 has been doing over the past ten years—while campaigning, winning the presidency twice, and wielding unprecedented power—besides making ...){kind=link}
By Addissu Admas
What Donald J. Trump (DJT) has been doing over the past ten years—while campaigning, winning the presidency twice, and wielding unprecedented power—besides making outlandish pronouncements and displaying unseemly behavior, is holding a mirror to America. Until his advent, I was under the erroneous impression that the country was moving toward an enlightened future, slowly but surely. What DJT has revealed with jarring clarity is that the country is not only failing to progress linearly but is operating on two or more fundamentally irreconcilable agendas. One is determined to pursue the Enlightenment ideals of reason, science, progress, and tolerance; the other remains mired in religious obscurantism, racial ideology, exclusionary politics, and an unscientific worldview.
The outrageousness of DJT’s words and behavior forces us to wonder why an electorate supposedly among the most educated in the world, and the beneficiary of a long democratic tradition, would elect—by a significant margin—an individual who, by intelligence, character, or life experience, would not have qualified even for the lowliest public office. As I now realize, it makes perfect sense that the obscurantist faction—consisting mainly of white so-called Christian nationalists, conservative Catholics, various Protestant fundamentalist groups, and religiously conservative minorities—would embrace DJT. He is the only figure willing to implement their obscurantist agenda without hesitation or fear, disregarding democratic norms entirely. Otherwise, how could one explain the utter supineness of Republicans in Congress? Even though many disapprove of his behavior or rhetoric—perhaps even despise him privately—they are terrified of becoming the target of his wrath, which could end their careers. In truth, they do not oppose his policies because those policies are largely their own, with only a few exceptions. They cannot seriously criticize him while he is delivering on their agenda. Republicans in Congress will continue to follow him until he ceases to do so. The MAGA diehards, however, would storm the Capitol again to keep him in power, because without him not only would their moment in the sun end, but they would not know what to do with themselves. Let us not forget: what the South failed to achieve through the Civil War, it is achieving—albeit in an altered and limited form—through DJT.
What the obscurantists want is clear as daylight, however much they may disguise their intentions behind mild-sounding words. Those who constitute their majority call themselves Christian nationalists, and they are indeed evangelicals of a certain stripe. The truth, however, is that they are neither Christian nor nationalist. They are not Christian, since true Christianity never endorses any form of nationalism but instead promotes the brotherhood and sisterhood of all humanity: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). They are not nationalists because they do not promote the interests of all the peoples of the United States, but rather the status and privilege of white people to the detriment of people of color and other religious traditions. Their unlikely allies are the wealthier classes, driven by an insatiable greed that has stripped them of whatever humanity they may once have possessed. Finally, in the minority but crucial in tipping the balance toward Republicans, are the socially conservative minority groups. If there has ever been a constituency so devoid of political sense and so gullible as to vote consistently against its own interests, it is this latter group.
What does the Republican Party—holding together these disparate constituencies—actually want? Is it truly a party yearning for a bygone America in which Black people, Indigenous people, and other minority ethnicities “knew their place,” i.e., accepted second-class citizenship and were expected to be grateful for “the crumbs falling from the master’s table”? Do they long for a Protestant-dominated Christianity in which other Christian traditions accept subordinate status, and all other religions are severely restricted? Are they working toward a capitalism unfettered by a drastically reduced government, where the poor are left at the mercy of their wealthy overlords? Does their preferred form of government—if it can be called that—cease to provide public services and instead focus solely on “law and order” and the maintenance and expansion of U.S. military might? This, in short, appears to be the Republican agenda, and this is why DJT is the perfect president for them. It is also why he is adored by the obscurantist South and loathed by the progressive coastal states.
Progressives in the U.S.—who are in fact the majority—are those who not only take pride in the progress America has made since the Civil War, and even more since the civil rights movement, but who also believe in scientific evidence, the rule of law, a public-service-oriented government, openness to diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism, and freedom of worship. They stand diametrically opposed to the Republican obscurantism inherent in the MAGA movement.
What is reprehensible about MAGA adherents, besides their blatant racism, is their willingness not only to accept but to defend and even justify the abhorrent behavior and rhetoric of DJT. Their willingness to do so reveals both desperation and rage: desperation from the belief that only someone like DJT will destroy the very structure of their “imagined” oppressors—the left, foreign professionals, and so on—and rage that their religious and cultural traditions are viewed as backward at best and regressive at worst.
Americans of every stripe have come to realize that no truly democratic country in the world would have elected anyone even remotely resembling DJT in character or conduct, nor tolerated him for even the briefest period. Although many American legal scholars boast that their 250-year-old Constitution is holding up “pretty well,” they seem oblivious to the fact that it has proven woefully inadequate in holding a wayward president accountable. Without delving too deeply into the technical peculiarities of American and other democracies, consider that Mr. Starmer, the U.K. prime minister, is on the verge of losing his job for appointing a scandal-tainted ambassador to the U.S., while DJT and his cohort—manifestly “swimming” in scandal—remain firmly in power.
It may seem conspiratorial to say that while Democrats work to win elections, Republicans work to subvert the system so they can remain in power, or at least remain relevant for as long as possible, even if it means bargaining with the devil. In terms of strategy, Democrats are no match for Republicans. One must give Republicans credit—not for their vision of America, which remains stuck in the pre-civil-rights era—but for their strategic acumen.
The question now is whether DJT and his administration have irreversibly halted America’s march toward a more inclusive and enlightened future, or whether they have merely caused a temporary disruption to a system designed to continue, however haltingly, in its Enlightenment project. It is difficult to predict which. What DJT and his administration have shown in stark relief, however, is what must change if America aspires to remain a presence to be reckoned with for another two and a half centuries.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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