Rosenblum writes: "Statecraft is no job for unhinged narcissists who don't read. At a time when so many citizens make snap judgments based on news snippets, we need a president and lawmakers we can trust, respect and believe."
Donald Trump. (photo: USA Today)
22 May 17
hen a democracy falls overnight in a pool of blood, hapless victims have no choice but to curse their fate. If a coup d'etat happens slowly in plain view, free people who let it happen have only themselves to blame.
It is tempting to block out the unthinkable, but British journalist Andrew Marr has it right: "We are either players in open, democratic societies, all playing a part in their ultimate direction or we are deserters."
And there is Orwell: "A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims, but accomplices."
Donald Trump is way beyond dangerous. Whether he is Hitler, Bozo the clown or simply a spoiled brat, his reckless and ruthless manner, detached from truth or principle, shames Americans. And it imperils 7.5 billion others on the planet.
The French, like the Dutch, just saved Europe and themselves from bullying, narrowly focused fascists. Back home, where the stakes are planetary, our demagogue runs rampant, with Congress and the Court behind him.
Most Americans see the danger, but too few are yet motivated to act. We have very little time before Trump does lasting damage. If he is impeached, the process is long and divisive. And something far worse is possible.
Volke Ulrich, who wrote the book on Hitler, plays down parallels to Trump. But if the Fuhrer taught us anything, the German historian told The Atlantic, "it's how swiftly democracy can be dismantled, when political institutions fail and civil society is too weak to compensate. The results can be catastrophic."
Style is bad enough. Trump's humiliation of James Comey, who swayed his narrow victory, was calculated cruelty. Later, his threatening tweet aimed at keeping him silent was worthy of a Mafia goon, not an American president.
But consider substance. He wants to subjugate the FBI the way Putin runs Russia's FSB, with handpicked sycophants and no oversight. Election tampering is just the surface issue. What, exactly, are his links to our hostile adversary?
Trump defends his right to pass Israeli anti-terror secrets to Russia. True or not, that is calamitous. If we entrusted him with the right to do that, we can revoke it. He is a term-contract civil servant hired to drive our bus. If he heads us toward a cliff, we have to grab the wheel.
Yet as each outrage surpasses the previous, we wait, inured, for the next. We've worn out that frog-in-heating-water metaphor, and still nothing happens. That cannot be our new normalcy: a creep's creeping coup.
This is about principle not party. Neither side owns all blame. Elections are 18 months away, and we need to raise hell now. Then each of us can rally behind candidates who are loyal to a nation, not just people who bankroll them.
To get started, step back and consider the big picture. Interpretations may vary, but facts don't come with alternatives.
During four recent months in America, I was astonished at how many people pick and choose bits of convenient reality as if they were ordering from a Chinese menu. He's our president, others say. Give him a chance.
Now from an ocean away I see a wider world watch in stunned disbelief. How can Americans be "first" - in anything - if they horrify friends and supply enemies with propaganda material beyond their wildest dreams?
When Marr wrote that line in 2009, Barack Obama had just taken on the shambles George Bush left behind: huge debt from a needless $6 trillion war; millions of destitute refugees; swelling ranks of terrorists bent on vengeance.
Climate scientists banged on alarms. China and Russia loomed large. North Korea and Iran hurried to perfect nuclear warheads. Terror attacks burgeoned. More than ever before, we needed leaders to forge a common front.
Obama made mistakes, as all presidents do, but also restored prosperity, fought climate chaos, initiated healthcare and won back global respect. Rather than build on that to do better, a new president and Congress go for the throat.
Mitch McConnell thwarted Obama at every turn and hijacked a Supreme Court seat. Now his GOP posse runs roughshod, making complex problems worse. As we focus on some egregious acts, countless others slip by unnoticed.
To understand what we face, we have to stop thinking like our computers, in cognitive shortcuts. The nuanced detail is crucial. All-encompassing labels mislead us. Shallow thinking faults "the mainstream media." That's horseshit.
Solid reporting is easy to find. Despite pathetic exceptions, our news organizations accurately portray a president run amok. His "fake news" and stonewalled access only underscore his delusions. Nixon tried a cover-up, too.
The Web allows us to do our own reporting, connecting us to unbiased experts who don't guess about places they can't pronounce or find on a map.
Plenty of things explain how Trump fooled voters in November, from the Democrats' disarray to a showman's flimflam that resonated among people in pain. As usual, less than half of those eligible exercised their right to vote.
But now? Legal fig leafs don't mask blatant nepotism, gargantuan conflicts of interest and influence peddling. Trump flaunts his contempt for citizens by hiding tax returns that would shed light on who he really is.
Beyond Trump's failings at home, he poses dangers abroad as clear and present as I've seen in five decades of reporting. He scorns human rights, embraces despots, and sells us out in secret. Speaking loudly while carrying a small stick, he splashes fuel on an overheated world.
He chest-bumps Kim Jung-un, who is loonier than he is, giving him exactly the spotlight he craves. If pushed to a corner, Kim is capable of sending a nuclear-tipped suicide note to Guam. Surely, we haven't forgotten Pearl Harbor.
He drops a monster bomb on Afghanistan that kills few but inspires an incalculable number of zealots to join global terrorist ranks. He wants to widen an unwinnable war against the Taliban, which did not start out as our enemy.
In Syria, moist-eyed at footage of gassed children, Trump attacked an airbase that Russians quickly restocked instead of hitting Bashar al-Assad where it hurts -- at his palace compound, for instance. So the war crimes continue.
The irony is hard to miss. Trump, moved by daughter Ivanka, lamented those kids' plight and yet his policy toward millions of refugees, along with drastic foreign aid cuts, causes agonizing death by starvation and disease.
Then there is China, which defies Trump's comic-book worldview. It is neither friend nor enemy, and it is not likely to be pushed around. Subtract 320 million people, America's population; you've still got a billion Chinese.
Here is where headline news and summaries lead us astray. "Long reads," in the new parlance, are crucial. Beyond what and where, they tell us why - and what's next. But even more, books. Two examples make the point.
John Pomfret left the Washington Post to spend five years writing The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom. In 600 pages that seem to turn themselves, he takes U.S.-China history from 1776 to today's breaking news.
Early last century, rival leaders Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai Shek both sought U.S. help against Japan in Manchuria. America backed the Japanese, which did not turn out well. Mao took a hard left toward Russia. Chiang, with neither a peace accord with Mao or U.S. arms to fight him, withdrew to Taiwan.
The short version is that a meeting in Paris a long time ago skewed immeasurably the shape of today's world. We cannot protect our future if we don't understand the past.
The Mirror Test gets deep into Iraq and Afghanistan. John Kael Weston, a State Department military liaison, slams clueless Washington visitors who hung back in safety and left with misconceptions they came with.
Weston found that only six of 100 senators, he found, bothered to read the classified Iraq briefing book. He said he never had the guts to ask a blunt question: "If they had not read the NIE before voting the Iraq War authorization, well, why not? Why. The. Hell. Not."
His book paints the big picture - far beyond Iraq -- in a talk with the Iraqi civilian who tried to keep the lid on Fallujah: "You can spend millions on drones and send in more Marines, but they are blind to what Iraqis have here," the man said, pointing to his head. "Terrorism begins in heads, not in streets."
Statecraft is no job for unhinged narcissists who don't read. At a time when so many citizens make snap judgments based on news snippets, we need a president and lawmakers we can trust, respect and believe.
No one can be first in today's world, but America could again lead by example to confront common crises that spawn mass migration and terrorism and wreak havoc to a global ecosystem that supports human survival.
At the very least, we can save our democracy by ridding ourselves of a man who would be king.
