America’s long road back to decency
Almost four years ago, when Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th American president, the Star’s editorial board looked ahead and ventured that it had “all the signs of a disaster in the making.”
Got that right. But we also held out hope that the checks and balances in the U.S. political system would be more effective at curbing Trump’s worst excesses. We thought there was a good chance that Republicans in Congress wouldn’t follow such an unstable, erratic president down every rabbit-hole. And that the basic decency of Americans, who had twice elected Barack Obama to the same office, would reassert itself.
In all that, we were too optimistic. If there has been a surprise over the past four years, it’s not that Trump himself turned out to be every bit as bad as he appeared to be when he stepped into the White House. It’s that so many Americans, including those congressional Republicans, were prepared to be his willing enablers despite the overwhelming evidence that he was unfit for office.
God willing, Americans will put an end to their national political nightmare starting with Tuesday’s presidential election. The polls strongly suggest Joe Biden is on his way to victory, and that is a result devoutly to be wished — not just by Americans, but by Canadians and indeed all the world.
After the shock of 2016, no one with any sense will count those chickens before they are well and truly hatched. But we can, and we do, cheer on voters who are flocking to advance polls to support Biden, and hope they do so in such overwhelming numbers that Trump cannot credibly contest the result.
Putting Biden and Kamala Harris in the White House is the first crucial step toward reestablishing a sense of normality in American political life. The word most commonly associated with Biden is “decent.” That would be faint praise at most times, but right now it’s what’s needed most badly. Basic decency — simply that will be like seeing the sun come up after the long, dark night of Trump’s mendacity, vindictiveness, indecency.
That will give U.S. political life a chance to start healing, but just a chance. Even if Trump is swept from the national stage (and we know he will never truly vanish), Trumpism will linger like a very bad smell.
It was obvious in 2016, and it’s even clearer now, that Trump was the product of powerful forces in American society, not the cause. He tapped into deep fears and resentments among many Americans; his presidency may have fanned those flames, but it did not create the fire. It also explains why Republicans stuck with him to the end. Their core voters, the famous “base,” remained loyal not despite his flaws, but often because of them.
Any president, including Biden, must govern with that in mind. So it will come as no surprise if a Biden administration continues some basic themes of the Trump presidency. Those include putting “America First” in trade and jobs, suspicion of China’s new power and a strong reluctance to become embroiled in foreign conflicts. Those attitudes will at times be problematic for close allies like Canada, even if they are promoted by a more rational, friendlier Democratic White House rather than by Trump’s ship of fools.
More fundamentally, though, the Trump presidency revealed some very ugly realities about the United States. Even now, with years of casual racism, lies and abuse of power behind him, after more than half a year of bungling the biggest health crisis in a century, something like 44 per cent of Americans approve of his performance in office. Biden’s victory is no slam-dunk, as it should be. We will all be on the edge of our seats as the votes come in on Tuesday evening and the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
Trump shattered what New York Times columnist David Brooks, an anti-Trump conservative, this week called the “Floor of Decency” (that word again) — an unspoken assumption that there are basic minimum standards of conduct for those who hope for success in public life, indeed for anyone who hopes to be an accepted member of society.
Trump violated them over and over. He mocked people’s physical appearance, insulted them wilfully, indulged in racial and ethnic stereotypes — all of that. For a while it seemed there might be a tipping point, when his support would melt away and his bootlickers in Congress would smell the coffee and abandon him. But that moment never really came. If there ever was a “Floor of Decency,” it seemed to vanish.
What does that portend for the future? Nothing good. Brooks put it like this: “Here’s one thing we will never be able to shake, the awareness that our basic standards of decency are more fragile than we thought; the awareness that any year, some new leader may come along and bring us back to a world of no bottom.”
Trump the person may start to fade away in the coming week, and good riddance. But from now on Americans, indeed the whole world, will always be looking over their collective shoulder, alert to the possibility of a new force out to subvert democratic norms. The work of rolling back that threat hasn’t even begun.
After the shock of 2016, no one with any sense will count those chickens before they are well and truly hatched