Donald Trump says the midterm
elections are a “referendum about me.” Of course they are. Everything is about
him.
Anyone who still believes the
political divide runs between Republicans and Democrats hasn’t been paying
attention. There’s no longer a Republican Party. The GOP is now just pro-Trump.
Meanwhile Trump is doing all he can
to make the Democratic Party the anti-Trump Party.
“Democrats,” he declares, are “too dangerous to govern.” They’re “an angry left-wing mob,”leading an “assault on our country.”
“Democrats,” he declares, are “too dangerous to govern.” They’re “an angry left-wing mob,”leading an “assault on our country.”
Never before has a president of the
United States been so determined not to be president of all Americans. He’s
president of his supporters.
Tyrants create cults of personality.
Trump is beyond that. He equates America with himself, and disloyalty to him
with insufficient patriotism. In his mind, a giant “Trump” sign hangs over the
nation. “We” are his supporters, acolytes, and toadies. “They” are
the rest of us.
When everything and everyone is either pro- or anti-Trump, there’s no room for neutral expertise, professional norms, good public policy, or the rule of law.
Trump is reportedly on the brink of
firing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, whom Trump suspects “might be a Democrat.”
Mattis’s real sin has been to believe the military should be neutral and
professional. To Trump that smacks of disloyalty.
Trump calls military generals “my”
generals. He expects the FBI director, the Attorney General, and the Justice
Department to be “his.” He proudly points to “his” judges and justices.
Republican members of Congress are
part of “his” government – unless, like Jeff Flake and the late John McCain,
they’re not.
He believes the nation’s press is
either for him or against him. Fox News is indubitably for him – now a virtual
propaganda arm of the White House. The rest are against him even when they
merely report the news.
We’re all being taken in by this
Trumpian dichotomy – even those of us in the anti-Trump camp.
When Trump is the defining issue in
America, he gets to set the national agenda. All major debate in this country
revolves around him, his goals, and the objects of his vilification.
The Trumpification of America hardly
ends if Democrats take over the House or possibly the Senate. Trump will blame
them for everything that goes wrong. He’ll make up problems they’re supposedly
responsible for. He’ll ridicule them and call them traitors.
He’ll do the same to anyone who
shows serious interest in running for president against him in 2020.
Naturally, Democrats will want to
defend themselves. Naturally, they’ll also want to attack Trump.
If they flip the House they’ll use
their subpoena power to dredge up whatever dirt on him they can find –
summoning his tax records, Robert Mueller, Mueller’s investigative findings –
and perhaps even beginning impeachment proceedings.
Trump and his Republican enablers
will fight back, condemning Democrats for weakening America, engaging in
fishing expeditions and witch hunts. Trump and his lawyers will tie up the
subpoenas in court, claiming executive privilege.
Aspiring Democratic candidates for
president will join in the brawl.
Op-ed writers, editorial boards, and
pundits will argue over the best ways for Democrats to proceed against Trump –
going low or going high. Pollsters will tell us which Democratic candidate is
seen as being most effective against him.
But all of this is a giant trap. It
accepts and enforces Trump’s worldview – that nothing is more important than Donald
Trump, that he embodies all that’s good (or bad) about America, and that our
most significant choice is to be for him or against him.
It allows Trump to continue to
dominate the news and occupy the center of the nation’s attention.
We’d talk about nothing else for two
years. We won’t be discussing how to restore wage growth, get health insurance
to all Americans, reverse climate change, or get big money out of politics.
We won’t be envisioning how a new
America can widen opportunity, expand voting rights, end racism, reduce
poverty, and work constructively with the rest of the world.
We won’t be aspiring to be more than
we were before Trump. We’ll debate and dissect the damage done since Trump.
Of course Democrats have to fight
him. But they also have to lift America beyond him.
The central question shouldn’t be
whether we’re pro- or anti-Trump, or whether we go low or high in fighting him.
The question is where America should
go – and what we, together, can become.
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, "The Common Good," which is
available in bookstores now. 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." He's co-creator of the Netflix original
documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.
