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Robert Klose is a four-time winner of a Maine Press Association award for Opinion writing. His latest book is Trigger Warning.
When I was a child, my father, a World War II veteran, inculcated certain values in me: Be honest; have compassion for those less fortunate; be respectful; honor veterans; don’t call people names; play fair. I was led to believe that these values were fundamental to the “greatest nation on Earth.” At the very least they would keep me out of trouble.
With the advent of the Age of Trump, it is now clear to me that I — and my late father — may have been wrong. Perhaps I have lived too long, as I am now haunted by the idea that all these virtues have been rendered obsolete by the words and actions of a man who holds command over the thoughts and behaviors of a significant chunk of the electorate.
Take honesty. The Washington Post tallied more than 30,000 discrete lies and misleading statements during Donald Trump’s presidency. And yet, many of the man’s supporters, even when they acknowledge the lies, dismiss them as irrelevant. In other words, lying is now OK.
Regarding the disabled, my father taught me to recognize the challenges they face, sometimes with the simplest of tasks, such as putting on a sock. When the opportunity arises, I reach out to offer assistance. What was I to think, then, when Donald Trump, in 2015, mimicked the disability of reporter Serge Kovaleski, and his audience laughed? I recall wondering if any of Trump’s supporters have disabled family members, or perhaps some of them are disabled themselves. If so, why would they laugh?
Likewise, I had always thought that conservative Republicans revered veterans, especially POWs. And yet, when Trump (who had skillfully avoided military service) denigrated John McCain (who had been shot down and tortured by the North Vietnamese) as “not a war hero,” his supporters, many of them veterans, listened attentively and without protest. This was essentially their response when, according to Trump’s erstwhile chief of staff John Kelly, Trump referred to American war dead as “suckers and losers.”
Name calling? If you support Trump, then perhaps you agree that women are dogs, and that people he doesn’t like, or who criticize him, are low-lifes, thugs, dopes, losers, crazy, dumb, vermin… well, you get the picture (the New York Times published the complete list). The question lingers: Do you believe this type of language becomes an American president? And if so, why? My father discouraged name-calling. Was he wrong?
Last, but certainly not least, is the issue of fair play. If there is anything that constitutes an American folk philosophy, it is the ethic of “May the best man win.” And yet, Donald Trump will not relinquish his bitter delusion that he won the 2020 presidential election, despite all evidence to the contrary. He went so far as to inspire a violent mob to march on the Capitol and disrupt the certification of the ballots. This struck me as the equivalent of overturning the chess board because your opponent checked your king. And yet Trump has managed to convince his willing followers of this principle: If you can’t win, cheat.
All of this makes me ponder what Trump’s supporters tell their children as they guide them on their trajectory to adulthood. I wonder if it goes something like this: Lie if it gives you an advantage; if your disabled classmate falls, kick him; when you see a veteran, scorn him; if someone is different from you, or has an obvious shortcoming, mock them; and if you find yourself on the losing end of a competition, find a way to break the rules so you will win. This is what I see America becoming, thanks to a man who many consider a fraud, a manipulator, and a buffoon.
The greatest country on Earth?
Prove it.