Chapter 8 and Epilogue
Study Guide by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA
Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida
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Chapter 8: We the Electorate
The verdict on Donald Trump includes the following:
He is guilty of behaving immorally,
He is guilty of undermining our democratic institutions,
He is guilty of abandoning some of our crucial US alliances,
He is guilty of supporting our adversaries,
He is guilty of dividing Americans with hateful rhetoric and habitual dishonesty, and
He is guilty of surrounding himself with people who only reinforce his fundamental flaws.
Donald Trump deserves to be fired, but the question is what to do next.
Firing a President
Some have suggested that the people around Donald Trump should let him destroy his own presidency by allowing him to take actions such as firing the special council and the Justice Department leadership. But of course this is not what his advisors should be doing. To permit or encourage a wrong decision by the president is to be culpable, and clearly unacceptable.
Another idea was to remove the president using the Twenty-fifth Amendment which allows the Vice President and a majority of the president's cabinet to declare the President to be unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. However, removing the president in this manner would be viewed as a coup and unacceptable to millions of Americans.
Another alternative is for Congress to impeach the president and remove him from office. Trump's behavior related to the Ukraine (now one of the articles of impeachment) is disturbing and if the evidence points to criminality, the members of Congress should follow the facts. Either way there is one other option that stands above the rest as the ultimate way to hold Trump accountable.
The People Themselves
Alexander Hamilton wrote that the people should decide whether a president stays or goes, except for exceptional circumstances. The voters must decide whether Donald Trump embodies the American spirit, whether his behavior defines us as a whole, and whether he is fit for office. The nature of the president is not what shapes the collective qualities of a nation, but our views, aspirations, and morality are reflected by the people we elect. Does Donald Trump reflect our values?
The Devil We Don't Know
The Trump administration is an absolute catastrophe and four more years of Trump could do irreparable damage to the fabric of our republic. In a crisis, do we want our nuclear arsenal, and our nation's military in the hands of a man who ignores intelligence briefings, who puts his self interest above the country's needs, who enjoys the company of foreign dictators, who our enemies believe is a fool they can manipulate, who has no credibility, and who our national security leaders no longer trust? In the 2016 election, Republicans viewed a semi-Republican Trump as a better choice than a hard-core Democrat Clinton. That was the thinking, but this time Republicans should rethink the math. Trump's innate flaws have cut into our political institutions with long-lasting effects. On the other hand, Democrats should not nominate someone out of touch with mainstream America, someone preaching socialism. If they do, Trump's fear mongering will be persuasive and he will seem friendlier to conservative ideas although Trump is not a conservative as pointed out earlier. However, if the Democrats nominate someone who is moderate and campaigns on unity, someone who can pull the country together, a sizable number of Republicans and Independent voters will be ready to join the common cause. If the Republican party had the courage, it would seriously consider replacing President Trump with an honest conservative at the top of the ticket. Then we would have a real choice based on Republican and Democratic principles.
Whatever happens in the next presidential election, the American people will be the ones in the spotlight. Hopefully the election will cause us to reinvestigate and reinvigorate the character of our nation.
Epilogue
"Let's roll." Those are the words of Todd Beamer who on 9/11/2001 rushed the cockpit of United Flight 93 with other heroic passengers shortly before the airplane crashed in Pennsylvania about twenty minutes from Washington and its target the US Capital Building. The story of Flight 93 filled Americans with pride and Todd Beamer's words became a rallying cry for a more united country. President Bush told Americans we would come together against the threat of terrorism. "We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." But suppose Bush had dismissed the intelligent community's conclusions as "ridiculous" and suggested the hijackers could have come from a lot of places, or called the incident a "hoax." Or suppose Bush had said that "Osama bin Laden says it's not al-Qaeda, and I don't see why it would be," in response to irrefutable evidence of the group's responsibility. Of course this supposed reaction by President Bush is absurd, but it is in effect what happened in 2016 when the hijackers were hackers, and the president was Donald Trump. Trump downplayed the incident, dismissed the intelligent community's conclusions, and said he believed Putin who said Russia was not responsible. In both cases our enemies wanted to create chaos in our country. When we were attacked by al-Qaeda on 9/11/2001 the courage of the Flight 93 passengers became a metaphor for American determination. But when we were attacked by Russia in 2016, with Trump's leadership we showed our capacity for divisiveness, irrational speculation, social media warfare, alienation from our neighbors, and record levels of incivility.
The behavior of the American people noted above shows that unifying the country will require much more than removing Donald Trump from office. Although President Trump is guilty of dividing Americans with hateful rhetoric and habitual dishonesty, the American people elected him to office based on the idea that he could fix our broken government. The democratic system reflects the people's mood. When we are angry, unyielding, partisan and greedy, our elected officials will display the same traits. Washington is broken, but it is because we are broken. Firing Donald Trump and electing a new Congress will make a difference, but lasting change will require a deeper, national self-reflection to determine who we were, who we are now, and who we want to be in the future. America needs a "civic renaissance" reinvigorating our active participation in our civic life. We need to restore the climate of truth, and relearn the art of "agreeing to disagree" with people who have different political views. We need to preserve the republic for ourselves and prepare our children to follow in our footsteps. America can restore the soul of its political system, but the survival of our democracy is not inevitable. Our charge is to prove that the United States can survive and restore the principles of democracy; truth, freedom, and the rule of law. Let's Roll!
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Go back to the Introduction and Chapter 1. (Summary).
Related summaries:
Crossan, M., W. Furlong and R. D. Austin. 2022. Make leader character your competitive edge. MIT Sloan Management Review (Fall): 1-12. This article includes a leader character framework. (Summary).
Hornsey, M. J. and K. S. Fielding. 2017. Attitude roots and Jiu Jitsu persuasion: Understanding and overcoming the motivated rejection of science. American Psychologist 72(5): 459-473. (Summary).
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Policies of a Second Trump Presidency.
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Shepard Fairey Political Posters.
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Summary of Trump's Seven Part Plan to Overturn the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Summary of what Trump is and what he is not.
Rosenfeld, G. D. (Editor) and J. Ward (Editor). 2023. Fascism in America: Past and Present. Cambridge University Press. (Summary).
Thurow, L. 1996. The Future of Capitalism: How Today's Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow's World. William Morrow and Company. See Chapter 13: Democracy Versus the Market. (Summary).
Unger, C. 2018. House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia. Dutton. (Note).
