To the list of Trump’s crimes, we must now add semiquincentennial killer.
Just a few years ago, I would have thought that, during my 72nd year, at or near retirement, with grandchildren and pets hugging and nuzzling my Target slip-on sneakers and support socks, our country’s 250th birthday would mean fireworks, fellowship, and Springsteen in his support socks on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. As always on the Fourth, we would have weighed our nation’s successes and failures and yearned for the perfection of the union, dusting off Dr. King‘s quotation about the arc of history bending toward justice and Lincoln‘s about the last best hope of earth.
It’s going to be harder to celebrate this year. Because we are earth’s biggest downer. The arc of history has whacked us in the snout. Modern American exceptionalism is to be especially disreputable. As far as the rest of the world can see, we’ve abandoned founding principles we never fully honored and which human wisdom now reckons as foolishness. A selfish ignoramus has made his gutter values the American brand. He has won unprecedented power by desecrating our founding covenants, his oath of office, and every flag that flies on the Fourth.
A democratic nation? We failed to hold accountable a seditionist who tried to steal an election and used potentially deadly violence against police officers to try to keep power illegally. The only elections said to be honest are the ones the GOP wins.
A welcoming nation? We only recognize white Afrikaners as refugees.
A nation founded on the rule of law? We’ve slaughtered hundreds of men of color on the high seas on false pretexts and killed scores of Cubans just to get our hands on Venezuela’s oil.
A trustworthy nation? We’ve torn down postwar structures of peace and security and killed thousands in a stupid, immoral, unavailing war.
A generous nation? Experts think Trump aid cuts will kill hundreds of thousands or millions in the developing world.
A nation dedicated to liberty and justice for all? Trump’s sadistic abuse of our trans and non-binary siblings puts their very lives at risk.
We will always honor the sacrifices of those who gave their lives for peace, freedom, and justice. A better future shimmers, if dimly, just over the horizon. Getting there won’t be easy. Fixing Trump’s damage will take years. Because it’s not just Trump. He is useful idiot for a cabal of determined intellectuals who believe variously that elections are obsolete because they lead to pluralism and social safety nets, we should be an explicitly Christian nation, people of color are polluting our bloodlines, and women’s right to vote should be taken away.
Take the manosphere. Please. A good primer is Heidi Blake’s June 8 “New Yorker” article “Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse.” She calls Tate, a pornographer and alleged child sex trafficker and rapist, “the defining figure of the manosphere” whose teachings helped spark an epidemic of violent misogyny among young men in Britain, North America, and Asia. Though Trump keeps his distance, members of Trump’s family have had brushes with Tate or his brother, Tristan. There’s even evidence that we helped with their legal troubles. “Tate called for women to be stripped of the vote,” Blake writes, “barred from the workplace, and forced to procreate. By comparison, conservative politicians’ efforts to erode reproductive rights and roll back gender-equity laws seemed moderate. ‘I have shifted the Overton window heavily since I became famous,’ Tate bragged.”
Thanks to Trump and his brain trust, the Overton window has shifted so far that its right edge is coming up for air in the vicinity of Bermuda. It’s hard to celebrate America when it pioneers a political and intellectual movement that would make it unrecognizable. And yet not all is lost. The midterms are coming and don’t look good for Trump, unless he tries to steal or disrupt them. As his popularity declines, just enough judges and members of Congress may find their way to a manosphere webpage, order a big can of man-up for delivery via Amazon, and start telling Trump no.
But secular politics as usual won’t be enough. America’s redemption is impossible without people of faith. We are in this position to begin with in part because faith leaders opted out of applying tactical leverage in political debates. We let a poor understanding of the separation of church and state keep us from holding power accountable to the law of the universe.
When we did insist on love, we often let people in the pews say we shouldn’t talk about politics. Yet politics is toxic without love. The golden rule teaches that we should always act toward others as we would have them act toward us. In the same way it keeps the heavens in balance, it commands us to live in mutuality with the human bodies around us. It rules out cruelty and violence for their own sake and promotes kindness for its own sake.
This understanding has always been intrinsic to humanity. It binds all faith traditions (see Jesus Christ’s version in Matt. 7:12) and decent philosophy together. The golden rule is neither conservative nor liberal, Democratic nor Republican. It applies to you and me. It applies to Trump, Putin, and Xi. We can be soft and compassionate, or tough and unyielding. We can feed the hungry and house the unhoused; we can secure our borders and protect our country. We just can’t hurt people on purpose just to advance our interests. We can’t make a religion out of hate. We’re forbidden to wield power unless we pledge to respect the dignity of every human being.
It is dangerous to be too hopeful. Though the golden rule has always been in force, it is rarely enforced. History often has gone poorly for those without power and privilege. But people of faith have privileged access to the public square and policy debates. Even in Trump’s America, we can risk far more than we do. In 1968, advising GOP candidate Richard Nixon, the late Kevin Phillips said the secret of politics was figuring out who hates who. That way of thinking, though it has been part of politics forever, has in our time found its most perfect expression in Trump. If we worked at it, we could have a politics rooted in love instead — once we figure out how to raise some money, punish the haters ruthlessly at the polls, and send them home to learn some manners.
So Happy Independence Day. Happy semiquincentennial. America: Love it or lose it.