Standing Behind the President?

Our pugilistic president has once more sought to bully his way past the moral and legal heritage we together claim as a nation.  Much has already been said about his pathetic performance in Trump Tower on Tuesday, 8-15-17.  He spoke his mind.  In the process truth, his presidency and our nation’s standing in the world were diminished.  It was a shameful moment that will, I suspect, become a central moment identified as the end any prospect to provide ethical leadership.

Increasingly, however, my concern is not primarily about Mr. Trump’s bigotry and failings.  He is clearly not up to the job, intellectually or morally.  His ignorance and intolerance are, sadly, no longer astonishing.  My concern is now with those folks who continue to stand behind him. 

It was rather graphically portrayed on Tuesday.  There, in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York were several Cabinet Secretaries standing behind as he spoke — each one of whom would be on the enemies list of the hate groups marching in Charlottesville.

The question before us all now is where do we stand?  Political leaders — Republican, Democrat and Independent — have spoken out against the moral equivalency arguments misused by the president yesterday.  However, this still begs the question about WHERE THEY WILL STAND GOING FORWARD?

We watch as one by one, folks leave their posts in the White House.  Increasingly, many of these folks, fine people they, leave this administration with their reputations in tatters.  They have, as the old joke goes, “Tried to teach a pig to sing.”  The futility of this effort is identified as follows, “it only wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”  As we have already seen there is a pathetic kind of musical chairs being played out in an administration that has no guiding set of principles other than the hope of returning us to a world that never existed — to the mythical land of “Make America Great Again.”

Romans 12:21 commends the faithful as follows: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  How then shall we live?

Is Mr. Trump redeemable?  Yes, of course, as a person.  I am a Christian pastor, after all, and I do believe in conversion.  However, there is another question which we must consider: “Is this presidency redeemable?”  To that I would answer “NO.”  We have now passed the point of no-return for this administration.   I speak for myself, and I regret to say, I suspect this is now the sentiment of a majority of others in our nation.

What then to do?  Yes, you guessed it — we begin with ourselves — let’s start there.  If we are not going to stand behind this fatally flawed president what will we do? 

Years ago there was an Open Housing campaign that ran ads in national newspapers with the headline “Your Heart May Be in the Right Place But Are You?”  As I suggested earlier this week on this blog, we need to reach across the many divides in our society (there are more than two, Mr. President) and build and rebuild what Dr. King called the Beloved Community.

(I am avoiding the question of what wasn’t done that allowed us to get to this place.  I look around my denomination — United Methodism — and see our failures.  We were so busy trying to grow our congregations that we missed what was happening in our communities.  We allowed racist perceptions, fears of the undocumented and discrimination against gay persons to distort our Christian witness.  We sought to “grow” our congregations by filling them up with people like ourselves.)

We need to be honest about the ways economic exclusion and racism have denied opportunities and allowed our nation to value crony capitalism and violence as our tools of choice when facing complex problems.  For those of us who are perceived to be “white” and have thereby benefited from this underlying racial advantage, we need to rethink how we spend our time and resources.  We may need to rethink our paternalistic styles of “helping the poor” as these often do more damage than good.

And, yes, we must support corporate, civic and political leaders who will no longer stand behind this president’s misguided set of words and actions. 

We saw some corporate leaders take that step away in recent days, leaving the president’s manufacturing council.  In every place now possible, I am prepared to argue that folks need to step away.  Find a political leader who has a clear moral compass.  Encourage and support him or her. 

Send words of support to those corporate and political leaders who do step away and say, “Thank you for modeling true patriotism and the best of our citizenship by no longer following this misguided, confused man.”  I believe our democracy is up to it.  I pray our democracy is up to it.

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Post Script — Why My Strong Words:

I have wondered if I should respond to the president’s words yesterday.  After all, I don’t have much in the way of authority or agency.  My words might only do damage or cause pain… perhaps even be painful to persons I love and respect.  However,  I haven’t exactly been a wilting violet in the past — and, there is a sense that each one of us needs to now join in seeking to be a bit more bold and honest if we are to seek a peaceful and healthy nation and world.  I also decided to write after seeing the video attached below.  It is chilling to see the intentions of hatred from the inside white supremacists.  So, I have added my small voice — more, I pledge my actions on the behalf of reconciliation and stronger communities.

Perhaps Mr. Trump mistakes loud verbal fisticuffs with moral strength.  Sad.  He stepped off script and spoken his mind yesterday.  Among the many utterly foolish things said a the press conference in Trump Tower yesterday (8-15-17) were these words: “I only tell you this, there are two sides to a story.”  No, Mr. President, you are wrong. There are many sides.

As persons from MANY sides are saying today, there is no moral equivalency between Neo-Nazis, KKK and other supremacists with those who were counter protesters.  The president says he took time to gather the evidence before he spoke.  Really? Has this been our experience over the months of this twitter presidency?  I wonder if he took the time to see the images in the video on White supremacists on Vice News video on HBO.  This remarkable coverage, from inside the hate group, gives a clear picture of the violence intended leading to the tragic events.  Surely Mr. Trump could and should have this information — AND MORE.  He is, after all, the president of the United States.

There are multiple sides to our nation’s story.  Perhaps Mr. Trump is only able to work in a binary world of either this / or that.  However, this is a nation that continues to benefit when our leaders have a moral center and when they seek to unify rather than divide.

Some have recently suggested to me that I should be equally concerned about the hatred and violence expressed by groups on the left.  All such hatred and violence must stop — I am concerned, yes, but not equally.  The reality is that the actual criminality, on the streets, is not comparable in threat or in our response to it.  White supremacists represent more than 90% of the violence visited on us by terrorists-made-in-America in recent years.  Most tragically, these supremacist groups have been validated and sustained by the beliefs and actions of staff persons currently serving on the White House.  When David Duke praises the courage of Donald Trump for his words yesterday, there is no clearer witness needed to the danger that is at hand.