gracchusdixit

In the wake of Donald Trump’s shocking rant just 48 hours ago about the tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which he sought to equate the motives and behavior of Neo-Nazis and white racists with those who gathered to protest against them, Republicans have finally begun to speak out.  A few have denounced the president directly.  More, like Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have confined their denunciations to the evils of racism and bigotry without denouncing the evil-doer himself.  The latter have been criticized, and justly so, for failing to draw the obvious connection between the bigoted rhetoric of the president and the murderous violence in Charlottesville.

Even if Republicans like Ryan and McConnell had named Trump explicitly, however, that would not have been enough.  In an era of non-stop television news coverage, never-ending Twitter storms, and metastatic social media, it has become too easy to confuse verbal posturing with action, to imagine that saying is as good as doing.  It is not.

Now that Donald Trump has nakedly revealed himself to be what we always suspected he was—to wit, an out-and-out racist—far more than words of condemnation are called for.  Words, no matter how direct, are not enough.

Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and members of the Ku Klux Klan must be stopped in their tracks.  There are no “very fine people” (to use Trump’s words) in their ranks.  They are nothing less than terrorists, in fact or in the making.  As such, they should be investigated, disarmed, indicted where evidence of criminal behavior exists, and, if found guilty, locked away for as long as it takes.  More broadly, their hate speech and hateful regalia should be banned as incitements to violence.  This is the approach adopted by Germany, a country which knows where this kind of virulence can lead.

Donald Trump must also be stopped in his tracks.  It is no longer possible to dismiss Trump’s behavior as impulsiveness or to excuse his rhetoric as mere bravado and bluster that shouldn’t be taken seriously.  It is abundantly clear that a defiant and unapologetic racist now sits in the Oval Office, and, after what happened in Charlottesville, to pretend otherwise is pernicious nonsense.  Whatever slender moral claim Trump may once have had to serve as president is now utterly gone.  He squandered it the moment he decided, against all common sense and all sense of common decency, to defend the indefensible.

Those who serve in the Trump administration must, if they have any conscience or courage, resign and walk away.  It is no longer excusable to hang on, in the hope of achieving some lofty policy or legislative goal.  It is no longer tenable to say that service to the country should supersede qualms about the man in the Oval Office.  It is no longer credible to suppose that this man can be contained, taught, or improved by having level-headed “adults in the room”.  Donald Trump is a national disgrace, and only disgrace will come to those who continue to serve him.

Republicans in Congress who have abetted or enabled Trump to achieve their political objectives must, if they have any shred of conscience or courage, turn their backs on a man who is destroying both their party and the country.  They can no longer pretend that he is anything other than what he is:  a racist demagogue, who would readily tear this country apart to protect himself and hang onto power.  If Republicans fear the wrath of Trump’s “base,” it is time they realized that such people are precisely what Hillary Clinton once pronounced them to be: a “basket of deplorable’s.”  To continue coddling and cultivating these people will produce nothing but grief, both for the Republican Party and for the United States of America.

Those in the administration and in Congress who continue to serve or tolerate this president must ask themselves how they will someday explain their behavior to their children and grandchildren.

How will Mike Pence, a supposedly devout Christian, explain his support of a race-baiting bigot who profanes every moral principle taught by Jesus?

How will Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin, both devout Jews, justify their continued service in the administration of a president who defends virulent anti-Semites?

How will military men like John Kelly and H. R. McMaster, who have sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution, have spent their lives defending the nation, and presumably value personal honor above all else, explain their passive submission to the whims of a cowardly demagogue who would tear up the Constitution if he could?

It is no longer possible for such people to bob and weave, to duck for cover and hope that all will somehow and someday turn out for the best.  If they do not turn their backs on Donald Trump soon, we will know that these people are mere poseurs, that their principles are fictions.

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that a president may be removed from office if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of that office.  It does not define the meaning of the word, “unable,” let alone limit that meaning to physical or mental incapacity.  A president who has lost any semblance of moral authority is no less “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of his office than one who has lost his health or his mind.

That is precisely the situation we now confront.  Donald Trump’s moral authority is gone; he is therefore no longer capable of discharging the powers and duties of his office.  Those who choose to deny this reality and refuse to act accordingly will betray themselves, and they will betray the country.