The Soul of the Nation is on the Line

 The Soul of the Nation is on the Line

With both national conventions over, Joe Biden and Donald Trump agree on one thing: the soul of America is on the line in this election. This was brought home recently by MSNBC commentator, Chuck Todd in his montage of clippings from both candidates. Todd, of course, is right in pointing out the obvious, that both campaigns are making this claim. However, in portraying the election in this surface symmetrical manner, Todd did a disservice in failing to highlight the clear distinctions between the candidates. The result is that his news segment reinforced a “bothsidesism,” or “false balance,” reflecting “a media bias in which journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing views than the evidence supports” (False balance, Wikipedia). One might conclude from Todd’s depiction that the choices between the candidates are murkier than ever. That, I argue, is far from the case. Contra Todd, the more extensive probing that would be expected of competent journalistic practice requires substantive examination of the claims of each side, including critical judgment on the truthfulness as well as the significance of the respective claims.

My position on the Biden-Trump distinction should be clear to readers of this newspaper. For those who see things differently, I encourage advocates to present their case on these pages, which could stimulate a fruitful dialogue. In making the case that the soul of the nation is on the line in this election, I argue from two perspectives. The first is the imminent threat that a second Trump term bodes to the survival of democracy in this country. The second is what a Biden-Harris administration has to offer in responding to the core policy challenges this nation will face over the next two decades which will suffer from a profound neglect in a second Trump term. I focus on the former here, with a promissory note to expand on the latter in other letters.

 At the core of the Trumpian threat to democracy in America is both his rampant corruption and his authoritarian tendencies. As noted in the recent bi-partisan, senatorial Select Committee on Intelligence regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election, there was plenty of it, including the active knowledge and support of Trump campaign operatives. Thus, “the Trump campaign invited illicit Russian help, made full use of that help while Russia’s covert campaign was underway, and then lied and obstructed the investigations in order to cover up this misconduct.” This bi-partisan committee went further than the Mueller Report in identifying direct Trump campaign involvement with Russia in attempting to sway the 2016 election.

 Space constraints limit my discussion of Trump’s impeachment trial, his attempt to extort the Ukrainian president to initiate an investigation against his political opponent, Joe Biden, and the role of the president’s personal attorney, Rudi Giuliani, to derail regular diplomatic order in Ukraine to serve the president’s political purposes. Trump’s commuting of the legal sentence of Roger Stone, who acted as liaison between the Trump administration and Russia in the 2016 election and the effort by the Trump led DOJ to vacate the legal charge against his former security advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn, speak of a lawlessness that belies the president’s claim that he is the candidate of law and order. Then there was the hush money paid to silence porn star, Stormy Daniels, about their sexual relationship of a decade ago, a couple of weeks before the 2016 election, It was for this, in part, that Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, went to jail, in which Trump was referenced as an unindicted co-conspirator.

In all this, I have only scratched the surface of the extent of corruption underlying the Trump administration. There is so much else!

 The authoritarian impulse has also been pervasive throughout the Trump presidency, which includes outright intimidation and implied or direct threats of violence against opponents, as well as derogatory language resounding with fascist imagery of the hated other. His demonization of the press, described as the enemy of the American people, is right out of the playbook of Hitler, Stalin, and Putin. It is a direct contradiction of some of the most fundamental values in this nation’s political culture, in which the press, as the fourth estate, has played a formative role within the American democratic and constitutional tradition, for over 200 years.

 If more space were available, I would discuss the pressure put by the administration on the CDC and FDA to change its recommendations on data related to the coronavirus pandemic to square with the evidence-challenged narrative the president wants to publicize about the disease. The result is that critical information is masked from the public that may be essential to a more objective, scientific-based approach in addressing policy aimed to address the this most egregious public health problem. Then there is Trump’s refusal to provide the public with accurate information about Russia’s involvement in the 2020 election, as well as over Putin’s payment to Taliban militants to kill US military personnel in Afghanistan. One might also highlight the president’s unrelenting propaganda against mail-in-ballots and the convenient policy of the postmaster general to intentionally slow down the delivery of the US mail in these last few months leading up to the presidential election. And once again, there is so much more!

 Underlying these behaviors is what I can only discern is an utter lack of civic consciousness that would enable Trump to appreciate the role open to him to help this nation reach some of its higher-level aspirations, as expounded in our core documents and most exalted national discourse. One wonders, what type of socio-pathology is operating within the president’s broken soul that propels him toward the Orwellian dystopia that incessantly drives his instincts. Whatever that may be, it flies in the face of what we need in a president in the next four years.

2020