America Must Grow Up (Or Else...)

Donald Trump's greatest legacy may be having generated need for more words in the English lexicon than any other president. His recent comments (online and in real time) to the effect that Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib "should go back to the places that they come from" begs the use of epithets that do not quite yet exist. Trump's presidency had long ago become a "disgrace", but that word does not quite capture the toxicity and moral malignancy he embodies right now.

It is not just the president himself who has produced this profane miasma, but the cowardice, ignorance, or complicity of his supporters. The fact that anyone seriously entertains a debate about whether Trump's comments are racist is phantasmagorical. We have shown ourselves to be a nation of children, unworthy of the legacy of freedom and prosperity painstakingly built by our forebears.

It is long past time to grow up. Indeed, if we do not, the infantile hurricane of malice and nihilistic bigotry that centers on the West Wing will sweep away the foundations of the Republic. We have talked like children, thought like children, and reasoned like children. But we must put aside childish things, or be left with nothing at all.

Children persistently protest that their intentions exonerate them. "I didn't mean it!" Adults understand that meaning well does not absolve one of responsibility. Yet we continue to bicker about whether Trump's words are racist or not on some speculation about how he "really feels" in his heart.

Let me ask this of his defenders- WHO CARES? As a candidate (and still occasionally as POTUS) Trump routinely complained about the state of American government, culture, and society. He accused the former president of having spied on him without a shred of evidence. He impugned the competence, probity, and intelligence of lawmakers, judges, military leaders. None of that made him (in his own estimation, and that of his supporters) other than patriotic and loyal. But the criticisms of duly elected representatives who happen to be women of color makes them traitors and ingrates. What other conclusion can one draw except that white men possess rights and privileges in this nation that others do not? That is white supremacism in a nutshell.

The idea that Trump's supposed ignorance or the warm fuzzy feelings he might harbor for any individual or group is in any way relevant to ANYONE is ridiculous. It does not matter how many African-American friends Trump has or how many people of color serve in his cabinet. He has used the "bully pulpit" as a bullhorn for racism. He has broadcast that the leader of the free world deems people of color less American than whites, that they deserve fewer privileges, freedoms, and protections than whites. People in positions of responsibility and power (or those who want more responsibility and power, like the "alt-right" marchers in Charlottesville) have heard his message, and it will reverberate to the detriment of millions in ways big and small. You could only give a fig for what Trump feels or thinks "in his heart" if you are not in the path of this freight train.

 After more than two-hundred and forty years, our society seems yet incapable, in aggregate, of appreciating the ingenious logic and inherent fragility of the system in which we live such free and prosperous lives. Our Constitution distributes power through a complex of institutions and offices held in mutual tension with one-another, so as to prevent the tyranny of any one individual or group. But in order for this system to continue to function, the people inhabiting it must adhere to the rules that govern it, and that requires them to minimally respect the rights and dignity of one-another.

The situation might be compared to a game, the kind that helps children learn basic life lessons. As long as everyone respects the rules and treats one-another fairly, the game can continue to everyone's enjoyment. Though one or more players might temporarily gain an advantage by ignoring the rules or mistreating opponents, this will eventually cause the game to end, depriving everyone.

Comments like the ones Trump has been braying attracted less censure a century ago because people of color, women, and LGBTQ individuals were systematically barred from the "game" of politics. Long struggle and great sacrifice redressed that injustice. Now the game has expanded, and Trump's call to "Make America Great Again" is basically an exhortation to bring back that earlier exclusionary time- to narrow the game so that people of color, Muslims, women, and LGBTQ citizens need not be given the respect and deference of full participants.

But what Trump and his supporters do not realize is that this is not a call to change the game, but to end it. "Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it." If the right of full participation can be taken away from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Ilhan Omar, or Rashida Tlaib, or Ayanna Pressley on the basis of race or origin, it can (and will, in the long run) be taken away from anyone else on equally arbitrary criteria. Once that levee has been breached, the flood will never be contained.

Among many other things, Trump is a perpetual child, and his leadership has infantilized us as a society. He is incapable of or refuses to learn the lesson at the heart of the game set in motion by our Founders.  Like the petulant whiner who, dissatisfied with the rigors of play, threatens to take his equipment and go home, he shows his contempt not only for our history and principles, but for us personally as individuals and a community. For the sake of ourselves and posterity, we had better grow up and recognize his bigotry for what it is.