Opinion by
Columnist
July 5, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. CDT
Perhaps
President Trump’s remarks at Mount Rushmore on Friday will
become known as the super-spreader speech, where a few thousand people, nearly
all unmasked, sat next to each other (on chairs actually tied together, which
prevented social distancing) in rapt attention and thereby duplicated the monstrously
dangerous stunt Trump recently pulled in Tulsa. Maybe it will be vaguely
remembered as the worst Independence Day speech in American history.
It was not simply his slurred speech (Trump also mangled the
pronunciation of Ulysses Grant, as if he had never seen in print the first name
of the Union general who clobbered the Confederate generals Trump still tries
to venerate) that conveyed the impression there is something just not right
with the 45th president. It was not merely Trump’s sweaty, oddly colored
pallor; his squinting to read the teleprompter; or the uneven pacing of his
reading, which at times threatened (promised?) to grind to a halt. No, it was
the darkly aggressive and fascistic substance of his speech: positing that his
enemies want to destroy America and eradicate its history.
This
was a bookend (and, one hopes, the final chapter) speech to the “carnage”
inauguration speech, which former president George W. Bush aptly called “some weird s---.” This one was even weirder. It was more
in the vein of Infowars’ Alex Jones than adviser Stephen Miller: “The radical
ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice. But
in truth, it would demolish both justice and society,” Trump said, perhaps in
reference to the Black Lives Matter protests that seek an end to systemic
racism. “It would transform justice into an instrument of division and
vengeance and turn our free society into a place of repression, domination and
exclusion. They want to silence us, but we will not be silenced.” I actually
have no idea what he is talking about. It is all froth, anger and white
resentment at this point. His enemies are other Americans; his understanding of
American greatness is utterly defective. Reform, progress and inclusion are
threats to his base, oozing with white grievance.
Somehow,
in Trump’s view, the people who want to stop the veneration of traitorous white
nationalists who took up arms against the United States harbor a “radical view
of American history [that] is a web of lies.” The president who calls the media
the enemy of the people says others (fellow Americans) are trying to silence
“us” (his voters? whites?). Left unmentioned were the roughly 130,000 Americans dead of
covid-19, although he thanked first responders. He had nothing to say about the
victims of a pandemic he ignored and then mishandled. (He surely did not
mention his son Donald Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, who tested positive for covid-19, a
reminder that reality doesn’t heed insane rhetoric.)
When
all a president has to offer is paranoia and a statuary garden (Note:
Washington, D.C., is home to statues of many of the people Trump listed, so
perhaps he needs to get out more) directed at the hard-core cultists who buy
into his blood-and-soil nationalism and his contempt for anything that sounds
like social justice, you have to wonder if he even knows how to win the general
election. This surely was not designed to win back voters he desperately needs
in November.
Now, if
you were looking for normalcy, sanity, actual patriotism and something
uplifting, you could have read former vice president Joe Biden’s July 4 op-ed. His vision of America
is one of ever-expanding freedom:
Our democracy rose up
from the ground when we ended slavery and ratified the 13th, 14th and 15th
Amendments. It rose higher when women fought for suffrage — and won. It was
fortified when a lawyer named Thurgood Marshall persuaded the Supreme Court to
strike down “separate but equal” and blaze a trail for opportunity in Brown v.
Board of Education. And when our nation opened its eyes to the viciousness of
Bull Connor and the righteousness of the Freedom Riders — and responded with
outrage, and a new Civil Rights Act and a Voting Rights Act — we built it
stronger still.
In
Biden’s view, there is not “them” and “us” but one country seeking to fulfill
its promise, however imperfectly, in each generation. “Title IX. The Indian
Self-Determination Act. The Americans With Disabilities Act. Marriage equality.
DACA. Black Lives Matter. Brick by brick — and, all too often, against long
odds and violent opposition — the American people have labored to expand the
scope, strength and meaning of American democracy,” Biden wrote. He called
Independence Day “a celebration of our persistent march toward greater justice
— the natural expansion of our founding notion from ‘all men are created equal’
to ‘all people are created equal and should be treated equally throughout their
lives.’”
Biden
does not want to go to war with fellow Americans. He does not spew venom nor
ignore the all-encompassing national crisis in which we find ourselves.
“Rebuilding and expanding our democracy are essential to the long-term vitality
of our nation,” he vowed. “That’s why, as president, I will take immediate
action to reverse the damage Donald Trump has done to our core democratic
rights and institutions.” He promised to restore and protect voting rights as
well as to set about “immediately reversing Trump’s cruel and counterproductive
asylum, travel ban, and family separation policies — and reaffirming our innate
identity, reflected in our Constitution and emblazoned in the Statue of
Liberty, as a nation of immigrants.” Pledging to undo racism and root out
inequities (“from unfairly administered COVID-19 recovery funds, to laws that
perpetuate racial wealth gaps, to health disparities, to housing policy, to
policing, to our justice system and everywhere in between”), Biden offers a
vision of a country that stands “ready to lead again, not by the example of our
power, but by the power of our example.”
You can
have that guy or the raving, paranoid one peddling hate and dystopia. The
choice is not even close.
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