A lot of Americans are tired of democracy, and Trump knows it

HALIFAX—It isn’t news that Donald Trump is a scumbag. Anyone who has taken even a token look at his life before politics has known that for a long time. Sketchy business deals, bankruptcies, divorces, serial gaslighting, and a racist track record just to round out the resumé. This is the guy whose family didn’t want people of colour in their rental buildings. This is the guy who took a full-page ad in the New York Times advocating the death penalty for the so-called "Central Park Five." They were, in fact, innocent of the vicious rape with which they were charged. No full-page apology appeared in the Times from Trump. As a politician, and then a president, Trump put his grotesque misogyny on full display. On the Access Hollywood tape, he bragged about grabbing women by their private parts, claiming that his “fame” let him get away with it. Trump has been indicted for paying pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels “hush money” to keep his shabby affair with her hidden from the public while he was campaigning for office. His personal lawyer of the day, Michael Cohen, went to prison for brokering that deal. A civil court jury recently found Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a department store change room, and then defaming her. Trump asked for a new trial and a reduction in the US$5-million the court awarded to his victim. The judge didn’t just flatly turn down both of Trump’s requests. He also wrote in his ruling that the trial evidence demonstrated Trump did, in fact, “rape” Carroll. As president of the United States, Trump shamelessly sucked up to people who embodied the opposite of American democratic values—dictators like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping. He revelled in doing the sword dance with Saudi Arabia’s royal family, a hereditary monarchy that owns one of the most despicable human rights records on earth. The oppressors of women, the butchers of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. At the same time as he hobnobbed with authoritarian thugs, Trump dissed NATO, his own intelligence agencies, and traditional allies including Canada. He called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “far left lunatic” who was imposing a woke tyranny on Canada. He mused that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was brilliant. Trump had zero time for what he called the “shithole” countries who might have benefitted from a helping hand rather than the back of the hand from the world’s richest nation. Oh yes, and twice upon a time as president, Trump was impeached. The disgrace of Trump’s political life continued after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. According to evidence gathered by federal prosecutors, Trump schemed with sycophantic enablers to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power to president-elect Joe Biden. The goal was to stay in office by any means, even though he knew he had lost the election. It is expected he will soon be indicted for his antics leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol that killed five people, injured scores of police, and eventually sent several of Trump’s followers to prison. Trump already stands indicted of effectively stealing classified documents, including nuclear secrets, and a battle plan developed by the U.S. should it need to invade Iran. He is even refusing to return rare artifacts to Israel, which he took from the White House, carrying them off to Mar-a-Lago when he left office. And the beat goes on with his current presidential run. Trump has said publicly that he thinks the U.S. Constitution should be suspended. He has also boasted that, if he returns to the White House, he will change the U.S. system of checks and balances of power between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. He will do that by dramatically expanding presidential powers. That sound you hear is the U.S. founding fathers rolling over in their graves. Normally, any part of a rap sheet like Trump’s would end a politician’s career in a single newscast. But where has being a liar, a racist, a rapist, a thief, a bully, and a narcissistic egomaniac got Trump? To the very top of the list of contenders for the Republican presidential nomination for 2024. He is America’s fascist leader in waiting, and no one can quite understand why. The usual explanation is that the GOP has fallen under the spell of a cult leader. That is partially correct. After a brief outburst against Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, the great trio of cowards—Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Senator Lindsey Graham—let their souls run out like water through their fingers. The very men who initially said Trump was responsible for the debacle in Washington and that justice had to be done now parrot Trump’s line that it’s all a political witch-hunt. Without the slightest idea of the evidence against Trump, they now say that the real culprit is a department of justice and an FBI that are “weaponized” against conservatives. It would be easy—but mistaken—to lay the entire blame for the debacle of Trumpism solely on what looks like the total cratering of Republican values. As squalid as the GOP leadership looks, they are, after all, politicians. Their interest is in power, not principle, and what Trump’s staying power has shown them is that the country they so badly want to run has changed profoundly. What no one wants to say out loud is that a significant number of U.S. voters is really what makes Trump possible—no matter what he does. They are afraid of transformative demographic changes on the way, and distrust every institution that once held the country together. And that has left them open to authoritarian alternatives that would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. The big story here is that a lot of Americans are tired of democracy and Donald J. Trump gets it. The only real question is, how tired are they? Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hill Times

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A lot of Americans are tired of democracy, and Trump knows it

The GOP leadership is afraid of major demographic changes, and distrusts every institution that once held the country together, leaving them open to authoritarian optionss that were unthinkable just a short time ago.

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