailored to the whims of one hopelessly uninformed and unfit individual took their place. If there is a 2020 Democratic electoral rout, there won’t be a need for another GOP autopsy. Everyone already knows what — and who — killed the patient.
