Last week, we witnessed a dismaying but utterly unsurprising seven hours of testimony of Michael Cohen before a committee of the U.S. Congress during which he delivered a barrage of first-hand, up-close observations of President Trump’s dishonesty, lying and racism. Cohen offered compelling evidence of President Trump’s direct involvement of repaying Cohen for paying off his mistress, even while he was in office—a violation of campaign finance law.
The insult to the Presidency and to our nation’s values which Trump represents needed no amplification. It received it, however, in this testimony from Trump’s closest lawyer for 10 years.
As Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal of March 2-3, referring to Cohen’s testimony:
“This is bigger than we think, and history won’t miss the import of this testimony. None of the charges were new, precisely. They have been made in books, investigations and interviews. What is amazing though is that such a rebuke on the essential nature of a president and by an intimate has no equal in our history. I don’t think, as we talk about Mr. Cohen’s testimony, we fully appreciate this.”
As I have written before, anyone who said and did the things which Trump has done—many of which he has admitted to—would have been summarily fired from any corporate or non-profit office in this nation. Yet he remains as President, with the support of perhaps one-third of the nation’s voting public.
Some will disagree with my view that President Trump has no right to be the president of this country. To be clear, I do not believe that an impeachable offense has yet been identified. Nor am I saying that Trump hasn’t advocated some policies that are good for the nation.
My point is simpler. And more important. We are on very dangerous moral ground.
Some will say that there have been other presidents who have done dreadful things, some of which actually led to impeachment. That’s true. Most recently, of course, President Clinton, who engaged in sexual acts with a young intern and then lied about it to his wife and to the nation, not once but several times. Too many of us turned our back on that. Shame on us. Yes, unlike Trump, he finally apologized. But we lived with too low a standard.
We have to be careful. We all do things that are wrong. All of us should be granted permission to apologize and to change our ways.
However, if Trump has apologized for what he has said and done—such as demeaning other people and lying—I have yet to hear it. That's because he hasn't said it.
We have to resist accepting a “new normal” like the plague. We have faced moral challenges before. We have had moral profligates in high office before though never one of this
magnitude and at this level.
In my lifetime, Joe McCarthy was the only person I’ve seen deliver such venomous, untrue accusations about other people. Many people of good character went along with McCarthy for too long. Over a thousand people attended his wedding in 1953, including Senator John F. Kennedy, Vice President, Richard Nixon and Alan Dulles, Head of the CIA. For a time, even President Dwight Eisenhower turned his head. But eventually, the screw turned. The blinkers came off. The bombast lost its power. More and more people began to see McCarthyism for what it was—in President Truman's words: the big lie and unfounded accusation. A political ploy that shamed without evidence.
The final nail was struck by a cutting question during a hearing in 1954 by Council Joseph N. Welch—“"Finally, sir, have you no decency?”
Millions opened their eyes. They turned to their better natures. McCarthy died a rejected man and McCarthyism more or less died with him.
I don’t know how long it will take for the great majority of our nation to reject the uncivil, untrue, mean-spirited and disloyal behavior of President Donald J. Trump. But it will happen.
The members of the Republican Senate and House have a big role in its happening sooner rather than later. I feel certain that most Republican Senators and legislators must squirm when they go home and talk with their spouses about how difficult it is for them to support a president who violates their beliefs in such fundamental ways. Through his almost daily actions and words, he contradicts what they expect and demand of their own children.
Well beyond my lifetime, historians will dig furiously into this chapter of our nation’s history. They will try to identify the complex origins and causes of President Trump. I suspect most will describe it as an astounding but not unique aberration in our history. They will write about it much as most historians write today about Andrew Johnson's presidency, the internment of Japanese citizens during WWI, the Dredd Scott decision, the Plessy-Ferguson decision and other chapters of our history which demonstrate that, despite our ideals, we sometimes get things very wrong.
I believe the American people will eventually get this right. Why? Because the great majority of the American public believe in the values of truthfulness, of mutual respect and of empathy. We don’t always practice them. In that, we are human. But we have a moral compass. We have it in our homes and with our families. That we must never lose. With new leadership and the determined will of each of us as voters, we will return to it again in our Presidency. That is our highest responsibility to the future of our nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment