Clay Jenkinson

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You are here: Home / Clay's Notebook / Donald Trump’s Appalling Game

Donald Trump’s Appalling Game

October 17, 2016 by Clay Jenkinson 14 Comments

By now we all know that Donald Trump is a loose cannon. He says things he cannot possibly mean in order to whip his national constituency into a frenzy of xenophobia, islamophobia, race hatred, American-firstism, and the zeal to depart 11-15 million illegal immigrants. His misogyny, both in the words that come out of his mouth, and the sexual predations that appear to be Pavlovian in his character, are just one indicator that he’s not “all talk.”

Every rational person now has to decide whether President Trump would try to fulfill his dark vows. Most of us assume that much of what he has said on the campaign trail will prove to be “mere talk” if he actually becomes the President of the United States. In other words, most people believe that most of his proposals will find it almost impossible to be transformed from high falutin’ rhetoric into any significant changes in American public policy.

By definition Donald Trump is a demagogue.

What bothers me, and it bothers me to the core of my being, is Trump’s willingness to question the legitimacy of our duly-elected national leaders, and to challenge the legitimacy of our national elections. He can dislike Hillary Clinton all he wants. Fair game. She is a very very very imperfect Democratic candidate for the Presidency. But he has no right to call into question our marvelous (and somewhat fragile) constitutional order.

For well more than five years, Trump was the chief national spokesman for the Birther Movement–the millions of people who either believe that Barack Obama is not in fact an American citizen or for political advantage pretend to believe that wild and incredibly irresponsible notion. The Birther Movement’s sole purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of a duly-elected American President; to suggest darkly that an Islamist extremist had somehow infiltrated the highest reaches of the American government for the purpose (nobody is quite sure) of overthrowing that government, declaring martial law, installing an Islamic sharia state, and undermining the national security of the American people. Or if all that proves to be “far-fetched,” just to be able to say Obama is “not really one of us.” He’s an African-born imposter who somehow hoodwinked the American people–with the help of their corrupt and liberal media–into electing an alien instead of a good American citizen. In Nebraska I saw a hand-painted sign at the edge of a ranch: “Don’t blame me, I voted for the American.”

Our democratic-republic is a rather fragile constitutional system. It can only perform its function if it rests on a foundation of legitimacy–a widespread, indeed universal, civic agreement that the system is fair, that elections are not rigged, that candidates meet constitutional requirements, that the outgoing president leaves office willingly and peacefully, and the incoming president pays respect to his predecessor(s), and the system remains transparent and dedicated to the purposes for which the Founding Fathers intended it.

Legitimacy.

When that legitimacy is called into question, even by a loud minority, the result is national gridlock. In other words, had there been no Birther Movement, our national government might have accomplished quite a bit in the last 7.5 years. The Birther Movement had national political implications way beyond its patently moronic foundations and motives.

Donald Trump’s five-year crusade to cast doubt about President Obama’s citizenship, his ability to fuel that doubt with his considerable sums of money and celebrity, casts a large shadow of illegitimacy over the Obama presidency. Most Americans know better, but Trump’s army of “deplorables” are thrilled when he questions Obama’s citizenship. In fact, long after Trump reluctantly acknowledged that Obama is well, maybe, ok an American, his virulent anti-Obama followers continue to wink at each other as if to say, “We know that Donald knows that Obama is an Islamic plant, whatever he has to say to keep the corrupt media at bay.” In other words, the message was received for five years, loud and clear, and that message continues to rattle around the perfervid brains of the Trump absolutists. They cannot wait to get one illegitimate person out of the White House. Now they are doing what it takes to de-legitimize Obama’s probable successor.

What could be more irresponsible than to call into question the legitimacy of a duly elected President of the United States? If you are wondering why our system has almost entirely broken down, into the most vicious partisanship and Congressional gridlock, into a time when the pool of good will has been drained and cyanide has replaced fresh water, the story begins with a concerted attempt to de-legitimize Barack Obama because he is a: not a conservative Republican; b: a cautious progressie; c: the author of the hated Obamacare; d: someone who has the moral courage to apologize for some of America’s wrong deeds; and e: — O Yes — an African-American, a Negro, a ……

birtherTrump’s obsessive Birther street th
eater is so destructive of the civic norms upon which a working civilization depends, that it essentially qualifies as treason.

Why did he do it? He cheerfully led the Birther Movement to give weight to a wider campaign to de-legitimize President Obama, to help Mitch McConnell and Rush Limbaugh fulfill their vow–stated before Obama took the Oath of Office–to destroy any possibility that he could be an effective Presi
dent, and to insure that he would be a one-term President.

Every American should be appalled by what Trump and his army of nihilists have done. We have a set of civic rules in the United States. Candidates are nominated by paries. Elections are held. Elections matter. We need peaceful transfer of power, and a very wide general recognition of the legitimacy of the new President, no matter how much you disagree with her or his policies or style. It’s that simple. To lose the election and then call into question the legitimacy of the election and the winning candidate: that is the ultimate form of civic pornography. Trump should be ashamed. But that is like asking a badger to play checkers. His followers should repudiate him. But as with all demagogic moments in American history, his follows do much of the leading, and Trump just tunes his hateful discourse to amplify their dark views.

You see already that Trump and his minions are planting the seed of an illegitimate election in early November. Trump has told anyone who will listen that the election is “rigged.” Unless he changes course, and lets a teeny inrush of humility enter his heart, Trump is likely to argue, perhaps during his “concession” speech, that the election was rigged, that irregularities occurred in key battleground states, that the liberal media corrupted the process, that honest citizens were intimidated at the polls, etc. He’s inventive. Stay tuned.

So think of it: Having spent the majority of President Obama’s tenure denying that Obama was the legitimate President of the United States–thus damaging the system, hurting the Obama family personally, making it impossible to get business done in Washington–now Trump spends two years saying he and he alone will have to save the system because nothing gets done in Washington. Think of the irony of that.

Most of the people reading this are wise enough to dismiss the ravings of Donald Trump, especially those about Obama’s legitimacy and the legitimacy of the coming election. But the saddest of sad facts is that many tens of millions of Americans (some of them my friends) either believe that President Obama has been an Islamic “plant” all along, or that the coming election will have been no more legitimate than a banana republic’s in 1954. Or both.

So, no matter what happens in three weeks, the dark cloud of illegitimacy will continue to hover over American public life. “Hillary should be in jail.” “The FBI and the Justice Department are in bed with the Clintons.” Etc.

I regard it as little short of treason.

The fracked republic will lurch on, but we deserve better, we deserve so much better.

portrait_of_margaret_bayard_smith_by_charles_bird_king
Jefferson’s good friend Margaret Bayard Smith

When Jefferson took over the Presidency in 1800, in what he called “The Second American Revolution,” John Adams (bitter and angry) relinquished power with dignity and silence, even though he had serious doubts about his old friend Jefferson’s fitness for the Presidency. Margaret Bayard Smith, observing the inauguration, wrote famous words that should be seared into Donald Trump’s muddled consciousness:  “I have this morning witnessed one of the most interesting scenes a free people can ever witness. The changes of administration, which in every government and every age, have most generally been epochs of confusion, villainy, and bloodshed, in this our happy country take place without any species of distraction or disorder.”

We will see if we can get through the next eight weeks without villainy, bloodshed, distraction, or disorder.

 

Clay Jenkinson

 

 

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Comments

  1. Robert Parker says

    October 17, 2016 at 4:47 pm

    I agree with you, Clay. I think that Gary Johnson more exemplifies what our country was founded upon….honesty, self reliance, and to not going about the world looking for monsters. i.e. cease the ruinous interventionism and “nation building”. Certainly, he’s not perfect, but he is, by far, the most honorable candidate for President…no question…..and no unsavory baggage either.

    Reply
  2. Dorothy Frisch says

    October 17, 2016 at 4:52 pm

    Trump is inciting mob rule purely to feed his own ego – as you say, demagoguery. Certainly treasonous, and certainly not unlike Hitler, who, I believe started out the same, but soon began to believe his own fantasies and found the logical next step be to act upon them.
    Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes have be puppet masters for Trump for years. Why else would Fox “News” regularly interview the man over the past decade to get his view on national security issues (“What do you think about the Iraq invasion”) when he was merely a reality TV host? They laid the foundation for their audience to embrace his “sudden” entrance into the presidential race in 2016. So if any media is biased, it is the Fox Empire, and not honest journalists whose corporate employers have subtly, don’t rock the boat, muzzled, till now, investigative reporting.

    Reply
  3. Barbara Laman says

    October 17, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    Certainly, I agree with the “treason” part of your argument, Clay.

    But I just don’t know why you have to continue to say that Hillary Clinton is “a very very very imperfect Democratic candidate.” She is not. She has no more flaws than you or I or anybody at all has. No one is perfect. No one. And Hillary is the most perfectly prepared, knowledgeable, and capable candidate for president ever. Bar none. I look forward to President Hillary with–at the very least–a Democratic Senate.

    Reply
    • Carol Reed says

      October 17, 2016 at 7:39 pm

      I agree, Barbara. She is by far the most prepared candidate for the Presidency, probably since Jefferson. In comparison to her opponents, she is the only choice that a thoughtful voter can make.

      Reply
    • LTC Bob Gray says

      October 18, 2016 at 1:43 am

      Ask the underaged girls she sodomized and raped. Ask the companies she extorted money from. Read in her own words the e mails that have been released. Read of the bribes offered to stop the investigations.

      Read her answers in her sworn depositions. I was amazed that she could or would admit to her own name.

      Reply
    • Robert says

      October 18, 2016 at 10:45 pm

      You expressed my thoughts exactly. Hillary is human, but she is smart, committed to progress for Americans and the world. She is a dedicated, warm human with the wisdom born of experience and study. Where is the evidence that she is triple very flawed?

      Reply
  4. pam says

    October 17, 2016 at 8:44 pm

    Has anyone noticed what’s going on with Hillary and her emails?

    Reply
  5. Barbara J. Nordbo says

    October 17, 2016 at 11:30 pm

    Well said, Mr. Jenkinson!! However, I disagree with your comments about Sec. Clinton’s flaws. If you are talking about ALL the lies yes, they are lies, you should really check it out before you make these kinds of comments. As Barbara said we ALL HAVE our flaws. And the same lies are repeated over and over word for word with NARRY a correction when it has been disproved on the 24/7 talking head channels from a TelePrompTer !! Benghazi: republicans reduce the Embassy Security funding by $459 MILLION in 2011& 2012 ignoring her warnings not to, Bush admin “lost” 22 million emails 0 said, they used private servers0 said, 24/7 cussing discussing her , we couldn’t pass muster either!! And on, and on, and on!!

    Reply
  6. Aime says

    October 18, 2016 at 1:19 am

    Thank you Clay Jenkinson. Several times I have sat down and tried to put explain this political season and I could not quite find the right words. You did. I re-posted it and explained that I was in complete agreement. What I really liked is that you placed it in the context of our country’s history and basic civics that we should all know from high school.

    Aime Casavant, Jamestown, ND

    Reply
  7. Terri Hanson says

    October 18, 2016 at 2:12 am

    I continue to find it almost incomprehensible that we have this nincompoop as a presidential candidate!!! That so many people – some of them my friends, too – are actually taking him seriously. They are delusional! It’s hard to believe so many people hate Ms. Clinton enough to vote for a lunatic. This psychologist’s mind is boggled!!! Of course, as one of my cousins pointed out, I paid a whole lot of money to be brainwashed by the liberal textbook writers!! And – in case you were not aware – you can be highly educated and have not a lick of common sense!
    Sarcasm aside (mine, certainly not theirs), emotion is ruling the day and we had better hope Hillary can put together a team who can appeal on that level and bring some of these people back into the fold. I am concerned about what kind of chaos all this may lead to and I wonder who benefits from that. Now I’m starting to believe in conspiracy theories, too!

    Reply
  8. Carrie says

    October 18, 2016 at 12:37 pm

    Thanks, Clay. I would just ask you to clarify why Hillary is a very flawed candidate. I know you didn’t say that she is more flawed than any other past Democractic candidate, but I feel compelled to ask whether you think John Kerry or Al Gore or Barack Obama were “very very very flawed,” too, and if not, why Hillary is more so.

    Reply
  9. rita clagett says

    October 20, 2016 at 12:40 am

    brilliant, as usual. i couldn’t agree more. i wish you’d run for president. and you taught me a new word: perfervid! thank you.

    Reply
  10. Merle says

    October 20, 2016 at 8:04 pm

    Clay, I very much appreciate your essay. Like many people, political pundits included, I thought Trumps entry into the presidential race was comic, his comments so outrageous that they were funny, and was guilty of looking for the next Trump outburst…until I realized that he was spouting in all seriousness. In a recent interview Bill Maher said that Americans hunger for celebrities and tend to align with the their beliefs. And Trump was a TV personality for 9 plus years.

    For some reason, it has taken all these past nine months for saner heads to comprehend the seriousness of Trump and what he is espousing. I have had discussions regarding the political systems failure to derail such demogoguery, but such tactics would have to have been initiated years before.

    The question which confounds me: are saner heads observing political correctness to such a rigid degree that we are not able to openly confront such blatant, demonizing statements as Trump has given us? The evidence was there. Way back when “You’re fired!” was a laughing matter. And emphatically coalesced with Trumps negative attacks on Rubio, Cruz, Bush, et. al. in the national arena.

    What should steer our course as democracy proceeds into the future?

    Reply
  11. Kelsie says

    October 24, 2016 at 9:22 pm

    While I can appreciate many parts of your post, I don’t understand your argument against questioning legitimacy. Should we all explicitly trust our leaders and system? Or should we question their methods, especially when there are things that make us question their integrity?

    Reply

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