Let Trump Be Trump

By Thomas Lamia

Now that a glorious cause has been reduced to ashes, a post mortem seems in order. I am surprised by the awful result but do not feel the need to apologize for not having seen it coming. Many seem to believe that the result was predictable. It was predictable only in the sense that the outcome of any future event is predictably unknown.

James Carville, the Harris/Walz campaign team, most MSNBC pundits and Harris herself, each flatly stated before election day that “We are going to win this race.” Either their polling data was off base or their certitude was meant to turn out those of us who like to be with a winner. Now gloom has descended on the Democratic infrastructure. New messages and new messengers are being sought.

As I sat before the TV on election night and saw the early returns heading for disaster, my first reaction was anger at those who were responsible for preventing what was happening. That was too broad a brush. The blameworthy includes those of us who took the Pollyannish view that the good people of America would not elect a narcissistic insurrectionist felon and, like me, were inspired by Harris’ skill in delivering her message. That message was heavily anti-Trump as I thought it should be. I was wrong.

As key races were being lost, I realized that something unanticipated but devastatingly effective was happening. Great swaths of voters across virtually all the battleground states were turning against the “party of the people.” When it became clear that all was lost, I turned to considering what was in store for our country.

Having won the election Trump must govern effectively or the tide will turn against him. I doubt that he can. Neutral observers rank his first presidential term performance near the tail end of all American presidents. His scorched earth interregnum of self-pity, criminal and civil trials, claims of persecution and threats of revenge have destroyed the blueprint for a rule of law presidency. His victory brings with it his promise of acts of retribution against “enemies,” including a constitutionally protected free press, political opponents and those who speak out against him. There will be a tyranny within if his oath to protect and defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic is not honored.

The insurrection that he provoked on January 6, 2021, was the most extreme act of disloyalty by a president in our history. He has been indicted and is on trial in both federal and state courts for that crime. His election and pending succession will give him the power to erase those legal proceedings. Being elected president has given him the medieval absolutism of a king. He will never have to pay a price for his several acts of treasonous insurrection and election denial. By election to the office that he disgraced, he has covered himself in the cloak of protection that our justice system extends to serving presidents. It hardly seems right to provide this protection to one on trial for depriving Americans of their votes. The proper remedy would have been to honor the Constitution’s 14th Amendment and bar this man from ever serving as president again. We have the Supreme Court to thank for keeping him on the ballot as well as for the near total immunity for “official” but criminal acts that he now enjoys. Delaying his trials has turned his election into his immunity. My God, how our system has failed us.

I believe that Trump is a fascist, a sociopathic narcissist, a sexual predator, a pathological liar, a friend to our enemies and a prototype for irresponsible and violent conduct by his devotees. We diminish ourselves and our country by giving power to such a man.

Given time he will further demonstrate his disgusting qualities, as other despots before him have done, and he will see his grand achievement of being elected going down the drain of history with him. Our task is to stay out of his way, protect ourselves, honor our history and not let our form of government and our love of country go down that drain with him.

Our further responsibility is to reform the Democratic Party, to reconstitute it under a broader umbrella as the party of a majority. The Trump tidal wave has demonstrated that the party is fragmented to the point of self-destruction. Fringe cultural, racial, ethnic, and sexual identity issues, however noble, diluted compelling majority views on cost of living, right to vote, climate control, education, health care, democracy and reproductive freedom. Assigning niche cultural causes to lesser roles does not mean denying them; it means establishing priorities in the effort to win. Politics is “the art of the possible” not the pursuit of the frivolous.

New leadership is needed at the Democratic National Committee. A new DNC Chair with political heft, willing and able to take charge of reforming the party must be found. There are several good choices, including “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg and Governors J.B. Pritzker, Andy Beshear, Jared Polis and Roy Cooper. Any one of them would bring strong, respected and proven leadership to this big job.

When Nixon was in the political wilderness following his 1960 defeat by JFK and his 1962 gubernatorial defeat in California, he had hit rock bottom. He set about befriending and financially supporting Republican congressional hopefuls across the country and stayed away from the 1964 Goldwater debacle. In 1968, with the support of his cultivated Republican network, he won his party’s nomination and defeated Vice President Humphrey to gain the presidency. The VietNam War had damaged incumbent President Lyndon Johnson, who dropped out of the race. A similar challenge faces the Democrats today. A DNC Chair with a credible political history of raising money and winning elections could play the Nixon role, whether a future candidate or not.

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Tom Lamia is a retired lawyer and occasional writer. He practiced law in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and New York. From 2004 he and his family lived in a townhouse on Charles Street. In 2015, he moved to South Bristol, Maine, maintaining an apartment on Horatio Street.