Wissot: You only get to elect a dictator once
One paramount issue faces the 6% of the voters in six swing states who will decide the election outcome in November. Simply put, do you or don’t you want to see the United States of America remain a democracy? Biden voters do and a large swath of Trump voters don’t.
If you’re a double hater, a voter in a swing state who hates both Biden and Trump, the way to get off the fence is to ask yourself this: Which candidate will do a better job of ensuring that we are still a democracy in two years, when we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the world’s oldest experiment in self government? Joe Biden, if elected, will represent both the people who voted for him and those who didn’t. He won’t demonize voters who don’t vote for him. Donald Trump has contempt for the 53% of the electorate who didn’t vote for him in 2020. He has said that Jewish voters like me who voted for Biden should “have our heads examined.”
A Biden victory would mean we elect a staunch advocate for democracy. A Trump victory would mean we elect a person who views democracy as an impediment to his authoritarian impulses. We gave King George III his walking papers when Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Our Founding Fathers wanted, in the words of Thomas Paine, to give birth to the first democratic republic where “the law is king” and sever its ties to a monarchy where the “king was the law.”
There have been leaders in the past with dictatorial ambitions who rose to power using democratic means. Before anointing himself emperor of France, Napoleon was constitutionally confirmed as the First Consul of the country. Before becoming the fuhrer, Adolph Hitler was Germany’s chancellor and president. He was chosen for both posts because of his Nazi Party’s dominance in the German parliament. Using the engines of democracy to dismantle a democracy is a favorite pastime of dictators.
Trump’s not Napoleon. Napoleon dispatched his military to bully Europe while Trump bullied timid 13-year-old boys in his class at the New York Military Academy. Trump’s not Hitler. Hitler was a monster and Trump, in the words of his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is a “moron.”
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Trump does, however, cozy up to the world’s most ardent autocrats while showing sullen contempt for our democratic allies in NATO. His authoritarian pals include Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia who deals with journalists daring to criticize his regime by having them butchered like a cow in a slaughterhouse; Kim Jong Un, the eccentric looking leader of North Korea, with whom he exchanged “27 love letters” and who should have his hair stylist executed; and Victor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, who was elected on a platform promoting Christian nationalism.
Trump hosted Orban at Mar-A-Lago and praised him by saying nobody was “smarter or a better leader.” Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin is beyond disturbing, it’s creepy. He has referred to the man responsible for assassinating rivals, jailing dissidents, holding sham elections, and invading a sovereign nation, as “savvy” and “a genius.”
Trump has made it clear what a sequel to his first shot as president will look like. He has indicated he would use “his” justice department to retaliate against Biden who he believes is responsible for his recent felony conviction. He has said he would authorize Homeland Security, the National Guard, and branches of the military, to deport upward of 11 million undocumented immigrants who he believes are living here illegally.
He has also threatened to deport pro-Palestinian protesters for exercising their First Amendment rights. Trump is opposed to public demonstrations in support of causes he doesn’t like. When he was president, he wondered why Secretary of Defense Mark Esper couldn’t have Black Lives Matter protesters shot “in the legs or something.”
He considers the individuals convicted of crimes during the Jan. 6 attack and takeover of the Capitol as “hostages,” “patriots” and “warriors” who he would consider pardoning. Trump won’t commit to accepting the results of the fall election should he lose to Biden. If he doesn’t, we could see a repeat of the violence that erupted on the steps of the Capitol in 2021.
Trump is a champion of both populism and isolationism. He’s the god of right wing cultural populism that capitalizes on his base’s fear of immigrants from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The “No Nothing” party, a nativist, anti-immigrant party of the 1850s, was a forerunner of MAGA nation. Isolationism was advanced in the 1930s by America’s greatest aviation hero and Nazi sympathizer, Charles A. Lindbergh. Lindbergh’s political movement was called “America First,” and had he trademarked it Trump wouldn’t have been able to rip it off to promote his own political ambitions.
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I was glad that Trump wasn’t in attendance at the recent ceremonies in Normandy marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the impetus for the allied victory over Hitler’s Third Reich. I’m doubly glad that Biden and not Trump was speaking as president on behalf of the nation.
Having Trump speak at Normandy would have been as appalling as inviting a Nazi to a Passover seder. After all, what would the man who dissed war hero John McCain for being captured and, who according to his former chief of staff, John Kelly, felt that the men who lost their lives on the beaches of Omaha and Utah were “suckers” and “losers,” have to say on such a solemn occasion?
Oh wait, I know. Silly me. He would have whined about the stolen election and the rigged jury verdict that convicted him as a felon. Vintage Trump.
Jay Wissot is a resident of Denver and Vail. Email him at jayhwissot@mac.com.
