Every generation believes they are living in a unique moment of history. At the risk of repeating that trope, I genuinely feel in my marrow this is different. The presidential election of businessman and reality television star Donald J. Trump, a man with no prior government experience who ran an unaccredited scam “university” exploiting students, to the highest office of the United States in 2016 is the embodied Platonic form of everything wrong with American society [1-2]. He did not even win the most votes, but slid in by the subterfuge of an archaic system. I have always been critical of the Electoral College long before the 2016 election; at least three times in American history an election been swung over and against the popular vote due to it. Make it four now. I was dumbfounded the morning I saw he won the presidency, but others with an apparently closer connection to the nerve of America’s underbelly saw it coming.

Both sides of the political aisle became fed up with establishment and status quo and many ostensibly saw Trump as a wrecking ball to crash it all down. It doesn’t matter if he calls global climate change a Chinese hoax, nominated two EPA directors that reject the scientific consensus (after the first one resigned for repeatedly misusing taxpayer funds), and pulls out of the Paris climate agreement, it doesn’t matter if his administration keeps children locked in cages separated from their families without basic sanitation, it doesn’t matter if Mexico never paid for his wall that he said would have a “very big, very beautiful door”, as long as he “owns the libs”, all is kosher [3-8].

Trump was already married to Melania when he paid off an affair with a Playboy model, and Melania was pregnant with Barron when he paid off a pornstar [9-10]. At least 25 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct and he has even been audio recorded bragging about assault [11-12].

I did try and fuck her. She was married … I moved on her like a bitch … Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look … I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

There was clear a systematic effort from Russia and foreign parties to interfere and influence the outcome of the election. The FBI opened an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The president fired FBI director James Comey and the investigation was subsumed by the Special Council led by former FBI director Robert Muller. When Trump learned Mueller was appointed to head up the investigation, he said to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked” [13]. Currently 7 Americans and 26 Russians have been indicted including Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort and consultant Rick Gates who were both arrested, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, and Trump’s lawyer Michel Cohen all pled guilty for lying under oath [14]. How far did these apples fall from the tree?

Mueller’s report provided 11 examples of possible obstruction of justice by Donald Trump but decided the Special Council did not have the authority to make a judgment about whether or not a sitting president could commit a crime and to leave that verdict for Congress. Mueller’s non-exoneration was endlessly spun by the president and his pundits as a “great day” of exoneration despite the report explicitly saying, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” [15].

Then a bombshell dropped with a whistleblower release of a plot by the president to pressure the Ukrainian government to find dirt on his political opponent Joe Biden’s campaign and to release this information with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr [16]. This immediately resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives but was acquitted by the Republican-majority Senate. The exception was Mitt Romney who became the first Republican Senator in American history who voted to convict a president of their own party [17].

How could it possibly get any worse, you ask? Four digits: 2020, the year the world completely turned on its head into a parallel universe run solely on Murphy’s Law. Locust swarms and Australian bushfires should have been a portent of things to come. Perhaps the most impactful event is the ongoing global pandemic. Due to this coronavirus, businesses everywhere began shutting their doors and people are encouraged to stay at home as often as possible and to wear a mask and “social distance” at least 6 feet apart when going out.

The first confirmation of the virus was in China back in November 2019. The first case in the U.S. was identified in January 2020 and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global state of emergency. About a week earlier Trump said, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” [18] He has repeatedly said it is just going to go away on its own without a vaccine, downplayed the severity of the outbreak comparing it to the seasonal flu, promoted unproven treatments including hydroxychloroquine and even injections of disinfectants, and has said the reason we have so many cases is because we are testing so much and we should reduce federal funding for test sites [19-20]. In February he tweeted,

The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!

Despite these glowing remarks, he cut WHO funding for 60 days in April and has threatened the U.S. will leave the organization [21-22]. Trump has proposed a 2021 federal budget 10% cut to Health and Human Services, 26% cut to the Environmental Protection Agency, and 16% cut for the CDC but this proposal has not yet been approved by Congress [23]. Prior to the outbreak in 2018, Trump dissolved the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense that was initially set up by the Obama administration in response to Ebola for the purpose “to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic” [24]. Economically we have witnessed the largest G.D.P. percentage decrease on record [25].

Meanwhile, in the midst of this global pandemic, racial tensions have always been festering for a while in America. This seemed to have reached a zenith upon the murder of George Floyd, a black man arrested for passing a counterfeit $20 bill and restrained to the ground by a cop with their knee on his neck for about 9 minutes while Floyd cried out “I can’t breathe” [26]. This immediately sparked outrage and nationwide protest. During these protests, hundreds of videos have surfaced of police initiating aggression toward innocent, non-resistant civilians [27-29]. As I write now the streets of Kenosha, Washington are in protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

One video shows a 75-year old man shoved to the ground by a cop with his head bleeding out. Instead of trying to unite and heal the nation during this difficult time, the president took to Twitter to pour more gas on the fire suggesting the old man could have been an “Antifa provocateur” as a setup [30]. Another video shows a cop pulling down the mask of a peaceful protester to pepper-spray him in the face [31]. Another video has a journalist shot by rubber pellets [32]. In another video, protesters are flanked on either side of the street and tear gassed [33]. And the list could go on all day. If this is how law enforcement reacts when recording devices are ubiquitous to nearly every citizen, imagine what some got away with in the dark before the era of cellphones.

This is why Kaepernick knelt, this is what he was trying to tell us, but few listened to him. Trump called players who joined him kneeling in solidarity a “son of a bitch”. It took another knee, one on the neck of a black man, to stir the nation against this barbarity. Suddenly everyone seemed to get the point that, yes, Black Lives Matter. The refrain All Lives Matter is obviously true but completely misses the point. “All animals are equal,” Orwell said, “but some animals are more equal than others.” Black Lives Matter is intended to draw attention of the racial disparity in treatment by society. The movement isn’t called White Lives Don’t Matter or Black Lives Matter More. While catchy slogans have great memetic utility to spread, they are no substitute for long-form open dialogue on these socially and historically complex issues.

As a result of these protests, some have unfortunately taken to looting, defacing, and destroying property. Statues with Confederate or colonialist histories have been graffitied or tore down. This is what Trump seemed to find most pressing to worry about. Obviously vandalism should be discouraged, but statues are not more important than people. And let’s not forget why this is happening. The people are angry and upset, calling for justice and reform. And what does the president do? Sign an executive order to protect the statues [34].

A significant portion of his base are Evangelicals and this anti-Christ tries to paint himself among their ranks. Remember when law enforcement used tear gas on peaceful protesters to make way for Trump to take a photo-op in front of a church holding a bible [35]? A reporter asked if it was his bible, he said it was a bible. Afterward, Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde who oversees the church said,

After speaking so harshly and with militaristic overtones to the nation, he had the park of peaceful protesters cleared with tear gas and officers in riot gear to make a symbolic gesture, holding a Bible as if to spiritually condone a message and a posture that is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything as a church we stand for. [36-37]

Trump has said his own book Art of the Deal is his second favorite book of all time only after the bible. When questioned what one of his favorite verses is, he said, “I wouldn’t want to get into it because for me that’s very personal.” They asked if he was an Old Testament guy or New Testament guy. He replied, “Probably … equal.” When asked what his favorite verse was again several months later, he said “eye for an eye” (even though Jesus said “turn the other cheek”) [38]. It’s not even the fact he likely hasn’t even read the bible, but that he just doesn’t read in general. He didn’t even author his own book, the actual ghostwriter Tony Schwartz said Art of the Deal is his “greatest regret in life” [39].

If Trump is so incompetent, how could he possibly cause the downfall of an institution that has lasted over 200 years? The corroding of democracy doesn’t have to come from cunning but also from negligence and “gross incompetence”. Have we become so anesthetized like the fabled boiling frog that this is the new normal? Or as Trump would say, “Modern Day Presidential”.

Trump has repeatedly joked about staying in office after his term has expired and has even suggested delaying the election [40]. One wonders how much is in jest and how much he secretly wishes it to be true. I hoped once Trump was in office he would take it seriously, defer to experts who actually know what they are talking about, pause and reflect on the considerable weight of responsibility that has been thrust upon his shoulders. He has shown a complete disregard for it all, treating the office like another one of his reality shows, a publicity stunt to stroke his own ego.

Trump does not seek to unify, he is an agent of chaos and division. He openly mocks his opponents and anyone who speaks against him. He calls the media the “enemy of the people” and undermines freedom of the press [41]. The problem isn’t the suppression of truth, but the overwhelming deluge of information making it difficult to distinguish fake news from real. Every day the headlines you read are beyond parody. If a fictional show aired five years ago depicting half of the things this administration has done, critics would pan it for being too unrealistic.

All politicians lie, but none lie like Trump. He has made over 20,000 false or misleading statements so far during his term [42]. In a rare instance of telling the truth, he boasted, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters.” [43] In this frighteningly accurate statement, he admits to the cult of personality he has amassed around himself. Mental health counselor Steven Hassan, who escaped from the Moonies and writes prolifically on cult mind control, has found this phenomenon so disturbing he published another book, The Cult of Trump [44]. The psychologist John Gartner started a petition that garnered over 60,000 signatures from mental health professionals stating Trump is mentally incapable of competently performing duties of public office [45]. Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee complied a book from the writings of 27 mental health professionals into The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump [46].

When Donald Trump gave a speech at the United Nations general assembly he said, “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country”, the international audience burst into laughter [47]. When he is not insulated in a rally of his own supporters, the world sees him for the buffoon he truly is.

None of this even scratches the tip of the iceberg. If we don’t all kill ourselves in the meantime, I imagine future historians will be analyzing this term for quite some time. It’s a wonder how someone so completely inept managed to capture the reptilian part of America’s brain. He is a showman first and a leader last. He made a farce of the debate stage by turning it into an entertainment match, a battle of bravado over competence, points scored by rhetoric over reason, not geopolitical knowledge or economic expertise. To be a doctor, you need years of medical study and to demonstrate a reasonable proficiency in treating patients. But for the highest office in the land, you don’t need any qualifications, any education, or any prior experience. And that certainly shows in this administration.

By voting third party or refusing to vote at all, few things empower the greater evil than the mantra, “the lesser of two evils is still evil”. Plurality voting systems, such as first-past-the-post, generally tend toward a two-party system. It’s theoretically possible for a third party candidate to win the election, but the deck is mathematically stacked against them. It would require a massive paradigm shift in public consciousness to overturn the current status. Perhaps that’s what we want, a system more representative of the populace and break free from this cycle of bipartisan gridlock, but we won’t get there by shooting ourselves in the foot. We need change at the systemic level, but with an attention-seeking autocratophile like Trump, that is never going to happen. Realistically it is probably not going to happen under Biden either, but that is why we must bring the issue of reform to the mainstream. Hillary Clinton previously opposed gay marriage, then changed when the people spoke up. Biden used to crack down hard on the “war on drugs” but now wants to decriminalize marijuana. Continue to turn up the pressure and the party is bound to follow suit. If you insist on choosing the greater good rather than the lesser evil, than you may as well write in a random moral philosopher from some Ivy League, their chances of winning would hardly be better than a third party candidate. The situation is essentially a trolly problem, if you do nothing the train will continue on its way and kill five people, but if you pull the lever it will only kill one person. Ideally we wouldn’t want anyone to die of course, but you do the math.

Centrists rightly criticize the corrosive features prevalent on the left and right but all too often lose the plot in both-sideism where their moral calculus isn’t tuned to the obvious frequency: Orange Man worse. Clearly, critics such as myself are just blindsided by partisanism or Trump Derangement Syndrome or some combination thereof. Yes, I generally toe the liberal party line, but neither am I wedded in holy matrimony. I repudiate the charge of partisanship on the grounds I would not say these things about any other president. If Trump were impeached, removed, and replaced by an evolution-denying Christian theocrat like Mike Pence, that would be an optimistic outcome in my book. It would certainly not be ideal, in fact it would be terrifying, but not compared to the clusterfuck we have now.

My primary area of interest is the study of science, particularly my professional medical field, but I enjoy consuming all disciplines from physics to philosophy to history. So who am I to get involved in politics? An amusing question given the unqualified status of the sitting commander-in-chief; but more importantly, as an American citizen I have a duty to participate in this precious enterprise we call democracy and the right to freely express what I believe to be the best path forward. I will always uphold these American values and perform my duty, but I wish I could more often focus on these other pursuits without worrying about the next daily catastrophe coming out of the White House. As John Adams once put it,

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy … in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. [48]

I am not a single-issue voter, but if I were, the impact of climate change on our future generations is one of my top, pressing concerns. There can be reasonable debate over how to best address this issue, but the Republican Party is barely willing to agree it is even a problem let alone devote resources to a solution. We need to make the transition to clean energy and away from a carbon grid as soon as possible. Invest in solar and wind power, electric cars, even seriously consider safe nuclear energy. Factory farms not only contribute mass untold suffering upon innocent animals, but also cause significant greenhouse emissions and environmental damage [49-54].

The next election cycle is fast approaching and so I write with a sense of urgency. We can not afford another four years of this demagogue. It may sound paradoxical, but I want to look back on this time and seem like a crazy alarmist. Jonah prophesied the destruction of Nineveh in forty days, but it never came because the people turned around. It is my sincere hope that America will see the dangers I have expressed and take action to protect our precious democracy before the curtain falls and is too late.

References

[1] Cassidy, J. (2016). Trump University: It’s Worse Than You Think. The New Yorker.

[2] Fahrenthold, D.; et al. (2020). Spin, deride, attack: How Trump’s handling of Trump University presaged his presidency. The Washington Post.

[3] Atkin, E. (2017). EPA chief Scott Pruitt just went full climate denier. The New Republic.

[4] Davenport, C.; et al. (2018). E.P.A. Chief Scott Pruitt Resigns Under a Cloud of Ethics Scandals. The New York Times.

[5] Heuvel, K. (2019). Trump’s Greatest Dereliction of Duty—His Disgraceful Denial of Climate Change. The Nation

[6] Kann, D. (2019). US begins formal withdrawal from Paris climate accord. CNN.

[7] Vasquez, M. (2020). Trump’s dismantling of environmental regulations unwinds 50 years of protections. CNN.

[8] (2020). Family separation under the Trump administration – a timeline. SPLC.

[9] Apuzzo, M.; et al. (2018). Michael Cohen Secretly Taped Trump Discussing Payment to Playboy Model. The New York Times.

[10] Feuer, A. (2018). What We Know About Trump’s $130,000 Payment to Stormy Daniels. The New York Times.

[11] Makela, M. (2016). Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women. The New York Times.

[12] Relman, E. (2020). At least 25 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Business Insider.

[13] Gibson, G.; et al. (2019). Trump curses Mueller appointment: ‘This is the end of my presidency’. Reuters.

[14] Fernandez, M. (2020). All the Trump associates convicted or sentenced in the Mueller investigation. Axios.

[15] Mueller, R. (2019). Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election. U.S. Department of Justice.

[16] Barrett, D., et al. (2019). Whistleblower claimed that Trump abused his office and that White House officials tried to cover it up. The Washington Post.

[17] Bump, P. (2020). No senator ever voted to remove a president of his party from office. Until Mitt Romney. The Washington Post.

[18] Peters, C. (2020). A detailed timeline of all the ways Trump failed to respond to the coronavirus. Vox.

[19] Qiu, L. (2020). Analyzing the Patterns in Trump’s Falsehoods About Coronavirus. The New York Times.

[20] Solender, A. (2020). Trump—After ‘Slow The Testing Down’ Remark—Will End Federal Funding For Testing Sites. Forbes.

[21] Gearan, A. (2020). Trump announces cutoff of new funding for the World Health Organization over pandemic response. The Washington Post.

[22] Armus, T. (2020). Trump threatens to permanently cut WHO funding, leave body if changes aren’t made within 30 days. The Washington Post.

[23] Achenbach, J.; et al. (2020). Trump budget cuts funding for health, science, environment agencies. The Washington Post.

[24] Cameron, B. (2020). I ran the White House pandemic office. Trump closed it. The Washington Post.

[25] Casselman, B. (2020). A Collapse That Wiped Out 5 Years of Growth, With No Bounce in Sight. The New York Times.

[26] Hill, E.; et al. (2020). How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody. The New York Times.

[27] Spreadsheet of police brutality videos

[28] Johnson, S. (2020). This spreadsheet lists 1,000+ cases of alleged police brutality amid George Floyd protests. Big Think.

[29] Law, T. (2020). ‘It’s Obvious There’s a Cultural Rot’: Activists Collect Hundreds of Examples of Alleged Police Misconduct in One Public Spreadsheet. Time.

[30] Feuer, A. (2020). Trump Falsely Targets Buffalo Protester, 75, as ‘Antifa Provocateur’. The New York Times.

[31] Byfield, E. (2020). Protester Speaks Out After Mask Ripped Off By NYPD and Pepper-Sprayed in Brooklyn. NBC New York.

[32] Burns, K. (2020). Police targeted journalists covering the George Floyd protests. Vox.

[33] How the Philadelphia Police Tear-Gassed Trapped Protesters New York Times.

[34] Shear, M. (2020). Trump Issues Executive Order Targeting Vandalism Against Monuments. The New York Times.

[35] Baker, P.; et al. (2020). How Trump’s Idea for a Photo Op Led to Havoc in a Park. The New York Times.

[36] Brito, C. (2020). Bishop blasts Trump for staging visit to church after protesters were tear-gassed. CBC News.

[37] Lewis, S. (2020). Reverend says she was among peaceful protesters tear-gassed so Trump could “hold a Bible and look Christian“. CBC News.

[38] Merritt, J. (2016). Trump’s Bible Fail. The Atlantic.

[39] Mayer, J. (2016). Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All. The New Yorker.

[40] Sonmez, F. (2019). Trump again jokes about staying on as president for more than two terms. The Washington Post.

[41] Sullivan, M. (2019). If Trump doesn’t condone violence against journalists, he should stop inspiring it. The Washington Post.

[42] Kessler, G.; et al. (2020). President Trump has made more than 20,000 false or misleading claims. The Washington Post.

[43] Dwyer, C. (2016). Donald Trump: ‘I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters’. NPR.

[44] Hassan, S. (2019). The Cult of Trump.

[45] Gartner, J. Mental Health Professionals Declare Trump is Mentally Ill And Must Be Removed. change.org

[46] Lee, B. (2017). The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.

[47] Blake, A. (2019). A brief history of world leaders laughing at Trump. The Washington Post.

[48] Adams, J. (1780). Letter to Abigail Adams.

[49] Aleksandrowicz, L.; et al. (2016). The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review. PlosOne.

[50] Poore, J. and Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science.

[51] Springmann, M.; et al. (2018). Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits. Nature.

[52] Chai, B.; et al. (2019). Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets. Sustainability.

[53] Livestock’s Long Shadow. Food and Agriculture Organization.

[54] Grazed and Confused. Food Climate Research Network.

Further Reading

Can It Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America by Cass Sunstein

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

The People vs Democracy by Yascha Mounk

Democracy and its Crisis by A.C. Grayling

The Good State by A.C. Grayling

Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder

Too Much and Never Enough by Mary Trump

Trumpocracy by David Frum

Trumpocalypse by David Frum

The Despot’s Apprentice by Brian Klaas