President Trump risks undermining ideals of Reagan

President Donald Trump’s response to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder has revealed his, and his administration’s, moral abdication.

The Nov. 20 White House statement justifying its unwillingness to punish Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s murder is titled “America First.” Instead of a principled stance, we’re offered actual price tags: $150 billion in military arms contracts and the assurance that Saudi Arabia will keep oil prices low. When did selling weapons and oil prices become the arbiters of what is right? We are losing our ability to see clearly as a global leader for good.

The president maligned Khashoggi’s character with talking points directly from Mohammed bin Salmon’s playbook, including an invocation of one of their favorite phrases, “enemy of the people.” In fact, Khashoggi was a champion of the people. As a U.S. resident and Washington Post journalist, he spoke truth to power, calling for an end to the corruption within Saudi Arabia’s absolute-monarchy.

President Reagan said, “America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.” Khashoggi was a freedom-loving person who used his voice and pen to shine democracy’s beacon light. In auctioning off our country’s character, President Trump risks undermining the ideals of American exceptionalism enshrined in Reagan’s words.

We are witnessing the event horizon of a morally vacuous administration and the decay its opportunity-cost values perpetuate. Congress must speak clearly and act quickly to embolden the moral fabric that has truly made America great. If they fail to do so and the audio of this horror becomes public, Americans will face a new challenge. Are we callous enough to listen to the shrill screams of a freedom-lover’s dismemberment while still parroting President Trump’s increasingly shallow and spineless refrain, America First, America First, America First? Daniel P Carey Jr. Meriden