For example, there is a minimal age to be President. If it fair that a young adult isn't eligible? Perhaps not. Does something magic happen when you reach 35 vs. 34? No. I'm sure some 34-year-old's are better qualified than many 35-year-old's. And certainly if we felt strongly about it, we could change the Constitution to lower the age, waive the natural born criterion, etc. Calling it a "ban" on young adults, though, is inappropriate.
But when the construct got rephrased as a "ban" on gay marriage, social conservatives got put on the defensive; homosexuality occurs across a number of species, not just human. How can you deprive other couples of their natural right to pursue their own happiness? And the answer is, most of us didn't feel that way at all. It never bothered me as a straight guy that Houston gays could flourish in Montrose. I met a couple of lesbians while serving in the Navy; none of my friends or me wanted to out them to military commanders. Once you allow the other side to redefine the issue in a distorted way, you're playing on their court, by their rules. Personally, I prefer living in a state that emphasizes traditional values. I don't have an issue with states, say, competing to attract gay couples, including marriage recognition. What I didn't like was SCOTUS subverting historical state regulation of marriage, a violation of the Tenth Amendment.
So what does this analogy have to do with Trump?
Consider:
- Trump's Attempts to End DACA. This was an Obama Administration program to waive extradition of undocumented foreign-born children who have grown up as fellow Americans. As minors, they didn't deliberately violate immigration rules. There is something cruel about kicking kids out of the only real home they've ever known, leaving family and friends behind for a strange country they barely know. Granted, illegal immigration is Trump's signature issue, but going after kids has never been popular, even within his base.
- Raiding the Defense Budget To Pay For His Border Wall. A similar issue here. Even conservative Republicans don't care for its dubious constitutionality, and military conservatives aren't happy with Trump's cuts in defense spending.
- His Puzzling Handling of the Charlottesville Situation. After a white supremacist drove into a crowd of counter-protesters (to an alt-right rally) killing a person and injuring others, Trump responded with a puzzling observation that there were very fine people on both sides of the dispute. Trump's refusal to distance himself from white supremacists or their allies stands in stark contrast, e.g., to Bush 41's explicit rejection of David Duke. Trump didn't win the 2016 election based on a squeaky but negligible group of far right extremists. Why Trump would let his opponents define his supporters as such is baffling; most of his own supporters rejected the alt-right affiliation. There was no upside to his supporting the alt-right.It's also one thing to defend the First Amendment right to protest, but violence is not peaceful assembly. What is his upside to defending extremists?
- His Coddling of Putin and Praise of Dictators. Russia, the heart of the old Soviet Union, has been a traditional adversary and is unpopular with his own base of conservative support. You would think, particularly in the aftermath of the Russiagate controversy, he would do all he could to distance himself from Russia and Putin. It's almost like he's determined to dig himself deeper in the muck. He stubbornly stays the course seemingly as a matter of principle, more recently wanting to expand the G-7 to include Russia and the current kerfuffle that he looked the other way after allegations surfaced that Russia intelligence put bounties on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan. His opposition continues to portray Trump's behavior as a part of a quid pro quo for support during the 2016 campaign. (I don't subscribe to that; there are multiple decisions Trump has made contrary to Russian preferences, but I still think Trump brought on much of this on himself by "joking" an appeal to Russia to find incriminating evidence against Clinton and/or missing emails.)
- His Impeachment Over the Circumstances of Ukraine Aid. I'm not going to repeat here the reasons why I strongly supported Trump's impeachment and conviction. Pushing a Ukraine investigation into Biden as part of a quid pro quo for release of Ukraine aid was blatantly a self-serving abuse of Presidential power. It is clear from the emoluments clause that acting for personal vs. national benefit was forbidden. There was no legal ground for suspending aid passed into law, which Trump did until he released it under bipartisan pressure. Conflating his reelection with the national interest was narcissistic. What's incredible to me is that Trump thought he could get away with his misconduct. Yet this self-serving pattern of misconduct continues as per, e.g., his termination of 4 inspectors general and his abrupt termination of a US Attorney (Berman) who has been investigating Trump associates in his long-term home base of New York City. Trump has repeatedly forced GOP senators to make unpopular votes, including but not restricted to the impeachment trial, putting GOP control of the Senate into question (including tough reelection battles in CO, ME, and AZ).
- His Obsession with Twitter. Trump's misuse of Twitter, including dubiously retweeting a racist tweet and insulting tweets, is a double-edged sword and frequently puts his Congressional party base on the defense.
- His Dubious Focus on Confederate Statues and Veto Threat on Renaming Military Bases. Why someone who repeatedly invokes the memory of Lincoln waxes enthusiasm over "beautiful" Confederate statues and threatens to veto renaming military bases with former Confederate heroes' names is frankly mystifying, even as GOP-controlled Mississippi has decided to retire its state flag with an embedded Confederate flag. I don't understand Trump's priorities in the aftermath of the Floyd murder.
- His Leadership During the COVID-19 Crisis. This goes beyond Trump's seeming ambivalent embrace of testing, in a pandemic where a large percentage of the infected remain asymptomatic. South Korea quickly leveraged the private sector in testing and largely contained the spread. On the other hand, CDC and the FDA on Trump's watch initially maintained a government monopoly, and its initial released batches were problematic. Trump has refused to wear face masks, has seemed impatient with containment efforts, pushing reopenings by Easter, for example. He pushed for a political rally in Tulsa, which not only backfired in poor attendance but one of his supporters there, Herman Cain, has developed COVID-19. (Note that Cain didn't necessarily get infected at the rally, but his infection is politically inconvenient.)
- His Abuse of "National Emergency" Authority and His Vetoes. Trump, among other things, has vetoed Congress' intent to enforce its power of the purse, including border wall funding (note that illegal immigration peaked in 2007), and efforts to end US support for Saudi Arabian intervention in Yemen.
- His Questionable Personnel Decisions. This goes beyond Trump's terminations of Comey and Sessions over personal loyalty. I previously mentioned arbitrary terminations of taxpayer-protective inspector generals and a US Attorney. He unconventionally picked an oil executive for his Secretary of State. He picked neo-cons/pro-interventionist Mattis for his Defense Secretary and John Bolton for his National Security Adviser and then seemed surprised by their pushback, say, against Syrian withdrawal. He put his daughter and son-in-law in high places in his Administration, blatant nepotism.
- His Utter Lack of Diplomatic Skills. It goes beyond his roiling NATO over defense spending, his volatile dealings with North Korea, his unilateral decisions, his obsession with Iran, his above-cited flirtations with dictators, but also his unprovoked trade wars and manipulative, disrespectful behavior towards allied leaders like Germany's Merkel,
Obviously this is not a comprehensive list. No doubt from his rabid political base these are not bugs; these are features of their "hero" battling the "Deep State", the "swamp". They are in a state of denial. Trump has done little since his election to broaden his base of support and as a result he has almost never had a net approval rating during his entire first term. He seems to aim his efforts to maintain support in his base supporters. He doesn't exhibit positive, unifying, inspiring leadership; he's always running against someone or something. It seems almost everyday Trump is doing or saying something that roils the nation or its economy. He's a narcissist, constantly demanding attention and asserting his unlimited authority, hyping his "achievements" and scapegoating others for his shortcomings. He lacks self-control and Obama's unflappable personality.
This was not just another essay explaining why I will not support Trump's reelection. Trump has lived down to my expectations in voting against him in 2016. I'm tired of all the drama; I want a POTUS who puts an emphasis on liberty vs. his/her authority. It's just I cannot comprehend how Trump has spent his political capital on unnecessary, negative initiatives which have alienated the same centrist voters he needs to win reelection.
