Paris, France
I’m happy not to be in the United States this Inauguration Day. How did it come to pass that my country elected as its President a lout and a buffoon; someone with no understanding, appreciation, or respect for our history and institutions; a bluffer with the mindset of an adolescent male; a man with no executive or political experience; a sideshow barker, a small-minded Daddy’s Boy driven by insecurity and fear; a pathetic, despicable letch; someone utterly unable to control his mind or his actions; a freak?
I’m ashamed of my country right now. I’m ashamed of my countrymen and countrywomen, many of whom I grew up with and know, and a few of which I continue to admire and respect, who voted for this abomination. I know why they did: Abandoned for decades by the intellectual and political center of the Democratic Party, despised, mocked, and denigrated for their traditional culture and faith, marginalized in political discourse, they were ripe to be picked by a opportunist unafraid to take a page from the playbook of the Left and appeal to their pride, to their base natures, to create and nurture a “culture of complaint” on the Right, to arouse resentments, to promise a government that would send aliens back to where they came from, and lift True Americans back to the glories of a never-existent golden age. At a minimum, they believed that the system is so broken that they were willing to send to the White House the political equivalent of a man with a suicide vest, collateral damage be damned.
On one thing we agree: the political system is broken. Politicians don’t lead, they follow. The Left has become ossified, unable to internally challenge its increasingly ludicrous pandering to ever-smaller interest groups, continuing to engage in intellectual condescension and bullying, portraying anyone who dares to challenge its positions as stupid or evil or both. The Right is hostage to its own set of interests, mindlessly opposing the most reasonable proposals if contrary to talk-radio dogma. By self-separating into political subdivisions that are not competitive electorally, we’ve given free rein to the extremes. The center is hollowed out. The press has lost its position as arbiter of the true from the non-true. The famous maxim of the former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan — that one is entitled to one’s own opinion, but not one’s own facts — seems quaint, old-fashioned, irrelevant, forgotten.
It’s not clear if we can remedy this situation. And it’s not clear if our political and civic institutions are strong enough to withstand the vile, base nature of this President. On balance I think they are, but our country has never faced a challenge like this. Other civilized, advanced western countries have fallen to the siren of totalitarianism and fascism; are we really immune?
The only question for me is — what do I do? I’ve resisted the “Not My President” movement because, as a moderate, it seems to me to just be a leftist reflection of the same kind of intransigence that I abhor. This new President was, after all, legally elected, and as a citizen I should respect that result. But after watching the transition, I’m no longer sure. Why should I show respect to someone who seems to have no knowledge of, or is unwilling to honor, our institutions and history; why should I honor and respect someone who seems to think himself above those institutions, above, perhaps, the Presidency itself?
In the end, I decided that this President is such an outlier, such a threat to our longstanding political order, that even as a moderate, I have an obligation to resist. This doesn’t mean there won’t be a few things to come out of this Administration that I will support as matters of policy. But the man, I will fight him, I will do what little I can to reduce his power and his influence, to constrain him.
Not my President. Count me out.
Categories: Politics