U.S. presidency – dwkcommentaries

A recent New York Times’ editorial persuasively shows how Donald Trump’s four criminal indictments (to date) show his disdain for American democracy and his unfitness for the country’s presidency.[1]

Editorial’s Details

The new Georgia criminal indictment shows Trump was “leading what was effectively a criminal gang to overturn the 2020 presidential election in that state.” This indictment alleges that he “often behaved like a mob boss, pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to decertify the Georgia election and holding a White House meeting to discuss seizing voting equipment.” This indictment included these alleged crimes: “conspiracy to commit first-degree forgery, for arranging to have a false set of Georgia electors sent to Washington to replace the legitimate ones for Joe Biden, . . . conspiracy to impersonate a public officer and a series of charges relating to filing false statements and trying to get state officials to violate their oath of office.”

This indictment along with his other three indictments “offer a road map of the trauma and drama Mr. Trump has put this nation through. They raise questions about his fitness for office that go beyond ideology or temperament, focusing instead on his disdain for American democracy.”

Indeed, “Mr. Trump has put his ego and ambition over the interests of the public and of his own supporters. He has aggressively worked to undermine public faith in the democratic process and to warp the foundations of the electoral system. He repeatedly betrayed his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the nation’s laws. . . . [H]is actions, as detailed in these indictments, show that he is concerned with no one’s interests but his own.”

“A president facing multiple criminal trials, . . . could not hope to be effective in enforcing the nation’s laws — one of the primary duties of a chief executive. (If re-elected, Mr. Trump could order the federal prosecutions to be dropped, though that would hardly enhance his credibility.) A man accused of compromising national security would have little credibility in his negotiations with foreign allies or adversaries. No document could be assumed to remain secret, no communication secure. The nation’s image as a beacon of democracy, already badly tarnished by the Jan. 6 attack, may not survive the election of someone formally accused of systematically dismantling his own country’s democratic process through deceit.”

“[A] healthy political party does not belong to or depend on one man, particularly one who has repeatedly put himself over his party and his country. A healthy democracy needs at least two functioning parties to challenge each other’s honesty and direction. Republican voters are key to restoring that health and balance.”

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[1] Editorial: What if, Knowing What They Know Now, Republicans Don’t Vote for Donald Trump?, N.Y. Times (Aug. 15, 2023). Previous Times’ editorials set forth similar arguments against Trump’s again becoming our President: Editorial: Even Donald Trump Should Be Held Accountable (Mar. 30, 2023); Editorial: Donald Trump Should Never Again Be Trusted With the Nation’s Secrets (June 9, 2023); Editorial: A President Accused of Betraying His Country (Aug. 2, 2023).

This blog recently has discussed the severe criticism of Donald Trump by a Wall Street Journal editor and by other conservatives and Republicans. Another longtime conservative commentator, George Will, also has aggressively condemned Donald Trump, both before and after the latter’s July 21 Republican presidential nomination. Moreover, in June, when Trump was the presumptive nominee, George Will changed his party affiliation from Republican to “unaffiliated” because of Trump.[1]

Here are at least seven of these condemnations by Mr. Will.

Pre- Nomination

1.Donald Trump relishes wrecking the GOP[2]

Trump “boasts of his sexual athleticism, embraces torture and promises to kill terrorists’ families.” He has “ myriad [religious] conversions-of-convenience.” More importantly for Will, Trump has disavowed Will’s conservative milestones by liking the Obamacare mandate and by opposing Social Security reform and reductions.

2. The albatross of a Trump endorsement[3]

“Trump’s distinctive rhetorical style — think of a drunk with a bullhorn reading aloud James Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’ under water — poses an almost insuperable challenge to people whose painful duty is to try to extract clarity from his effusions.”

“Trump, the thin-skinned tough guy, . . . has neither respect for nor knowledge of the Constitution, and he probably is unaware that he would have to ‘open up’ many Supreme Court First Amendment rulings in order to achieve his aim. . . . [of chilling] free speech, for the comfort of the political class, of which he is now a gaudy ornament.”

Trump, “whose breadth of . . . ignorance is the eighth wonder of the world, actually thinks that judges ‘sign’ bills. Trump is a presidential aspirant who would flunk an eighth-grade civics exam”

3. Do Republicans really think Donald Trump will make a good Supreme Court choice?[4]

Trump is “a stupendously uninformed dilettante who thinks judges ‘sign’ what he refers to as ‘bills.’ There is every reason to think that Trump understands none of the issues pertinent to the Supreme Court’s role in the American regime, and there is no reason to doubt that he would bring to the selection of justices what he brings to all matters — arrogance leavened by frivolousness.”

“Trump’s multiplying Republican apologists do not deny the self-evident — that he is as clueless regarding everything as he is about the nuclear triad.”

4. If Trump is nominated, the COP must keep him out of the White House?[5]

“Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party, although already extensive, has barely begun. Republican quislings will multiply, slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history. These collaborationists will render themselves ineligible to participate in the party’s reconstruction.”

“If Trump is nominated, Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party while working to see that they forgo only four years of the enjoyment of executive power.”

5. How entangled with Russia is Trump?[6]

After bewailing Trump’s many statements supporting Russia and Putin, Will says it “is unclear whether any political idea leavens the avarice of Trump and some of his accomplices regarding today’s tormented and dangerous Russia. Speculation about the nature and scale of Trump’s financial entanglements with Putin and his associates is justified by Trump’s refusal to release his personal and business tax information. Obviously he is hiding something, and probably more than merely embarrassing evidence that he has vastly exaggerated his net worth and charitableness.”

Post- Nomination

6. Trump’s shallowness runs deep [7]

Trump’s “speeches are . .syntactical train wrecks. . . . [He] rarely finishes a sentence. . . . [But maybe] he actually is a sly rascal, cunningly in pursuit of immunity through profusion.

“The nation, however, is . . . [being damaged] by Trump’s success in normalizing post-factual politics. It is being poisoned by the injection into its bloodstream of the cynicism required of those Republicans who persist in pretending that although Trump lies constantly and knows nothing, these blemishes do not disqualify him from being president.”

7. The sinking fantasy that Trump would defend the constitution,[8]

According to Will, “Trump knows nothing about current debates concerning the [Supreme Court’s]. . . proper role.”

Moreover, Trump has erroneous views on what Will regards as “the two most important [Supreme Court] decisions this century.

Trump has criticized Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), which held corporations have a first amendment free speech right to make financial political contributions and which Will favors on the ground that “Americans do not forfeit their free-speech rights when they band together in corporate form to magnify their political advocacy.”

The other case, Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), held, 5-4, that a municipal government “behaved constitutionally when it bulldozed a residential neighborhood for the ‘public use’ of transferring the land to a corporation that would pay more taxes than the neighborhood’s residents paid to the government.” For Trump, his “interests as a developer and a big-government authoritarian converge in his enthusiasm for Kelo.” Will, however, thinks this decision “did radical damage to property rights.”

In addition, Will decries President Obama’s use of executive orders, which Trump promises to expand.

Conclusion

Although I disagree with George Will on the various political issues he discusses in these columns, I do endorse his condemnation of Donald Trump’s temperament, judgment and knowledge.

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[1] Diaz, George Will: Trump’s judge comments prompted exit from GOP, CNN (June 21, 2016).

[2] Will, Donald Trump relishes wrecking the GOP, Wash. Post (Feb. 21, 2016).

[3] Will, The albatross of a Trump endorsement. Wash. Post (Feb. 28. 2016).

[4] Will, Do Republicans really think Donald Trump will make a good Supreme Court choice, Wash. Post ( March 18, 2016).

[5] Will, If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House, Wash. Post (April 29, 2016).

[6] Will, How entangled with Russia is Trump?, Wash. Post (July 29, 2016).

[7] Will, Trump’s shallowness runs deep, Wash. Post (Aug. 3, 2016).

[8] Will, The sinking fantasy that Trump would defend the constitution, Wash. Post (Aug. 5, 2016).