So far, Donald J. Trump has been doing damage on the margins of American society and political institutions. With the recent ratcheting up of his racist rhetoric, he’s moved to Stage Two of his task of destroying the United States.
A number of Russian journalists and commentators – not the Crimea-Ours types who eat out of Vladimir Putin’s hand, but truly independent ones – have expressed doubt about American claims that Russia had a major role in electing Donald Trump. They don’t believe that Russian intelligence would be capable of mounting such a comprehensive, sophisticated operation. They’re also loath to see Putin portrayed as some kind of a brilliant puppeteer controlling world history from the shadows of the Kremlin. They prefer to think of him as one of the hapless James Bond villains.
It’s probably prudent to reserve judgement on this matter until special counsel Robert Mueller concludes his work. What is already obvious however is that, whether or not on direct order from Putin, ISIS or the Devil himself, Trump is systematically undermining America at home and abroad. And yes – Putin, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and every other two-bit dictator and America’s enemy on the planet is already able to breathe easier because of that. There’s more good news in store for them.
Trump began undermining the presidency by mounting birther attacks on Barack Obama back in 2012, falsely claiming to have information that the President had been born in Kenya, not Hawaii. He has continued to shred international and domestic respect for the office after he moved to the White House – by lying, insulting people, praising dictators, stealing taxpayer money and revealing buffoonish depths of ignorance about the most elementary subjects – include English language grammar and spelling.
He impugned the validity of presidential elections by declaring during his campaign that it would be rigged and continuing to allege fraud – without a shred of evidence to support his claims – even after he won the Electoral College.
The US military, the courts, the press, both political parties and a large number of respected national figures are being regularly put down by Trump. He has exposed the hollowness of the military personnel’s patriotism – because they voted for a draft dodger who insulted war heroes – and the hypocrisy of the Evangelicals – because they elected a dishonest and greedy libertine.
He has repeatedly knocked America’s ideals of liberty, democracy and human rights. He and his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have declared that the United States will no longer promote such ideals worldwide.
His appointees to the Department of Energy, Health and Human Services, Education and, especially, State, as well as to the Environmental Protection Agency, are dismantling those entities and in many cases getting rid of or sidelining experienced old hands who ensured the running of the US government in previous administrations. In diplomacy in particular, Trump has poisoned US relations with our closest friends, neighbors and trading partners while Tillerson has stripped the State Department of personnel would could have repaired them.
Trump is working tirelessly to undermine the cohesion of American society with a tax cut that will further widen income differentials, his dogged determination to repeal Obamacare that will strip millions of poorer Americans of their health care and immigration policies and rhetoric that will set the native-born against immigrants.
Ironically, Trump’s supporters, despite wrapping themselves in the American flag and other red-white-and-blue kitsch, are actually happy about his destruction of their country. They have neither the education nor the drive needed to succeed in the information age; they have become the fringe and they no longer see the United States – successful, technologically advanced and open-minded – as their country. So they are cheering him on at his endless election rallies.
Trump has always been a racist and various right wing fringe groups recognized him early on and flocked to his colors. Since the fascist riots in Charlottesville, however, he’s been taking racism mainstream. And now, his tweets at the weekend putting down and insulting African-American players are opening the way to a new Civil War.
Some may think it is overstating the case – because sports is supposed be a mere game which moreover has been declared to be above politics. Yet, sports has been political at least since the start of the modern Olympic movement, and now Trump has brought politics – of the nastiest gutter variety – into sports.
Moreover, he’s attacked the bedrock of racial integration in the country, which evokes such names as Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis and Jesse Owen. It is the one area in which Black Americans have become extremely prominent – if not to say dominant, where they are universally loved and admired and where they represent and in many ways symbolize America on the international arena.
The only thing more damaging for the United States would be if Trump attacked African-Americans serving in the military – but this is surely coming once the attacks on Black athletes are normalized.
The 19th century Civil War between the Union and the Confederacy didn’t damage American standing. On the contrary, it launched the country on the path to become a global industrial power. That was because it was more like a war between two states, not a real civil conflict of the kind fought in Russia after the 1917 revolutions. And, moreover, 250 years ago America was a remote, far away place, far distant from centers of power in Western Europe.
Things are different today. A civil conflict may not become an all-out military confrontation and remain low intensity, but it will be more protracted, insidious and highly damaging – because it will be happening all over the country and involve a variety of ethnic, racial and religious groups.
Also, today the United States is a global leader. It is a guarantor of the global political and economic system. This system, established after World War II between Washington and its allies, has since spread worldwide. It has brought considerable prosperity to people around the globe, but its main beneficiary has been the United States. American companies have penetrated world markets and ordinary Americans have had access to cheap goods and services, consuming hundreds of billions of dollars more every year than they produce. The use of the dollar as a global reserve currency provided a variety of benefits to the United States, from the right to exchange printed paper for real goods to lower inflation and interest rates.
Needless to say, social turmoil in the United States will destroy the global system, making the world – and Americans in the first place, especially Trump voters – considerably poorer.
