The credibility of political leaders still matters
Watching Trump's antics at his New York criminal trial highlights the sad condition into which American democracy has stumbled.
In fact it probably is not democracy that is faltering so much as it is the remarkable lack of faith so many Americans —and, indeed, some Canadians — have in a political system that offers the vastness of lifetime opportunity.
The more sordid the Trump tale becomes the more many Republicans seek to linger in his shadow. In Canada, that distorted view of democracy echoes with those whose most articulate political comment is a flag with F--k Trudeau emblazoned.
Often, these are people for whom Communists and assorted dangerous Socialists lurk beneath their beds. One does wonder, should Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre succeed Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, how long would it be before posters and flags with F--k Poilievre are flying?
The paranoia that drives so much of rightwing bombast is fickle. Malcontents are never satisfied in politics and that also includes leftwing hyperbole.
In 1962 Chad Mitchell Trio had a wonderful satirical hit song, The John Birch Society, premised upon a paranoid narrator who found Communists infiltrating America from almost everywhere. Superb lines in that song include: “You cannot trust your neighbour or even next of kin; If mommie is a Commie then you gotta turn her in.” Founded in 1958, the John Birch Society (JBS) still exists as an American rightwing political advocacy group. It is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultra- and far-right conservative, populist and libertarian fringe ideas.
The JBS would prefer a new Messiah or just a plain old-fashioned dictator. Trump seems to fit that mould. American populist urgency which has propelled Trump can be traced back as far as the U.S. Civil War years.
The phrase “Make America Great” was popularized with the 1930s German-american Bunde, a successful pro-nazi organization that thrived in the U.S. until Hitler found himself at war with the U.S. Fritz Kuhn, the organization's `Bundesführer,' hosted a mass rally of 22,000 waving banners with antisemitic slogans and boisterous rhetoric at Madison Square Garden in February 1939.
Kuhn pushed his movement as a “mass demonstration for true Americanization.” Sound familiar?
The rhetoric does change over time but the essential themes of America as a white Christian society remain very prominent as underlying themes in American politics. Reagan and Bush used the slogan “Let's Make America Great Again” in the 1980 U.S. presidential campaign. According to Pew Research Center in Washington D.C., “White Evangelicals see Trump as fighting for their beliefs, though many have mixed feelings about his personal conduct.” At least five per cent of Americans surveyed believe Trump was ordained by God to rule America. But should we be surprised that aspiring populists or dictators are often linked to religion? For example, a decade ago in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour Patriarch Kirill, head of Russia's Orthodox Church, called Putin's era a “miracle of God.” In a January 2023 sermon, Patriarch Kirill predicted Russia's invasion of Ukraine would leave Russia's Orthodox Church triumphant in that devastated country. If the credibility of populist political leaders depends first upon racism and antisemitism and secondly on some obscure link to religion then what can be said positively about those leaders' capacities or willingness to support both democracy or the very credibility of offices they aspire to hold?
Bill Clinton dragged America's presidency under his desk and in so doing diminished both the dignity and credibility of the office of president. The world needs an America with a credible and morally strong and ethically premised president. Trump appears to lack any cohesive set of moral or ethical standards. His compass is entirely self-centred, and yet many Americans, like mindless lemmings, seem unfazed by an aspiring autocrat once more occupying the White House.
America has almost always been great. So why do Americans feel a need to entertain a prospective president who is so remarkably inadequate by any moral or ethical standards?