Politics

Donald Trump Remains a Mortal Threat to American Democracy

What are we prepared to do to stop him?

As Tucker Carlson broadcasts his primetime television show from Viktor Orbán’s right-wing dictatorship in Hungary, a nation that is at the forefront of a global wave of countries led by authoritarian leaders who have seized power in elections only to extinguish democracy once in office, America is learning more of the ugly details surrounding Donald Trump’s behind-the-scenes efforts to keep his grip on power following his loss in the 2020 election.

Indeed, the former president battered officials in his Department of Justice to lie on his behalf and falsely proclaim there was widespread fraud in the election, and he almost succeeded by installing a willing loyalist into the AG’s office in the last days of his dying presidency. Considering that the majority of elected Republicans supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election based on nothing beyond his and Giuliani’s ample smoke and mirrors, it’s difficult to imagine what the DOJ’s imprimatur might have done to boost Trump’s claims of a fraudulent election. The DOJ’s endorsement clearly would have been critical.

Yet even as the specifics of Donald Trump’s prolonged campaign to subvert American democracy come to light, the Biden administration seems unwilling or unable to act decisively to protect America from the clear and present danger that Donald Trump poses, even as he prepares for another presidential run in 2024 under the auspices of a Republican Party that has shown itself to be little more than the willing plaything of the criminal and would-be dictator at its helm.

The fact that Donald Trump still controls the Republican Party body and soul after his campaign to overturn an American election and a deadly insurrection is proof positive that the GOP cannot and will not ever restrain him, and this further crystallizes the enormous burden that now rests on the Biden administration’s shoulders.

If they don’t protect American democracy from Donald Trump, who will?

Attorney General Merrick Garland, tapped partly because of his experience leading the investigation into the devastating Oklahoma City bombing carried out by right-wing extremist Timothy McVeigh in 1995, remains cautious to the point of paralysis, refusing even to investigate former president Trump, wary as he is of being accused of politicizing justice in the same way as Trump’s corrupt Justice Department.

Yet I can think of no higher calling for justice in the United States than acting to safeguard American democracy from a criminal demagogue who has proved time and again that he is hellbent on destroying it, and one who committed a multitude of federal crimes during the commission of what can only be called a prolonged coup from within, and left behind reams of evidence with which to prosecute him for his wrongdoing.

More details about Trump’s pressure campaign emerged from Senate testimony Friday, during which Jeffrey Rosen, acting AG during the hellish last days of the Trump administration after Bill Barr’s cowardly departure, described being pressured by the former president to “Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” according to Deputy AG Richard Donoghue’s contemporaneous notes.

The note tells us precisely where Donald Trump’s head was at. He would use even the slightest bit of cover from the DOJ to execute a coup, throwing out the results of an unfavorable election to keep himself ensconced in power with the help of corrupt congressional Republicans.

Indeed, the lawyers refused Trump’s demands, threatening to resign en masse when Trump proposed replacing the acting attorney general with a loyalist stooge named Jeffrey Clark plucked from the environmental law section of the DOJ’s civil division. The former president wanted to place his lackey atop the DOJ so that he might then parrot Trump’s lies to the American people on his behalf.

It seems the United States came within inches of having a democratic election overturned by bad actors within the DOJ working with a malicious president intent on maintaining his grip on power at any and all cost, in a brazen criminal conspiracy that nearly succeeded but for the courageous actions of a few brave lawyers. This must be viewed as Trump’s covert coup, distinct from the insurrection he openly inspired.

As our understanding of Donald Trump’s subversion of our democracy is filled in, we should remember that he remains at the top of the trash heap that is Republican politics, comfortably pulling the GOP’s strings from his clubs in Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago, and eagerly awaiting his chance to retake the reins of American government.

The question that arises now is this: what exactly are we willing to do to stop him? The freight train is headed our way, and we have ample warning that it’s coming directly for us.

Donald Trump has thrived because of an uncanny ability to evade accountability for his actions during his tawdry career, and particularly in his political life. He possesses an instinctive ability to take advantage of his opponent’s disbelief in the depth of his own shamelessness. He is literally incapable of doing the right thing, much less feeling ashamed.

Again and again, the extent of his cynicism has been underestimated, and his preternatural ability to wriggle his way out from under responsibility seemingly limitless, even as he has torn American democracy apart in front of all of our eyes.

The depth of his narcissism means he cannot not run for president again, if he is physically able. He cannot help himself. He is like a machine.

And just like Trump can’t help himself, and can be no one other than the narcissistic sociopath-hustler that he has always been, the Republican Party too can be nothing if not hypocritical, corrupt, and addicted to the accumulation of power.

This is America’s conundrum.

A man for whom anything even resembling morality is utterly alien is leading a political party for whom doing the right thing, if it means sacrificing power or influence, is impossible. You see this dynamic personified in Mitch McConnell, above all others. Despite famously loathing Donald Trump to his bones, McConnell was unwilling to convict him in his second impeachment for fear of fracturing the party and hemorrhaging his own power.

Instead, Donald Trump got another pass.

Thus, the Republican Party will never protect America from Donald Trump. It’s naive to think they would do anything that doesn’t jibe with their short term political goals, and Donald Trump is as popular as ever among the Republican base. Republican voters continue to adore him. Elected Republicans are fully bought in to the Big Lie, restricting voting in states from coast to coast, in 18 states successfully so far.

As Democrats hem and haw about propriety and the politicization of justice, Donald Trump is getting ready to smash American democracy beneath the boot heel of his impunity. I imagine on some level even Trump must be wondering to himself, in disbelief really, why American justice hasn’t stopped him yet. It’s astonishing on every level, that he has had such free reign to commit flagrant crimes in a nation purportedly based on the rule of law.

Trump is likely appraising Democrats, observing their hesitation and their paralysis in confronting the coup he just barely failed to execute on the seat of American power, and sensing opportunity, the animal instinct from which he operates perceiving weakness.

Personally, Trump would have ensured Joe Biden was rotting in prison by now, if the roles were reversed between the two men.

Yet to say that, of course, it is correct that justice should not be politicized doesn’t equate to saying a president cannot be pursued for crimes committed while in office, especially crimes designed to subvert democracy. It is quite the opposite, in my view. Those are the crimes that must be pursued.

As Joe Biden attempts to heal America’s fractured soul with an infrastructure bill, and a semi-successful vaccine roll-out, Donald Trump is biding his time, storing his cash, and further lashing elected Republicans to him. He’s waiting to install a round of loyal Republicans in Congress in 22' and to run for the presidency in 24'.

Nothing Joe Biden delivers will convince the ultra-nationalists, hardcore racists, and Republican lackeys to abandon Trump or Trumpism.

At a certain point, you have to confront the elephant in the room, and prosecute the criminal in your midst, or become his next victim. Donald Trump is not going away, nor is the Republican Party he so easily and completely remade in his image.

Justice demands a resolution for a president who used the powers of his office to subvert democracy to keep himself in power after losing an election. You cannot allow leaders to dismantle democracy, piece by piece and with impunity, and expect this nation to survive intact.

Eventually, if you give him enough chances, the autocrat will succeed. Weimar Germany learned this lesson the hard way.

No one is going to save American democracy for us, and the fascists and their leader smell blood now.

As it is in Donald Trump’s broken little mind, sometimes life really is a zero sum game with distinct winners and losers, and either the good guy or the bad guy prevails.

Let’s hope the good guy realizes that in time.

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