Running for the White House should be an obstacle course, not a walk in the park
Donald Trump stood inside 40 Wall Street, a building in New York that bears his name. He was flanked by his expensive lawyers and proceeded to complain mightily that life is not fair. But what he really meant was that, suddenly, his life of glib stories and shady deals in service to boundless ambition and avarice had met a formidable obstacle.
He was in NewYork to wrestle with two of the many court cases that dog him. In one involving hush-money paid to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, the judge announced an April 15 trial date. This displeased Trump because it would make his campaigning far more challenging. And that, to him, was unfair.
In the case involving business fraud, a New York appeals court reduced the amount of his bond from nearly half-a-billion dollars to $175m (€162m). This pleased Trump slightly, but it was still unfair, in his view, because he’d rather spend his money on getting elected president.
“I don’t know how you can have a trial that’s going on right in the middle of an election,” he complained. “Not fair. Not fair at all.”
He said this in his usual way, with a plaintive whine in his voice, with his mouth spreading wide in a toothy grimace and then reshaping itself into a petulant circle of disbelief. His hands moved in and out as if playing an invisible accordion. Occasionally, they swatted at an insect.
Trump, a man privileged with an abundance of connections, both financial and political, could not stop bemoaning how wrong it was that, regardless of his behaviour, he should be faced with any hurdles on the road towards the White House. His baseless accusations and lies are as essential to his public identity as his tales of financial derring-do, his coarse language, his prejudices and his listing towards autocracy.
“I became president because of the brand,” he said. But few things define this strongman from Queens, NewYork, like his feelings of being put upon by lawyers, the federal government, migrants, nasty women, obnoxious attorneys general and anyone else who causes him even the most modest inconvenience.
In the context of the presidential campaign, any hindrance to his smooth sailing back into the Oval Office is an abomination. Yet nowhere in the US constitution does it say that running for high office should be easy.
The more powerful the position, the more difficult it should be to win. Elections should be free and fair, but running for office should be an obstacle course of problem-solving, emotional challenges, moral tests and creative thinking. It should be a marathon of patience, good humour and goodwill.
The pathway to a position in which one can change lives through executive orders should be rocky and steep. It should summon a will like that needed to climb Everest. Gaining the power to nominate Supreme Court justices – who will deal with matters of love, life, death and bodily autonomy – should require that a candidate sometimes feel helpless, flawed or afraid, because all too often that’s how plaintiffs feel by the time their case reaches the highest court.
An easy road means struggles are merely hypothetical. A candidate needs to have felt some pain; not one-percenter sorrows, but the kind that nicks the soul and lives on for generations.
Trump curried favour with conservatives by loading the Supreme Court with their preferred nominees. That was easy. The fact the Supreme Court – heavy with Trump appointees – overturned Roe vWade even though a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal – well, that’s unfair.
The idea of struggle shouldn’t be hypothetical; it shouldn’t be just another amicus brief or a bit of political deal-making.
Trump laments that courts are forcing a trial when he’s trying to satisfy his ambition. He sounds a bit like a guy who has shown up at a stadium and can’t believe there’s a line for the toilet. He can’t believe the inconvenience. He can’t believe no one is clearing the way for him. He can’t believe that while the experience might be unusual, it’s hardly unfair. Some might even see it as sweet parity.
Trump’s legal problems are of his own making, whether he was encouraging an insurrection by falsely claiming electoral victory was stolen from him or operating his businesses with the reckless air of a monarch. He has brought these burdens on himself.
When Rick Santorum ran for the Republican nomination for president, his youngest child was struggling with a rare chromosomal disorder. That wasn’t fair. During John Edwards’s campaign, his wife Elizabeth’s cancer returned. That was unfair.
John McCain campaigned bearing the wounds of a prisoner of war. That wasn’t fair. When Barack Obama ran for president, his family had to grapple with America’s racism and its history of martyred black leaders. That wasn’t fair either.
Trump is campaigning with the privileges of being a straight white man with financial resources, social capital and political connections. Despite a reputation for being a difficult client and shirking his bills, he has assembled a sprawling legal team that has been able to delay the start of trials, reduce his bond requirements and allow him all manner of leeway and dignity.
He has had it easy. He has skated free using bankruptcy laws, loopholes and the US’s reliance on norms rather than laws. And there’s nothing fair about that. (© Washington Post 2024)