Everything that America stands for is under constant and withering assault by, of all people, its own chief magistrate. And the threat to our society that is posed by his racist taunts, his xenophobic policies, his sexist cracks, his hateful aura, will not go away even when he does.
The work to turn that around, though, starts now.
It falls to every other person who holds or seeks a position of trust under the United States of America to stand against this assault, to do what they can to work around it, ignore it when possible, confront it when necessary.
This week, confrontation has been necessary. And all too rare, especially from members of the president’s own party and from elected leaders of Utah.
The president, whether because of a Sunday case of boredom or a more clever effort to distract attention from his hideous treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees at our southern border, launched a tweetstorm attack on a new-generation alliance of young women of color who have recently been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and have used the spotlight to draw attention to the administration’s many failures.
By saying that those duly elected representatives of the people should “go back where they came from,” the president employed a baldly racist expression that has no place in serious national discourse.
It was also flatly ignorant, as, in the instance of the four members of what’s become known as The Squad, “back where they came from” is Detroit, Cincinnati, the Bronx and Minneapolis. (Rep. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar was born in Somalia, but left that war-torn nation at age 10, is a naturalized citizen and was elected by the people of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District to speak for them.)
A charitable interpretation of the response from members of the president’s Republican Party would be that they were struck speechless.
Utah’s Sen. Mitt Romney had specifically pledged, as he took office last year, to “speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions.” And Monday, after a couple of stops and starts, he found his voice.
Romney said the president’s remarks were “destructive,” “demeaning," “disunifying,” “very wrong,” and “over the line.” Which, clearly, they were.
So far the other Republicans of the Utah congressional delegation, as well as state officials who have been known to stand up for the diversity and welcoming nature of our state and nation, have been unforgivably silent.
Rep. Ben McAdams, the only Democrat in the Utah delegation, also took issue with the president’s racist remarks. Though he, like Romney, avoiding using the word “racist.”
Perhaps they thought it better to avoid the term because it would only pour more fuel on the fire. But it is time for more of us, in public life and in general conversations, to start being honest about not only what this president is, but also what he apparently, and shamefully, thinks the American people are.
A nation such as this one, a tapestry of every hue and belief, only holds together because we wish it to. And holding it together is perhaps the primary duty of our national government, not so much by law or appropriation or enumeration of rights and responsibilities, but by leadership, example, wise and considered words of unity and conciliation.
Every president until now has taken that duty seriously, even if their words were sometimes weak, pro forma or even hypocritical. This one has deliberately, even proudly, turned his back on all of that.
Nothing we value about America — the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the “We the people,” the “shining city on the hill” — is possible if we are led by people who seek, gain and hold power by dividing us or, just as bad, by remaining silent.
Part of the problem is that the time and energy taken up by answering, rebuking or subtweeting every one of the president’s hateful remarks and asides is time and energy not spent on immigration, health care, the deficit, national security or other important things we ought to be facing. Which may very well be the point.
What has become necessary is for conservatives — which this president is not — and Republicans — whose party has been the target of a hostile takeover — to separate themselves, not from their true traditions and associations, but from this administration. To take back their principles and their party from this abomination of a president. Not here and there and from time to time. But once and for all.
If Republicans don’t change their ways, the next generation of Americans — the next generation of Utahns — is going to leave them behind.