American democracy in crisis. Credit: The Guardian
by John B. Alexander
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Sunday, February 09, 2025 (DailyKos.com)
America is in crisis. Precipitated by the slimmest plurality, American voters chose to reject the values of honesty, integrity, compassion and morality for governance by greed, autocracy, and lawlessness. Repeatedly we were warned. The warnings of astute scholars of history fell on deaf ears as tens of millions of voters who followed the pied piper, a charismatic, mentally unstable criminal who bewitched them into believing he had their interests at heart. Consciously those voters chose the path leading to authoritarianism and the dismantling of the established U.S. Government. This is not the first time morality has faltered with dire consequences.
In 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by Paul von Hindenburg. Following the death of Hindenburg in 1934, supported by a 90 percent plebiscite vote, Hitler merged the position of Chancellor and President and became Fuhrer. Post the Great Depression, the vast majority of the German people who voted for Hitler were concerned about their personal economic conditions. Most of them were morally good people of Christian faith. They had no thoughts that only a few years later Germany would be exterminating people on an industrial scale. It was only gradually that the country fell into a total dictatorship. That would lead them to embrace the concept of lebensraum and the invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, France and several others igniting World War II. While the majority of the 1930s German public did not start the Holocaust, too many of them became accepting or complicit.
It is not politically popular to make a comparison between the rise of Hitler and Trump, but the similarities are strikingly obvious. There are deep concerns about economic insecurity, political instability, and a charismatic personality untethered from either morality or reality. Analogously they created and demonized “others” to focus the attention of their blinded supporters and evoked unreasoned anger that could be channeled into action.
There is little doubt that Trump is a lifelong criminal. Operating as if he was a mafia Don or mob boss, he evaded conviction for many years. Every voter knew, or should have known, that Trump was an adjudicated sex offender, and a perennial sexual predator. His many private extramarital affairs were legendary. Finally, it was the New York Attorney General, Alvin Bragg, who obtained 34 felony convictions from a jury. Concurrently, a US Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, was able to obtain many felony indictments from multiple grand juries. There is no doubt about Trump’s guilt in those cases as the evidence was observed by millions of Americans in real time. Similarly, there was the Georgia election interference case brought by Fanny Willis. Again, there is no doubt as to Trump’s culpability as we have all heard the infamous phone call in which Trump specifically asked Brad Raffensberger to falsify the election results. Trump was charged with a total of 91 felonies in four venues. He was guilty of all of them. Knowing all of that, tens of millions of amoral voters chose a criminal to be POTUS. The 2024 election alone indicates that morality and integrity are not concerns of many Americans.
During the campaign, Trump stated he had no knowledge of the document called Project 2025. As soon as he was inaugurated, he began implementing that plan designed to dismantle the democracy of the United States Government. One of Trump’s first steps was the imposition of ReichsFuhrer Elon Musk to eviscerate existing organs of governance. His terrorizing of the workforce has become apparent. Writing in The New Yorker Daily, Susan Glasser correctly noted, “The evisceration of U.S.A.I.D. isn’t a policy fight—it’s an execution designed to strike fear in our own government.”
As a retired military officer, of personal concern to me is how the military will respond to Trump and potential illegal orders. On J6 it was General Mark Milley who stood in the breach and prevented things from getting out of hand. For his efforts, Trump has tried to erase him as a former C, JCS. A petty tyrant, he had GEN Milley’s portrait removed from the Pentagon and his minions are looking for ways to demote him. With sycophant Hegseth as SECDEF, there are no protections left. Morality and integrity have been cornerstones of military service. After attending a meeting with retired General David Petraeus, I gave him some questions and posted this article, “An Existential Question,’’ addressing the potential challenges for senior DoD leadership.
As I was drafting this article, voting on party lines, the Senate confirmed ReichsMinister Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025, to again serve as the director of the influential Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vought has been described as a lawless ideologue. The New York Times quoted Vought in 2023 stating. “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.” The Washington Post addressed Vought’s thinking as post-constitutional and quoted him stating, “Do not tell me that we are living under the Constitution.” Regardless of his position about the US Constitution, those spineless, amoral GOP senators intentionally voted for the destruction of American democracy.
What has been painfully clear for months to years, is that the remnants of the Republican Party (GOP) have no sense of the importance of morality. Members of the GOP in both the House and Senate are completely subservient to an amoral criminal. By extension, it is clear that millions of their constituents also assume that morality and integrity are not voting issues or of concern to them. By their inaction at the multitude of patently illegal actions initiated by Trump, all members of the GOP have acquiesced their Constitutional authority or responsibility. Political cowards all, they thereby have forfeited any remaining dignity or personal respect. Generally unrecognized is that they have forsaken their constituents. A perfect example are the Red State farmers that no longer sell $2 billion of their products (rice, wheat, lentils, peas) to USAID for distribution to starving people.
There were plenty of other individuals and agencies complicit in allowing Trump to assume dictatorial authorities in his overt and unconstitutional power grab. Certainly, Senator Mitch McConnell is one of the most egregious culprits. As Senate majority leader he failed to convict Trump in either of his totally justified impeachments. His recent CBS 60 Minutes interview proved beyond all doubt his complete lack of morality. In a recent biography he stated that Trump was, “a despicable human being and unfit for office.” Following the January 6, 2021, insurrection attempt, McConnell noted Trump bore moral responsibility for that attack on the US Capitol. Knowing all of that, and that Trump was a criminal, McConnell still endorsed him for president in 2024. Such reflects the values of Kentucky voters as morality and integrity are not issues of concern.
Among those very culpable are the hypocritical faux Christian Right voters who passionately worship Trump as if a savior. The BBC posted “This was one of the most striking themes of his election campaign – that he had been chosen by God.” Unbelievably, Franklin Graham supported Trump, “as a man of integrity” and “anointed by God.” If Graham believes that, I recommend he and his boss/deity have a discussion about the meaning of integrity.
To be clear, Trump has played the evangelicals like a harp while making a mockery of the values of Christ. As evangelical megachurch pastor, Robert Jeffress, stated, “Conservative Christians continue to overwhelmingly support Donald Trump because of his biblical policies, not his personal piety.” Abortion aside, Trump’s policies kill. During his first term Trump’s inept handling of Covid 19 led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans (my estimate is more than a million). His current policies, including eviscerating US AID, will likely lead to the deaths of millions more worldwide.
Those “conservative Christians” should also know that Trump’s policies often are intentionally cruel (just as Jesus would want it). Remember Trump’s “Christian” policy of putting children in cages. Imagine the cruelty of separating very young children from their parents. It was intentionally cruel. With the current purge there are millions of multi-generational families with mixed immigration status. Cruelty is the intention and parents afraid to send children to school and reports of officers raiding school buses to check immigration status of students.
This week, Newsweek recognized the issue in an article titled, “Trump’s America—Land of Cruelty and Vengeance. In part it stated, “Yet, as cruel and terrible as Trump has been and will undoubtedly continue to be, what’s even worse is the fact that so many millions of Americans embrace his ideology, believing, as the antagonist Gordon Gekko once said that greed is good, and that our first and only priority is to look out for ourselves. If that means abandoning our allies, so be it. If it means mischaracterizing DEI efforts to maintain white hegemony, also OK. And if it means cutting off crucial medications to other countries, that’s not our problem, they reason.”
For a longer discussion on the topic of Trump’s intentional cruelty I recommend The Cruelty is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America, by Adam Serwer
Noted at the beginning of this article was that Hitler directed the unprovoked invasion of several neighboring countries. That also led to ethnic cleansing with extermination of Jews and other undesirable elements. Here again similarities abound. We must be cognizant that Trump has already announced a list of countries he wants to takeover. With a very distorted and mistaken understanding of the Panama Canal Treaty that Jimmy Carter signed Trump has indicated that the US should take it over by force if necessary. He also listed Greenland as a potential acquisition, even though Demark has controlled it since the 18th century and is not interested in divesting it. Trump has repeatedly stated he wanted to make Canada a new American state. That is vehemently opposed by Canadians.
But closer to the Hitler analogy, on February 4th, sitting beside Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump announced the United States would take over control of Gaza. Trump stated, “We will own it.” Contrary to prior American values, Trump supports a massive involuntary ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian inhabitants. Really? Are Americans again approving of ethnic cleansing of people who do not want to leave their homes? Ethnic cleansing is not new to America. Please remember before Trump’s DEI purge when teaching ethnic and gender tribulations could still be discussed. There was the Trail of Tears, and many other genocidal atrocities that were perpetrated on Native Americans by the US Government as their lands were confiscated.
Despite history, millions of Americans seem predisposed to again engage in ethnic cleansing and excuse it as an innovative solution to a festering, complex problem. While some Republicans hailed the concept as “innovative,” others were perplexed. Clearly illegal under international law, the entire GOP should be screaming in indignation. But immorality and lack of integrity are their hallmarks.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter whether or not Trump executes any of his announced takeover plans. Significant damage has already been done, and decades of rapport-building was crushed. Following the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, during his first term, Trump was adamant about withdrawing from Afghanistan; so much so he surrendered to the Taliban with the Doha Agreement. Just as in his private career, Trump is a bully who views laws as simply inconveniences that do not apply to him. He completely lacks integrity, is amoral, dishonest, and mentally unstable. By fiat, people in foreign countries see America in the same light. We are the bullies of the world. Behavior is believable, and America’s behavior is untrustworthy and unreliable.
To make matters worse, Trump’s anti-science and counter-DEI (Diversity. Equity & Inclusion) positions are both detrimental to America and possibly existential for the world. Repeatedly, Trump and his minion’s rail against DEI and promote meritocracy. They call for the best and brightest, most highly qualified applicants for all positions. Then for his cabinet nominees he put forward the least qualified/most unqualified list that has ever presented to the Senate for confirmation. They exhibit one critical quality, unquestioned fealty to Trump. Lacking even a modicum of integrity, they have already approved blatantly unqualified Pete Hegseth as SECDEF, post-Constitutionalist Russell Vought for OMB, clueless Kristi Noem as SECDHS and sycophant Pam Bondi, as AG. In the hopper are Tulsi Gabbard with zero Intelligence experience, vaccine critic RFK, Jr. for HHS, and Kash Patel for Director of the FBI who comes complete with a published enemies list and no law enforcement experience. There are others most of whom come with two attributes, Trump fealty and billions of dollars.
The warnings could not have been clearer. There were very senior people who worked closely with Trump in his first administration who told us he was unfit for office. They included Mike Pence (VP) GEN Jim Mattis (SECDEF) GEN John Kelly (SECDHS & WH CoS) Mark Esper (SECDEF) John Bolton (NSA) and many others. Telling is that the majority of former Trump senior officials would not endorse him. Historians and reporters detailed how badly Trump governed. Bob Woodward wrote a trilogy, Rage, Fear, and Peril, Maggie Haberman published Confidence Man, A very Stable Genius and I Alone Can Fix It, by Leonning and Rucker, The Divider by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, This Will Not Pass, by Martin and Burns all provided detailed accounts for those who lived it, but experienced amnesia. Then there were books explicitly outlining the threat to democracy that Trump posed. Those include How Democracies Fail and Tyranny of the Minority by, Levitsky and Ziblatt. Barbara Walter wrote How Civil Wars Start while Timothy Snyder wrote The Road to Unfreedom and On Tyranny. Understanding that most of MAGA doesn’t read, all of those books were covered on multiple television programs and a multitude of websites.
Much of America’s political degradation can be laid at the feet of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). It was their 2010 decision Citizens United that wrongly declared money was protected speech. That decision accelerated the influence of unlimited dark money and cemented in the new age of the oligarchs. Then, on July 1st, 2024, SCOTUS issued the unprecedented Trump v United States ruling expanding executive powers and granting him immunity for core acts. In her correct dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote “It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”
Thus emboldened, Trump himself issued warnings that he was going to be a dictator “on Day One.” He was assisted by the highly partisan SCOTUS and judges like Ailene Cannon who ensured Trump didn’t go to trial where he surely would have been convicted of more felonies. The actions of some members of SCOTUS prove their lack of integrity and morality and they have actively resisted attempts to impose and enforce a code of conduct. Their public approval rating is lower than their disapproval rating. That is hardly surprising with grifters like Clarence Thomas, who never should have been appointed, getting so much attention for taking expensive gifts and not reporting them, or Samuel Alito flying a flag of the far-right extremists.
Just like eight years ago, America is dominated by an amoral inveterate liar. This time he is a convicted felon who is taking the credibility of the country down with him. The Republican Party no longer exists as a viable independent governing body as they have voluntarily relinquished their duties and responsibilities to a petty tyrant who is bent on destroying democracy as we have known it. Morality and integrity are of no interest to any of their members as they cower at the shadow of Elon Musk financing a primary opponent against them if they demonstrate any form of fortitude and confront the rampantly illegal machinations of their master, Trump. Those GOP senators have already demonstrated that they will betray their oath of office and the American people. But then, a substantial percentage of MAGA may come to learn they voted against their own interests. In the end morality, honesty and integrity matter.
Over a year ago I wrote, “Will Americans vote our nation out of existence?” The answer is that many would and may already have.
