‘…Trump is overturning most of the set processes and values and principles that have allowed America to transition from one administration to another. And he is doing so with a grip on his party (or what is left of it) that has transformed Republicans in elective office into automatons who gladly do his bidding.’
IT may be too much to say that it is “lost at sea,” but the United States, as I see it, is at best “at sea” – lost, unmoored and floundering.
And all because the beauty of democracy has produced a Donald Trump who has done enough deeds to get half of all his predecessors impeached. And still has enough to get himself impeached many times over.
While not an American (and happily so), I’ve loved following US politics since I first became conscious of, well, politics. Maybe because the first US president I was ever exposed to was John F. Kennedy (who was assassinated when I was not even 13 months old). I’ve been more sympathetic to the Democrats than to Republicans, Ronald Reagan being perhaps the sole exception.
And so, at the outset of his first presidential run in 2016, I had no love lost for Donald Trump, rooting as I was for Hillary Clinton and being two blocks away from the White House on the night of the elections. And, of course, again in 2024, I was rooting for Kamala Harris and was again a few blocks away from the White House on election eve. In both instances, perhaps I was the unlucky charm, because in both instances, in my view, America made a wrong turn.
It was wrong the first time and it was more wrong – wronger, a word I’ve invented (to quote you know who) this second.
Why “wronger”? Because the man does not have a statesman’s bone in his amoral (at best) body. He is out to avenge his four years in the wilderness and avenge he indeed is doing.
In the process, Trump is overturning most of the set processes and values and principles that have allowed America to transition from one administration to another. And he is doing so with a grip on his party (or what is left of it) that has transformed Republicans in elective office into automatons who gladly do his bidding.
Lady Liberty, I could imagine, would love to get off her perch and move north, to Canada. This is not the America for which she was gifted by the people of France to the people of the United States.
The good news is that Trump is – at least as of this writing – limited to only four years in office due to the two-term limit the US Constitution (as amended) imposes. So that by 2028, at the latest (earlier if he is impeached!) Trump will have to step down, protected by the absolute immunity decision of the Roberts Court.
But four years is long enough to damage institutions and processes and we will have to wait to assess what Trump 47’s lasting legacy will be.
In the meantime, from where I sit, I see an America at sea: lost, floundering, unmoored.
