Is it worse when a leader does openly what other leaders only do quietly or with more gravitas? I think we would say yes to that and point to Donald Trump. But are leaders who do bad things but obfuscate them necessarily better?
It makes me wonder if a lot of our problem with Trump is a matter of style. He comes across like a cheap casino owner but acts like he’s the boss of everyone. His manner, such as it is, offends many. He does bad things and they seem worse because he admits that he does them and doesn’t even think they’re bad. Then again, most presidents do bad things, or at least things that are later regarded to have been, and more often than not, we barely notice them. Take immigration, for example.
When Trump is mean to immigrants at the border, he crows about it like it’s a good thing. Obama was arguably mean to unaccompanied minors at the same border, but he made rational, measured statements about them, usually through spokespeople, so we gave him a pass. Our beloved FDR imprisoned Japanese-Americans for the duration of World War II, but we forgive him that.
Many other presidents have passed tax bills that favored the wealthy, but most impressively under Ronald Reagan and George Bush. People aren’t big on Bush, because, for one thing, by the time he took office, Reagonomics had resulted in an economic downturn that was affecting everyone; Reagan, on the other hand, is revered.
Border walls are bipartisan, or they were in the past. Bush I started with a modest 14 miles of fencing, Clinton added a few miles as well, but it was George W. Bush who truly “built the wall.” His legislation to construct 700 miles of barriers along the Mexico border passed by supermajorities in both the House and the Senate. Bush succeeded in having 580 miles of wall built, before passing the project on to Obama, who got us up to just about 650 miles before calling the wall complete.
Trade deals are bipartisan too. The corporation-friendly NAFTA trade deal was enacted under Clinton, while Obama initiated the European and Pacific trade deals although neither was ratified. Now in comes Trump, and what does he do? Does he throw out NAFTA, which he promised to eliminate and which lots of people hate? No, he pretends to throw it out, and then he renegotiates it. What’s in the new NAFTA? Pretty much the same stuff that was in the old NAFTA, last tweaked under Obama.
As for foreign affairs, Trump hasn’t started any new unnecessary wars yet, unlike Reagan, Bush, Bush II, and Obama. On the other hand, he’s shown an unsavory interest in meddling in other countries internal affairs, particularly in South and Central America. This has posed no problem for him since American meddling in places like Venezuela has bipartisan support, as long as you can produce an evil dictator to castigate. Is the story true? Does it matter? Only to the Venezuelans.
So far, Donald Trump has threatened a lot but compared to the massive harm he’s capable of doing, his major initiatives haven’t differed all that much from those of past presidents. On the other hand, his style of doing them has been a thing to behold since he follows no accepted rules of protocol.
All that said, the scariest thing by far about Donald Trump is his appeal to fascist impulses in his supporters. This is where he differs from just about every president we’ve ever had.
Fascism is historically anti-Left, anti-immigrant, anti-globalist, strongly nationalist, united behind a strong male leader, and willing to use violence when deemed necessary. Trump’s movement mirrors this description, making concerns about fascism realistic in his case. All the precursors are there, including a susceptible subsection of the populace.
The chance that he could really pull off a Mussolini-style fascist take-over of America seems very unlikely, but there he is, and if you want to be sure, it would be better to vote him out of office. Now, all the Democrats have to decide is who they hate more: Donald Trump, proto fascist republican or Bernie Sanders, New Deal democratic socialist. Let us hope they don’t choose “none of the above.”
