How low can he go?
FOR TRUMP, CALLING OUT BIGOTS ISN’T WORTH INTERRUPTING A GOLF GAME
Amid the array of challenges that face any American president are sprinkled a few easy tasks that serve as a break from the ongoing parade of crises.
Bestowing a pardon on the Thanksgiving turkey so it can gobble again another day; welcoming triumphant football quarterbacks and hockey captains to the White House for the ritual handing- over of the jersey bearing the president’s name; hosting gala evenings of the First Couple’s favourite stars, for which they control the guest list. It’s a chance to demonstrate that even the most powerful politician in the world has a human side, with everyday instincts and a common touch.
For most presidents since the abolition of slavery, showing their compassionate side hasn’t been a problem. Once again, however, Donald Trump is proving himself the exception to the rule. The man who, as a candidate, complained that Barack Obama played too much golf had trouble bestirring himself from his 17- day golf vacation to offer more than a perfunctory condemnation of an attack by an apparent white supremacist that killed one person and injured 19.
It took Trump two days to find his way to a lectern to recite from a teleprompter that racism is a bad thing and “those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs.” Just to clear up any doubts he’d raised about his views on race-bait- ing and Nazi sympathizers, he named a few of those he agreed were “repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” They included the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, white supremacists “and other hate groups.”
It reportedly took some arm- twisting from his new chief of staff and other advisers to get him off the fairway and in front of a microphone, but not before he’d had a chance to once again make a bad situation worse. Seizing on the opportunity to tweet himself into trouble, Trump l aunched an attack on one of the few black chief executives of a major U. S. corporation, who had resigned from a presidential council in protest over Trump’s laggardly performance. The departure of Kenneth C. Frazier, CEO of the giant Merck pharmaceuticals company, meant “he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” Trump tweeted. ( Two more CEOs soon followed Frazier out the door, bringing the total number of defections to five.)
The i gnorance of t he man Americans elected as president never fails to astonish, but the skill with which he lowers the office to the level of pre- schoolers involved in a taunting match i s something else again. It was quickly noted that Frazier had worked his way to the top from a modest background rather than having it passed on to him from a wealthy father as Trump did, though such details are another area in which the president suffers a severe inability to grasp the obvious. He simply has no sense of the spectacle he makes of himself every time he launches another diatribe against a better and more accomplished person than himself.
Racism is usually one of the easier sins to denounce. Even many racists understand they are viewed with odium by large parts of the population, which is why they often make some effort to hide their bigotry. Denouncing the violence in Charlottesville should have been easy points for the vacationing president, yet he somehow f ound himself Monday defending his handling of the situation against a swell of anger.
Why had he not used stronger terms? Why had he not condemned the violence earlier? “It’s been condemned,” he asserted, before criticizing the questioner for asking.
Whether deliberate or not, the message was plain. The Daily Stormer, a neo- Nazi website, received Trump’s initial bland comments loud and clear. “Trump comments were good,” it advised. “He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. ... No condemnation at all.”
No, no condemnation at all, until aides ganged up on the president and insisted he say more. It may be that Trump was simply exhibiting another display of pique in refusing to acknowledge he’d blown it again. Maybe he’s beginning suspect his shiny new White House staff is just as adamant as his old staff at trying to make him behave in a more becoming manner. Or it may be that he feels those voters who continue to stand by him see nothing wrong with a half- hearted approach to bigotry. Trump has mocked the handicapped and gotten away with it. He’s bragged about his ability to abuse women and gotten away with it. He’s belittled veterans and taunted immigrants. He once bragged, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” so loyal are his fans.
Now he expects t heir loyalty to persist despite a display that should embarrass any decent adult, much less the president of a powerful Western democracy. If anything concerns more respectable members of the Republican Party it should be that: the assumption that the GOP is content to act as a shelter for people who think racial crime isn’t something worth hurrying off the golf course for.
Trump will no doubt continue to plumb new depths. He has 3 ½ years left to do so. But the party he purports to represent needs to get its act together. If it wants to retain its own respectability, it needs to dissociate itself from the ghoul that governs in its name.