When I covered George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 1988, he was keen to dress in the American flag and took us to a flag factory in New Jersey. That way, he could stroke a piece of red-and-white-striped nylon and claim that the Republican Party was “on America’s side.”
At the time, this seemed like a cynical move by Republicans to Bogartize patriotism. But at least they respected our country enough to try to monopolize its symbols.
That vanished Republican swore allegiance to the American flag. Now the Republican Party is pledging allegiance to Donald Trump’s ego. He must be bigger than anything, even bigger than America itself.
“Mr. Bush wore the American flag around his body,” said David Axelrod. “Mr. Trump wants to wrap himself in the Mar-a-Lago flag.”
Just as Trump has remade the Republican Party in his own mean and selfish image, he wants to remake America in his own mean and selfish image.
Trump doesn’t seem to agree with any truth about this country. He doesn’t believe America is exceptional. He only believes that Trump is exceptional and an exception to all the rules that other people follow.
When American laws get in his way, such as counting votes to choose the president, he tries to break them. After all, he is greater than democracy.
When American values get in his way, like our disgust with authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban, he mocks those values. When Presidents Putin and Orban flattered President Trump, it seemed more important to the megalomaniacs at Mar-a-Lago than our country’s proud history of confronting dictators.
In 2017, Bill O’Reilly asked President Trump why he respected Putin, even though he was a “murderer.”
“There are a lot of murderers,” he answered. “What, do you think our country is so innocent?”
America the Beautiful, our shining city on the hill, isn’t so hot. If he gets in his way, Trump will destroy his institutions, trash his courts, destroy cultural icons like Taylor Swift, and target his followers who storm the Capitol.
He does not see America as the idealistic leader of the free world. As Axelrod puts it, he sees the world as a “Hunger Games.” And, frighteningly, Trump sometimes acts as if he prefers America’s enemies to America.
The former president shocked the world last weekend when he told a rally that if NATO countries did not increase their defense spending, he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever it wants” to its allies. Biden called it “un-American.”
Undeterred by Putin’s dastardly plans to annex Ukraine, Trump’s bromance with the sociopathic Putin continues as the Russian president’s most powerful adversary, Alexei Navalny, 47, is locked up in an Arctic prison. I was even more disgusted by the news that he died under mysterious circumstances. Profile His Putin critics often do.
President Biden said, “Don’t get me wrong. President Putin is responsible.”
When a CNN reporter asked if Trump had any reaction to Navalny’s heroic death, the Trump campaign pointed her to a Truth Social post that was not about Navalny or Putin. It was about how America is a terrible country.
“America is no longer respected because we have an incompetent president who is weak and doesn’t understand what the world is thinking,” Trump wrote.
This American genocide garbage is how he connects with his constituency, many of whom are very cynical about politics and government and see hypocrisy and conspiracies everywhere. .
Those who worship his hallucinations praise him as a strongman, even though he has been shown to be responsible for sexual assault and a mega-swindler who turned a Potemkin village into a real estate empire. . On Friday, a New York judge ordered Trump to pay a $355 million fine, plus interest, saying Trump & Co. “They’re doing something completely illegal,” including his own company. He was prohibited from holding any important position in any company for three years. The lack of repentance and remorse is almost pathological. ”
From the Renfields to President Trump’s Dracula, he’s busy playing sycophants to dictators. At the Axios conference in Miami, Jared Kushner, who touted his $2 billion Saudi investment after leaving the White House, called Mohammed bin Salman a “visionary leader.” Asked about the crown prince’s complicity in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Kushner responded angrily: “Are we really still doing this?”
Before Navalny’s death, Tucker Carlson was making a fuss in the Kremlin, disparaging Ukraine’s desperate fight for independence. The interview with President Putin was so extravagant that even Putin complained that he didn’t ask enough pointed questions.
In an interview with an Egyptian journalist, Carlson defended his decision not to question Putin about freedom of speech and assassinations of opponents.
“Every leader kills,” Carlson said casually, adding, “Leadership requires killing, and it’s a shame.”
Will enthusiastic Republicans stand up to dictatorships at home and abroad?
Navalny’s death at the hands of brutal President Vladimir Putin has given momentum to the push for military aid to Ukraine.
That’s what America should do.