Sanity and decency won’t suffice

I had a note yesterday from a friend and colleague who hoped and prayed for a return to sanity and decency. I want that too, but I have to confess it will no longer suffice. I’d also like accountability and justice.

Biden failed

The Biden Administration already tried sanity and decency. The President purposefully pursued a dignified, low-key tone that aimed to end the hyperbole of Trump’s first administration. He tried to restore respectful disagreement as a mode of political discourse. Kamala Harris channeled this approach in her campaign.

Biden and Harris failed. Trump knew he could not win in that mode, so he never mirrored it. Instead he not only continued his blatant lies about winning the 2020 election (and many other things) but got virtually every Republican member of the Congress to parrot them. Dignity has been banished. Respectful disagreement has evaporated.

No limits

Now Trump is not only lying but stealing and murdering. Once the Supreme Court decided to make him immune from prosecution, he embarked on a remarkable campaign of blatant corruption and killing. He and his family are accepting payoffs in the billions, including from foreigners. He issues orders for lethal air strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, with little evidence they are trafficking drugs.

Trump has also decided to side openly with Russia in its invasion of Ukraine and to treat America’s allies as enemies. He has shredded NATO security guarantees and kowtowed to China on export of artificial intelligence chips. His peace initiatives are bogus. The Justice Department has until yesterday been indicting people who exported those chips. He is also pardoning major drug traffickers. There are no limits to Trump’s behavior when it comes to undermining US interests.

Elections have consequences, so bias them

Trump knows this behavior will have political consequences. So he is assiduously trying to dilute the voting power of Democrats and increase the clout of Republicans in the House of Representatives. Virtually no major Republican politician has disassociated himself from this blatant abuse. That tells you all you need to know about today’s major Republican politicians. The Senate is already far more representative of Republican voters than Democratic ones.

The electorate is showing some promising signs of rebellion against Trump’s abuses. But it is still a long time before November next. In the meanwhile, I hope some people are thinking hard not just about sanity and decency, but also about accountability and justice.