Town hall showed our democracy still in peril
People in the south and southwest suburbs who watched CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump Wednesday night got a taste of what to expect for the next 18 months.
The cable network, in a seemingly desperate bid for ratings and revenue, kowtowed to the former liar in chief and gave him a platform to spout falsehoods for about 75 minutes.
This is how it’s going to be, folks.
From Calumet City to Matteson and Oak Lawn to New Lenox, a single thought must be going through the minds of many who tuned in to hear Trump’s fire hose of fallacies.
“Here we go again.” Plenty of critics have aimed their ire at CNN for giving Trump a platform to spew his distorted takes on such events as the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and his taking classified documents with him after he left the White House.
Host Kaitlan Collins tried to get Trump to admit he lost the 2020 presidential race, but Trump insisted the election was rigged and that only stupid people believed President Joe Biden’s win was legitimate. Trump repeated his big lie that voter fraud affected the outcome.
“I think it’s a shame what happened,” Trump said. “I think it’s a very sad thing for our country.”
Michael Fanone, a former police officer who was injured during the attack on the Capitol, summed up reaction of many in a piece he wrote for Rolling Stone.
“Trump, as U.S. president, lied in an effort to defraud the American people and overturn a free and fair election in an attempt to remain in power,” Fanone wrote.
“In doing so he betrayed every aspect of his oath to represent us as Americans,” he wrote. “We no longer need to imagine what Trump is capable of. He has shown us that he is an authoritarian who will use any means at his disposal, including violence, to remain in power.”
Many Trump supporters in Homer Glen, Lemont and Palos Park ought to admit this truth. Far too many people continue to live in a fantasy land where Trump is a victim of a political witch hunt. The mean mainstream media are out to get him. Trump called Collins “a nasty person” when she pressed him for an answer about classified documents he took.
Trump joked about sexual assault, less than 24 hours after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million.
“This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I don’t know who she is,” Trump said.
Many in the audience laughed. CNN’s studio audience at the New Hampshire town hall was packed with Trump supporters. CNN’s seemed to help normalize Trump’s behavior for the sake of ratings.
CNN’s Trump town hall showed how Americans should expect the next 18 months to play out. Trump, already the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, will vanquish Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and all other GOP contenders.
When the 2024 Republican National Convention takes place in Milwaukee next July, the party will nominate Trump. That means millions of Americans will overlook Trump’s record of sexual abuse and refusal to allow the peaceful transfer of power in 2020 and support him, because he will be their party’s nominee.
The threat is clear. Our
democracy remains in peril.
Trump has shown himself to be a vile person. Yet millions of his supporters see him as something else. They see a myth that television created by making him the host of “The Apprentice” for many years.
They see Trump as a deal maker and shrewd negotiator. Plenty of Republican leaders in Congress and elsewhere perpetuate the myth. Things were better when Trump was president. The economy was stronger, they believe, the southern border was more secure.
Some who watched CNN’s Trump town hall saw a repeat of 2015-2016 unfolding before their eyes, when media treated Trump’s fascist and authoritarian tendencies as
equivalent to such bedrock principles as the rule of law and majority rule.
“They instead have set a match to democracy once again,” political strategist and former Republican Rick Wilson said in a video shared on social media. “You are letting an insane person stand there and make people giggle and laugh when he jokes about rape.”
Americans recognized Trump’s threat to democracy in 2020. It’s not just that Trump is boorish, corrupt and unfit to hold the highest office in the free world. It’s that even though Trump revealed himself to pose a dangerous threat to sacred freedoms, Republicans still fell in line and supported him.
Thankfully, millions more Democrats, moderates and independents rejected Trump in the presidential election. Trump boasted again during the CNN town hall how he received more votes in 2020 than any other sitting president in history. That was true, but it was also true that Biden beat Trump by more than 7 million in the popular vote.
Trump showed, despite valiant efforts by Collins, that he cannot be factchecked in real time. He is like a predator whose uses charm and humor to ensnare his prey. He’s capable of winning people over. He needs to be viewed as a serious threat.
Wilson, the strategist, stated the obvious when he said other Republican candidates have no chance of becoming the GOP nominee.
“It’s astoundingly bad for the country and it’s astoundingly bad, honestly folks, for every other Republican candidate in the primaries,” Wilson said in his video. “You know you can’t beat him on the stage.”
It’s up to Democrats and independents to save American democracy and the cherished freedoms we hold dear.
“Everyone else, it’s oars up, time to go to work,” Wilson said.
It is insane that a twice-impeached, criminally indicted sex abuser is a major party’s likely presidential nominee. It is even more insane that enough people may support Trump that he could serve another term as president.