America’s problem is not Donald J. Trump and it extends well beyond Russia’s meddling in last year’s presidential elections, possible collusion with the Kremlin by the Trump campaign and his administration’s clumsy attempts to cover it up.
Trump now appears to be in serious trouble but who can seriously believe that if he resigned or was impeached, and Congress took steps to prevent Russian interference in the future, everything would return to normal? It is not Russia inserting itself into the American political process but politics in Washington – and, in a large part, American society in general – coming to resemble Russia – as well as other Third World authoritarian regimes.
Appropriately enough, the latest cover of Time shows the White House morphing into the Cathedral of Basil the Blessed on Red Square..
America has been on steroids ever since Trump was elected. It’s hard to believe that so many events have been packed into just four months. Now, after a two-week spell when scandals and revelations were unusually numerous even by Trump’s standards, a special counsel has been appointed with powers to investigate the whole sorry mess: the meddling, the collusion, the cover-up.
Many in the media and the government breathed a sigh of relief, declaring that “the system is working,” Wall Street, after taking fright initially, has bounced back – at least for now.
However, the crisis is far from over. A wide-ranging investigation by former FBI chief Robert Mueller may end up becoming something like Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika. When he came to power, Gorbachev was determined to reform the Soviet Union. But honest discussion of the communist past set off a bout of agonizing soul-searching in Soviet society; then, when he started to implement much needed economic and political reforms, the entire rotten structure crumbled upon his head. Mueller’s quests likewise risks laying bare deep flaws in America’s political system and society and throwing the already divided country into turmoil.
Trump is not the root of America’s problems. He is, at best, a symptom – or maybe the crowning achievement of American society as it developed in recent decades.
The 2016 election was a disaster from the start. The two main parties offered Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush as their “inevitable” candidates. The first Bush appeared on the presidential ballot in 1980, and the first Clinton in 1992. The election was a priori declared to be the most boring ever. That in itself pointed to dangerous political stagnation and rot. Trump and Bernie Sanders shook this ossified structure but those two septuagenarians offered programs that harked even further to the past – to the 1930s, to be exact, one peddling fascism and the other Roosevelt’s New Deal.
The Republicans National Committee should have repudiated Trump the moment he called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers. During his campaign, Trump gave the Republican Party even more reasons to distance itself from him, including his promises to violate the Constitution, his appeal to Russia to hack Clinton’s server, his threat to ban Muslims, his boasting about grabbing women, etc. The party would have probably split, Trump would have staged an independent run, but at least the Republicans would not have covered themselves in infamy.
Since the inauguration the once respectable party has pulled itself further into the mud. Republicans have ignored crimes and misdemeanors of their leader ranging from conflict of interest and nepotism to obstruction of justice and, quite possibly, high treason. Even at this late date, 75.2% of registered Republicans approve of Trump.
GOP has thus turned itself into United America – an American version of United Russia – or any other banana republic ruling party which acts as a lapdog for the authoritarian caudillo and a trough for its leaders.
The Democratic Party responded to the challenge posed by Trump by removing the threat to the status quo posed by Sanders and idealistic young people who embraced him, and clinging to Clinton, a weak and tired candidate. As in every tale of dying democracy, the impotence of its defenders is a necessary corollary to the strength of its enemies.
The Democrats have learned no lessons. Their leaders are still the ones who presided over every one of their defeats in the recent past. Even with a dramatic mobilization of so many young, energetic, smart people against Trump, there is no guarantee that the party will regain either chamber of Congress next year. As to 2020, who is planning to run for president if not our old friend Joe Biden.
Other institutions have not acquitted themselves much better. The FBI effectively intervened in the election on Trump’s side. The mainstream media spent the election year chasing ratings and therefore promoting Trump and his lunacy. The Electoral College proved a rubber stamp for the popular choice of an unsuitable, mentally unbalanced person for the most powerful office in the land, perverting its original purpose. The Supreme Court accepted the Senate’s refusal to vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee for a year and then didn’t object to Neil Gorsuch taking the stolen seat.
This rotten system is in for a rude shock when Mueller concludes his investigation. His findings may well have the effect of glasnost on the old Soviet Union. But this probably won’t happen for many months, during which the American political system will continue to putrefy and emit one scandal after another. How it plays out then is anybody’s guess.
There is an old saying that every nation has the kind of government which it deserves. It’s true in the case of Russia and it’s no less true in the case of the United States. In a democracy especially, the government is only as good as the voters who elect it.
After the 2016 election, much was said about white blue-collar voters who felt betrayed by the elites of both parties and threatened by economic and cultural changes inherent in globalization. No doubt, their resentment and alienation played an important role in Trump’s victory, but other factors were clearly involved, as well, given that Trump has no intention of helping this group. On the contrary, he is clearly bent on closing opportunities for ordinary Americans and plans to widen the economic and social divides. Above all, he is interested in self-aggrandizement, boasting and lining his own pockets.
Nevertheless, between 35% and 40% of voters drawn from this group appear not only to stick with Trump but remain wildly enthusiastic about him. The mobs he gathers at his rallies are still readily baitable and willing to chant “Lock her up!”
Such blind Fuehrer worship may be understandable in Russia and other countries where democratic traditions are weak or nonexistent. But the decline of democratic values in the United States has been an extraordinary development. .
The scandals swirling around the Trump administration have been compared to Watergate. However, for all his flaws, Richard Nixon was a serious and experienced politician, a statesman, an intellectual and a patriot. The fact that a disloyal, incompetent, oafish buffoon has been elected president – and elected when all of his qualities were openly on display – signals that something has gone very badly wrong with the American people.
America remains the world’s most powerful nation and its economy is still extremely robust. But that could end fairly quickly – if it rejects its democracy and democratic institutions.
Democracy is a necessary requirement for a strong economy. In South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia, democracy has been moving hand in hand with development. Eastern Europe, too, embarked on the road to prosperity only after countries in the region threw off communism and embraced democracy. China has made huge strides toward economic development but even its elites realize that the country needs changes in order to become rich and stable.
It is doubtful, therefore, that the United States can retain its economic leadership if its political system slides into the third world. Thus Trump, the true King of Bankruptcy, may end up being a catalyst for the greatest bankruptcy of his career, that of the United States of America.
