January 17, 2021
by Steve Stofka
After encouraging a rush on the Capitol building, the man whom the Russians helped get elected in 2016 is stepping down. 25,000 troops have been deployed to protect the area around the seat of power during Inauguration week, turning Washington, D.C. into a green zone like that of Baghdad in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2003.
Around the country, governors have deployed troops to protect state capitols against threats of violence. At a news conference this week, Ohio’s governor was asked how many groups had applied for permits to peacefully demonstrate. His answer – none. He promised an aggressive response from troops stationed around the capitol in Columbus.
On the C-Span call-in show Washington Journal some callers made an equivalence between BLM protestors defacing statues and breaking into stores with the assault on Congress. Fox News posted a graphic comparing the summation of hundreds of summer protests with one event on January 6th, pointing out that Jan. 6th wasn’t so bad. Hundreds equals one.
The Russians had a small influence in Mr. Trump’s 2016 election. The media – mainstream and not so mainstream – gave him the megaphone, the broadcast time and let him roar. Anderson Cooper of CNN explained that he was available when other presidential candidates were not. Media channels need to fill airtime and retain viewers. That’s the way it is.
Mr. Trump’s entire presidency has been a media feast. He likens himself to a lion, paying particular attention to his mane. He spent four years roaring his thoughts and emotions on social media, then watched them echoed on Fox News an hour later. He surrounded himself with sycophants seduced by the chance to pull the strings of the nation’s dancing puppets. He gloried in his power to dominate but lamented the fact that his pride of supporters were so low class. A great lion deserves a good pride.
By his own account, he was the greatest president. He was certainly a president without precedent. Being impeached twice in one term earns him a place in the history books. He inherited a low unemployment rate of 4.6% from the previous administration and, before the Covid crisis, helped lower it to 3.6%. Presidents have far less influence over the broad economy, but they are the ones that wear the crown of roses when the economy is good, and the dunce cap when it is not so good.
During the four years of the Trump administration, the country will likely come close to the $6.8T deficits that it accumulated under eight years of President Obama. Mr. Trump inherited a healthy economy from his predecessor but wanted robust growth, besting some of the growth during the Reagan years. He gambled that big tax cuts for the wealthy would induce them to invest in more domestic manufacturing, that the economic growth would compensate for the loss of tax revenue. It didn’t.
Christian Nationalists applauded him for moving the capital of Israel to Jerusalem and appointing a roster of right-wing judges to the courts. Their project is to turn the U.S. into a theocracy like Israel, Iran, and Iraq, ruled by leaders of one religious sect. Mr. Trump was a warrior king, like David, and like that ancient Biblical figure, was driven by his character flaws. Instead of white KKK bedsheets, his followers donned horns and capes and grabbed pitchforks as they stormed the castle of Congress, determined to turn the Capitol into the cathedral of a white Christian nation, the New Jerusalem.
Mr. Trump certainly got our attention. Americans are a hard-working bunch, yet we found time to jab him with rancor or praise his pitchfork rhetoric. He was either a menace or mensch. His was not a neighborly disposition; he shoveled coal into the flames that power the engine of American politics.
After touching the snarling beast that hides within our body politic, we now turn to a more measured man, Mr. Biden, in the hopes that there is some sense of cooperation left in our soul. We see our Capitol surrounded by barriers and remember the words that Mr. Rogers sang, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”
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Photo by Catherine Merlin on Unsplash
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