Republican nominee Trump ignores civic rules
Governors of the state of New Mexico can be fools, and they can be brilliant. Some want to help the state thrive, and some mostly want to advance their own careers. Some are charming and some are prima donnas.
In every case, when they walk into a room, for a press conference or a speech or just to press the flesh, you stand. In our system, the governor of the state of New Mexico is more than a man or a woman. The governor is more than a political figure. In a sense, the governor is the state of New Mexico, and you treat the state of New Mexico with respect. It doesn’t matter who the governor is or what you think of him or her.
The military gets this. You salute the officer not because you know, like or respect the officer. You salute the uniform, not the person. You respect the uniform and what it stands for.
This is why Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress in 2009 was so unsettling. Wilson, a Republican representative from South Carolina, shouted, “You lie!” when the president said his proposed health care law, now usually called Obamacare, would not cover undocumented immigrants. (It happens the law does not cover undocumented immigrants.)
This kind of insult is
common in the British House of Commons, where the prime minister is the head of her party and the government. The president of the United States is the head of his party and government, too. Like the queen or king of England, he is also the head of state. Like him or not, whether you voted for him or his opponent, in his role as head of state the president is the United States.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg violated long-standing norms of political behavior by publicly fretting about the potential election of Donald Trump. It is a long-standing norm of behavior that judges, as members of the judicial branch of our three-branch government, refrain from commenting on the other two branches of government unless a court case compels their comment. Maintaining that norm helps to maintain the legitimacy of the courts.
After Sen. John McCain lost the 2008 presidential election, his running mate, Sarah Palin, insisted upon giving a speech of her own praising McCain before the senator gave his own speech conceding the election. McCain’s aides, according to the book “Game Change,” had to explain to Palin that it was essential that the losing presidential candidate and only the presidential candidate give a gracious speech acknowledging that the other candidate had won and pledging to help the next president in any way possible. This norm of civic behavior, McCain’s aides told Palin, signaled that the will of the voters would be respected, no matter how bitter an election might have been. The gesture says that the American people, who are the sovereign rulers of our nation, are in charge. Palin did not give her speech.
The Republican Party has given its nomination to a man whose success is based in part on flouting these sorts of norms.
On the basis of zero evidence, Donald Trump suggested that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father might have had something to do with John Kennedy’s assassination. He has implied that the president of the United States secretly supports terrorist attacks on our country. Trump called his primary election opponents losers, weak, total disasters, total embarrassments, pathetic, choke artists and corrupt. He utters not a word of protest when his advisers encourage violent attacks on Hillary Clinton.
Trump has spent his time telling the supporters of his opponents that they have been supporting liars, fools and criminals. He has told them that the process of primary elections is rigged — as did Bernie Sanders — and that his opponents’ successes are achieved dishonestly. Should the time come for him to govern, Trump will have to work with people and institutions that he has told his supporters lack all legitimacy. Should he lose, the president will be someone Trump says is a criminal who has avoided indictment only because of the corruption of our system. Our national challenge has always been getting millions of people of countless ethnicities, political views, cultures and religious backgrounds to accept the legitimacy of our government even if they despise the person running it. After any presidential election, millions of people are going to be, at a minimum, disappointed. The winner of that election must be able to count on at least their acceptance of the majority’s will because they respect the process and acknowledge its legitimacy.
Our political norms of behavior are designed to help maintain legitimacy for the institutions that hold our nation together and respect for the people who want to serve their fellow citizens. Absent legitimacy and respect, nations become ungovernable.
What Trump doesn’t seem to grasp is that the norms he disdains are part of the glue that holds a very large, very diverse, very difficult country together. Ignoring them is not just bad manners; it is dangerous.