Is Trump the worst
president in American history?
By
Robert Reich
To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHHjKBuTxg8
America has had its share of crooks (Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon), bigots (Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan), and incompetents (Andrew Johnson, George W. Bush).
But never before Donald Trump have we had a president who combined all
these nefarious qualities.
America’s
great good fortune was to begin with the opposite – a superb moral leader. By
June of 1775, when congress appointed George Washington to command the nation’s
army, he had already “become a moral rallying post,” as his biographer, Douglas
Southall Freeman, described him.
He was,“the embodiment of the purpose, the
patience, and the determination necessary for the triumph of the revolutionary
cause.”
Washington
won the war and then led the fledgling nation “by directness, by deference, and
by manifest dedication to duty.”
A
president’s most fundamental legal and moral responsibility is to uphold and
protect our system of government. Donald Trump has degraded that system.
When he threatens to loosen federal libel laws so he can sue news organizations that are critical of him and revoke licenses of networks critical of him, he isn’t just bullying the media. He’s threatening the constitutionally guaranteed freedom and integrity of the press.
When
he equated Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members with counter-demonstrators in
Charlottesville, Virginia, by blaming “both sides” for the violence, he wasn’t
being neutral. He was condoning white supremacists, thereby undermining the
constitution’s guarantee of equal rights.
When
he pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, for a
criminal contempt conviction, he wasn’t just signaling it’s okay for the police
to engage in violations of civil rights. He was also subverting the rule of law
by impairing the judiciary’s power to force public officials to abide by court
decisions.
When
he criticized NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem, he wasn’t
just demanding they demonstrate their patriotism. He was disrespecting their –
and, indirectly, everyone’s – freedom of speech.
When
he berates the intelligence agencies and the federal bureau of investigation,
he isn’t just questioning their competence. He’s suggesting they’re engaged in
a giant conspiracy to remove him from office – potentially inviting his most
ardent supporters to engage in a new civil war.
When
he boasts that he made up information in a meeting with the prime minister of
Canada, he isn’t just undermining his own credibility. He’s undermining the
credibility of the united states in the eyes of the world.
Donald
Trump is degrading the core institutions and values of our democracy.
But
America is fighting back.
In
Alabama, voters turned out in droves to elect a Democrat to the senate for the
first time in 25 years. In Pennsylvania, Republicans lost control of a
congressional district that went for Trump by nearly 20 percentage points.
Since Trump took office, Democrats have flipped 39 Republican-held state
legislative seats.
The
2018 midterm elections are approaching. It’s up to all of us to keep up the
momentum. In the face of the worst president in history, we are at our best
when striving to strengthen our democracy.
Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of
Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at
the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in
the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten
most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written
fifteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The
Work of Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent,
"Saving Capitalism." He is also a founding editor of the American
Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary,
"Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common
Good." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving
Capitalism," which is streaming now.