When Donald J. Trump is eventually removed from office, the folks responsible — in the legislature, the courts and the voting booths — will likely be so, very, very weary (especially if it’s in 2020) because they will have literally rescued the nation from fascism. That’s big, but what most aren’t ready to hear is that “Trumpism” is just the tip of the iceberg of American crimes against humanity.
Before Trump ever entered the picture, the U.S. was doomed and headed toward destruction for its “Original Sins,” its crimes against humanity — the enslavement of kidnapped Africans and the genocide against the Native inhabitants of this land. After his election, Trump just hitched the nation to a rocket in its descent into hellfire.
Removing Trump may slow the fall of America, but will not entirely stop it.
That’s probably an unwelcome thought to most folks who have already endured much just to bring this most unworthy despot down from the perch of power. I’m thinking about the brave people who came forward to testify in the public impeachment inquiry.
Those folks weren’t sent to infiltrate the U.S. government by some enemies of this country. No. They are all dedicated, career military personnel and civilian employees, who were shocked at the very improper behavior by Trump in that brazen July telephone call when he bribed the newly elected president of Ukraine, using promised military assistance, to do him “a favor” by digging up dirt on his personal political rival.
But Trump and his minions in Congress are so “outdone” (as my mother used to say) that they don’t know what to say. “Expose the whistleblower!” some shout, wanting the head of the “spy” who revealed Trump’s mischief, not to the Chinese, or to al Qaeda, or to the news media; but to an official inside the U.S. government, who deemed the content of the complaint credible enough to investigate.
The Trumpistas insist that despite the fact that every charge made by the anonymous whistleblower has been corroborated in public testimony by high-ranking officials who were around Trump, they want the whistleblower exposed so that whatever harm might come to that person will discourage all other honest government workers from exposing wrongdoing by those in positions above them. Republicans are grasping for straws.
Before Trump and his encourage-the-worst-in-our-troops campaign of pardoning real war criminals who were guilty of despicable acts in uniform, and before his “I know more than the generals” boasts, the U.S. military was already the single largest polluter on earth. That’s the U.S. “normal” which 45 upset with his topsy-turvy, Twitter-based leadership.
Getting rid of Trump will save the republic from fascism, all right, but that would just take us back to that loathsome “normal” condition. Folks — especially the white folks who had to go against their tribal consensus that at last White Jesus blessed America with Trump, a white man who will stand up for what matters to white people — will be so weary after battling the enormous forces propping up this regime, that they may not be ready to continue the fight for climate justice and economic equality, an end to endless military interventions and much, much more.
If some folks realized how hard it will be to get that man out of office, they might abandon the cause. But if they knew that just getting rid of The Donald alone, and saving the nation from an imminent fascist takeover — as difficult and back-breaking as that will be — if they knew that would not be enough to save this wicked nation from its eventual destruction, then they might not fight to get this grifter out of office before he gets everybody killed. That would be unfortunate.
Trump and Trumpism must be opposed and defeated. But those are just slogans masking the true disease: racism, sexism, materialism, xenophobia and all other manners of exploitation.
But the comfort, the sense of entitlement and privilege that go with Americanism, however may be too intoxicating for the privileged — even those poor and non-whites at the very end of the line and at the bottom of the heap — to willingly surrender, not even to save their own lives.
Trump certainly needs to go, but the True Reformers must not stop there, not if they want a real future for this society.