His base calls it “speaking his mind,” or “telling it like it is.” People with even one iota of intelligence call it breaking down social norms and using the bully pulpit as a platform to assert his power. In the guise of speaking his mind, Trump trumpets all kinds of lies as facts, chastising those who disagree with him as liars or spreaders of false information. This includes the “mainstream free press” that Trump labels as the enemy of the people.
America knew what it would get with Trump during the 2016 campaign when he spouted stories about his greatness and financial success. It was during that time that he promised the public that he would soon release his taxes which we still have not seen almost five years later. Every presidential candidate for the last half century has released his or her taxes to the public except for Trump.
Some of his sexual transgressions became public in 2016 through his comments on the Access Hollywood tapes. Trump said because he was a celebrity, he could go up to any women he desired and grab her by the pussy and there would be no repercussions. He also mocked a disabled reporter and a Muslim gold star family that had lost a son fighting for the U.S. in Iraq. John McCain was mocked because he had been a prisoner-of-war, with Trump saying that he did not like Americans who were captured by the enemy. These words came from a man who weaseled his way out of service during the Vietnam War, with claims that heel bone spurs prevented him from being in the military.
Trump also declared that if he were elected president, he would throw Hillary Clinton in jail for destroying her emails and for using a non-secure server. He asked Russia to help him by finding Clinton’s emails while his supporters chanted “Lock her Up,” at every Trump rally.
Over the next few years, Americans also learned that he had paid off two women with whom he had had affairs so they would not release their stories to the public. Trump refused as well to condemn a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman had been killed, saying there were fine people on both sides. He tried as well to blackmail the Ukrainian president to give him information (true or not) on Joe Biden’s son Hunter and the latter’s involvement in a Ukrainian energy firm. While the Ukraine was fighting a war against Russia, Trump withheld badly needed weapons from the Ukrainians until they complied with his wishes. These actions got him impeached but his protectors in the Republican controlled Senate bailed him out.
Through the tapes made by Bob Woodward of his conversations with Trump, we learned that the president knew back in January or February how deadly the Corona virus was, that it was airborne and easily transmissible. But Trump refused to give this information to the public, claiming it would have sparked panic, even though it would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. We also discovered that Trump had called the men and women in our military who had fought and died for our nation, “suckers and losers.”
More recently, when MSNBC reporter Ali Velshi was shot in the knee by a rubber bullet while covering a demonstration, Trump said to a crowd at one of his rallies, “wasn’t that beautiful” as the crowd cheered. And Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power when questioned by a reporter at a press conference, claiming that if he lost, the election had to be rigged. This was the first time in American history that a president would not commit to being a graceful loser and peacefully transfer power to the winner.
These are just a few of the many Trump disregards of established norms for our democracy. Will he step down if he loses and insure a peaceful transfer? We’ll have to wait and see. But this election and its aftermath will be a climactic moment for American democracy.
www.robertlevinebooks.com
The Uninformed Voter available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Called “thought provoking and well sourced work of political analysis,” by Booklife
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Posted at 11:04 AM in 2016 election, 2018 elections, American soldiers, Biden, Corruption, Court appointments, Covid 19, Corona virus, Cult of personality, Current Affairs, Donald Trump, draft avoidance, election rigging, fake news, Hillary Clinton, Hypocrisy, lying, cheating, privileged parents, mail-in votes, absentee ballots, North Korea, Political corruption, Politics, porn star, racism, Republican Party, Russia, sexual predator, social norms, Supreme Court, tax returns, Ukraine, Voter Suppression | Permalink
Tags: disregard social norms, Hollywood Access tapes, liar, refusal to release taxes. committing to peaceful transfer, sexual predator, social norms, Woodward tapes
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020