Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Democracy and the Trump Legacy

 Sharing this letter I wrote to friends:

Hi,

I agree that "Democrats must tell a different story than they have been telling."  In response to, "Ideas anyone?", I don't have anything particularly new to offer, but my thinking continues to evolve.  I just read a thought provoking column -- The Legacy of President Donald Trump -- which really resonated with me and so I thought I would share it with you.

The article concludes:
No one will admit it, but Trump was and is a quintessentially American type, and his rise to the presidency, one of the all-time American stories. It was The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County meets Duck Soup meets Scarface, a tall tale saga of how anyone determined enough, and full enough of resentment, greed, and unearned confidence, can make it all the way to the top in this country, armed with nothing but the pure power of bullshit. Would we really want things any other way? All of this may have been a miserable confluence of events, but the core truth of the Trump story is that in democracy, we have to accept that anything can happen, even this. It’s part of the deal. More than that, it’s over. Let’s hope we never have to find out that the only thing worse than the circus we just went through is an alternative, where it’s impossible.

So in a real democracy, things like a Trump presidency can happen and should be allowed to happen?  Or was the true lesson that democracy was subverted in 2016, by Trump in collusion with the Russians?  I think the facts support the former interpretation and that Democrats should accept and speak the truth about this.

Hugs,
Dan

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