In the second century BC Roman senator Cato the Elder is said to have used “Carthago delenda est” – meaning “Carthage [Rome’s bitter enemy] must be destroyed” as the closing line of all his speeches, Beginning in 2015,some anti-Trump organizations picked up the slogan. substituting “Trump” for “Carthage”. Every day now, as Donald Trump continues to endanger the future of American Democracy, the slogan, which I have used as the title of this column, seems to me to be becoming more and more relevant.
Some events dramatically change the course of history in ways far beyond the nature of the individual event. For example, the Kennedy assassination not only stopped the era of Camelot in its tracks and marked the end of American innocence, but it led to the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, who blundered into a major escalation of the unwinnable war in Vietnam. This, in turn, led to the election of Richard Nixon, Watergate, erosion of trust in government and the weakening of the expectation of an ever-better future for succeeding American generations.
Similarly, George W Bush’s Supreme Court-engineered defeat of Albert Gore for the presidency led to the war in Iraq – which was the first step in the neo-con plan to achieve permanent Republican control of government, together with unipolar American domination of the world (particularly the world’s oil) by maintaining a perpetual state of war. They failed in the former, but succeeded in the latter – as evidenced by the pointless and unsuccessful seventeen year war in Afghanistan, and the equally long and ongoing war on terrorism. This changed America in many ways. For example, unquestioning reverence for the military became the norm. Reserve duty went from a being a two-week obligation (or escape) to actually fighting in a war. Loaded words like “Homeland” crept into our vocabulary. Whereas world peace was the norm in the period prior to Iraq, diverse wars and conflicts are the norm today.
This brings us to the Donald Trump era. In many respects, Trump is like an idiot savant – a brilliant instinctive self-marketer, but ignorant, unstable, uninformed, self-absorbed, narcissistic and incompetent in every other respect. He marketed himself into the presidency, where his ignorance of the norms of governance currently is working in his favor. He has found that he can flout all the rules and norms that he doesn’t know, understand or care about, and run America autocratically as a family business. There are very few laws that actually limit what a president can do and no one is there to stop him. The unique three-part system of checks and balances that is at the heart of American democracy was designed to prevent this type of situation from occurring, but the Republican-controlled congress will not do so because, putting party over country, they want him in the oval office in order to have a chance to retain control in the 2018 elections and, in the meantime, to implement their extreme right wing agenda.
While some argue that Trump has so far been ineffective and has not yet significantly changed very much, I would argue that his election represents another America-changing event – and that it is potentially even more consequential than the others, because the changes his administration has already wrought threaten the future of American democracy – and must be stopped before it is too late. Just think back to how we viewed what America stood for eighteen months ago, and compare it to what America stands for today. Here are just some of the changes.
First – overt racism: including the Muslim travel ban; preferring white immigrants from Norway to dark skinned immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa; saying there were ”good people” among the Nazi marchers in Charlottesville.
Second – freedom of the press: constant attacks on the media as the enemy of the people, e,g, “fake news CNN” and the “failing New York Times”; a press secretary who twists the truth; Fox News becoming state news, the elimination from government websites of available information, such as logs of visitors to the White House, or statistics and reports that would be detrimental to the administration’s case in areas such as climate change, healthcare, immigration and many others.
Third – governmental changes: banning the use of the words “climate change“ by the energy and agriculture departments and seven other forbidden words by the Centers for Disease Control; cabinet department heads appointed to destroy their departments – education, environment, healthcare, interior.
Fourth – international changes: the mysterious relationship with Putin/Russia, consistent praise for dictators, risking nuclear war with North Korea and armed conflict with Turkey and Iran.
Fifth – trust in government; the President tells an average of six lies a day. He still owns the Trump organization – which is rum by two of his sons – and profits from the presidency through it. Nepotism is rampant: Trump’s son-in-law is his principle adviser and a major power in the administration and his daughter is a very influential player, also having an office in the White House.
Any one of the items on this list would have caused outrage in any previous administration, yet we are becoming inured to them. While none of them individually is proof positive that our democracy has been diminished, as a group they show how far Trump has come in getting away with autocratic rule. They demonstrate his unbridled ability to change the nature of American values, relationships, norms and standards … the very basis on which the nation was founded.
My column of August 17th last year focused on the fragility of democracy. Now many commentators are discussing the topic In fact the New York Times has just put together an intriguing video, showing the ebb and flow of democracy in the world and raising the issue of the future of democracy in America. It is well worth viewing – and you can do so by clicking on the following link:
While it now seems clear that America is sliding inexorably towards autocracy, this is not yet anywhere near irreversible. There is still time for the slide to be stopped, if Democrats get control of both Houses in November – or even if they only capture one House and win the presidency in 2020. However, a second Trump term would be disastrous for American democracy. So, once again, the message – now more vital than ever – is to do everything you can to ensure democratic victories at the polls in November. Total Republican control of congress must be ended, Trump’s rush to autocracy must be stopped. Trumpism must be destroyed.
TRUMPISM DELENDA EST
Gerry Meandering 