The wisdom of common people
You don’t have to be president or a leader of Congress, a governor, or the mayor of a large city to speak to the nation’s needs right now, to give voice to our highest and best aspirations as a nation and as individuals.
And as President Trump demonstrates almost daily, being in a position of power is hardly a guarantee against fearmongering and irresponsibility, against the use of words that fan the flames of unrest.
Historically speaking, Donald Trump is far from the American mainstream. Though he likes to invoke Lincoln, he is far more likely to call forth the worst in us than the best.
Trump would much rather divide Americans than unite us.
In that sense, he’s unlike any other American president. In a choice between Trump and Richard Nixon, I’d pick Nixon, hands down. For all his faults, President Nixon worked within the broad parameters of the American system of governance and politics, which includes at least some fidelity to the idea that we are all in this together, that we are one nation.
Trump is largely disdainful of that idea, that ideal.
For a people held together not by blood but by a belief in equality, equal justice, and democratic self-government, Trump’s disdain may yet prove fatal.
To be clear: there’s nothing inherently wrong in calling for law and order. We’re all for the law and most of us favor order. Autocrats and dictators and authoritarians feast on disorder.
However, as he campaigns for reelection, law and order is just about all Trump has been talking about. He is clearly loath to recognize the deeply felt needs of a segment of the American family — Black Americans.
Last week, while visiting Kenosha, Wisconsin, the president was asked about “people calling for an end to systemic racism. Do you believe systemic racism is a problem in this country?”
He answered, “Well, you just keep getting back to the opposite subject. We should talk about the kind of violence that we’ve seen in Portland and here and other places, it’s tremendous violence. You always get to the other side, well, what do you think about this or that? The fact is that we’ve seen tremendous violence and we will put it out very, very quickly if given the chance, and that’s what this is all about.
“I keep hearing about peaceful protests, I hear it about everything, and then I come into an area like this and I see the town is burned down. I mean, you look at Minneapolis, they should have acted much quicker, when we (note: the president didn’t call out the National Guard, the Democratic governor of Wisconsin did) got the National Guard and it took literally half an hour.
“You saw the scene, they formed, they walked, it was over, and they haven’t had a problem of any consequence since. Their police weren’t allowed to do the job that they could do, they have a very good police department, but they weren’t allowed.”
The same or a different reporter tried again to get the president to light a candle. “Mr. [Jacob] Blake was shot seven times in the back. Do you believe that there is a need for structural change? What is your message?”
The president responded, “Well, I think people are calling for structural change and then you could take the people of Kenosha that aren’t here and that you won’t see and that aren’t protesting, but they want change also, they want to see law and order, that’s the change they want.
“They want the police to be police, they want the police to do what they do better than anybody else in the world, and that’s what they want too. You don’t see them marching and you don’t see them on the streets, but what they want is they want great police force, they want people that are going to keep them safe, where their houses aren’t broken into, where they’re not raped and murdered, that’s what they want.
“And they’re protesters too, but they don’t walk down the street, up and down the street. So, just the way it is.”
The president might have easily paraphrased, even as an addendum, basketball’s Doc Rivers, who cried out as a Black man and as the son of a cop, “We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot…. We’ve been hung…. And all you do is keep hearing about fear. It’s amazing to me why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back…. We’ve got to do better.”
Or Jacob Blake’s mom Julia Jackson, who through her pain, pleaded for Americans to pray and work together, to heal and soothe one another.
“Have we been united? Do you understand what’s going to happen when we fall? Because a house that is against itself can not stand…. Everybody, let’s use our hearts, our love … to show the rest of the world how humans are suppose to treat one another. America is great when we behave greatly.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. His latest book “JFK Rising” is available on Amazon. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.