Sometimes, people do bad things. And there need to be consequences for that. It doesn’t have to be a perfect system. The world seldom gets punishment and reward entirely right. But unless there is at least the possibility of accountability when someone breaks a rule? The rule effectively disappears. That’s how the rule of law works.
We may be wild as children, but most of us drift into civilization as we grow up. Most of us wouldn’t, say, knock over a liquor store, even if we thought we could get away with it. That’s not who we are. It would break rules we think are valuable: the social compact and the rule of law. Those mean more than the money.
And then there’s the Republican President, Donald J. Trump.
Trump is a malicious, narcissistic man-child. That’s not tough to see. He loves acting out, and he follows an old scheme. Trump looks around for something other people seem to value. Then he breaks it. Like a small child, Trump’s limited sense of empathy obscures any risk that doesn’t affect him personally. So, Trump breaks that thing, or he says those bad words, or he crosses that line the world told him not to cross. Then he watches the grown-ups. What will they do? That’s the critical point. If they move to punish him, he backs down instantly. There is no courage in him. But, instead, if the grown-ups let his behavior slide, then he knows. And he wins. That wasn’t the real boundary. Whatever he damaged, it wasn’t precious enough for people to defend. It won’t be a rule for him.
Most kids get over it as they grow up, but not all of them. The ones who don’t or can’t learn to join our civilization hurt us. They shred the fabric we struggle to weave.
And like most toddlers, Trump cannot stop himself. Yes, there’s also a political angle. When he needs a distraction, Trump goes through the institutions that America values and breaks another piece of our heritage. But even if he weren’t running scared, Trump would be breaking those same things anyway. He wants stuff, so he takes it, breaking a rule. And yet, nothing settles that core of his discontent. He has to push the boundaries again and again. He won’t stop until someone pushes back. Anyone who’s raised children recognizes the behavior.
And that’s my central problem with the Republican party. When Trump began breaking America’s things, the Republican party decided not to chastise him. That’s a horrible mistake with Trump. Worse, as Trump worsened, Republicans backed further away. And without that pushback, Trump has no boundaries. He’s unfettered in ways most of us cannot envision. These are bad things.
I wonder what happened to the Republicans. They always claimed to be the guardians of probity and morality. They certainly make a considerable racket over anyone else’s choices. Yes, it’s easy to say they’re hypocrites because they are. Shamelessly. But there must be something much worse happening inside. Why else would they throw away their principles?
Whatever the cause, the Republican party is deeply broken. Like most decay, it builds slowly, and it’s hard to see at first. We should have seen this after President George W. Bush. He was a bad president backed by a baldly dishonest Republican party. He left us with the worst depression in decades, enmeshed two vicious, unwinnable wars.
We’re proud of America for good reasons. I know I love the country, even with our faults. And we all thought our country was robust enough to survive questionable choices. We assume everyone is at least trying to do the right thing.
But our liberal democracy may not survive the level of deliberate sabotage we see under Trump’s Republicans. I’m pleased to see the impeachment inquiry. It’s a start. But we’re in a deathmatch. On one side are the surviving democratic institutions; on the other is a Republican party led by Trump, an unrestrained, narcissistic psychopath. Republicans have chosen: gut the rules that underpin our country before they’re exposed, losing their powerful positions for generations to come. We either expose the bad things they do or succumb.
