Now is a time for courage, not submission

 

 

Walter M. Shaub Jr.

In the 1940s a generation of Americans defeated fascist powers. This week a simple majority of American voters submitted to a fascist leader who has expressed admiration for Hitler’s generals and aspires to destroy representative government. Rejecting the very reason for the Revolutionary War, his supporters traded a president for a ruler. Some of them didn’t believe the warnings. Others—those whose souls are stained with bigotry, greed, and fear—relished the chance to kneel before a cruel and immoral despot.

Donald Trump, too, is submissive. He is the blushing coward whose unrequited adoration for Vladimir Putin was apparent in Helsinki, the dupe who “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un, and the hype man for Viktor Orbán. He may well, in his weakness, cede influence over the budget to Elon Musk, a government contractor who is a conflict of interest incarnate. Trump’s own conflicts of interest are worse than last time, and his appointees won’t worry about ethics rules being enforced against them.

His supporters will suffer from his incompetence with the rest of us. His management skills haven’t improved since he bungled the pandemic response with deadly results. His plot to round up millions of immigrants will certainly also be deadly, like his smaller prior effort. If Trump musters the nerve to wage his promised trade wars, consumer costs will soar and exports will lag. Anyone who thinks the mix of autocracy, corruption, ineptitude, and chaos will be good for the economy is in for a surprise—anyone who isn’t a billionaire, that is.

Trump’s scheme to politicize the federal workforce, meanwhile, is a potent formula for institutionalizing corruption and incompetence. The justice system will become a weapon of political oppression. Thanks to the fringe-right Supreme Court justices who recently invented presidential immunity, no one knows how many crimes he will commit. Trump’s signature innovation may be unleashing the military on civilians inside our borders.

For all that, now is a time for courage, not submission. The great civil rights leaders had little reason to believe they could change this country, but for several decades their struggle gave hope that all might taste democracy. We must be like them.