FOR AMERICANS THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED
The past week has showered Americans with signals and symbols of the state of our nation and the imperatives now on the table.
The eleven weeks between Donald Trump’s election and his inauguration have allowed many of us deliberately to withdraw our attention, hibernating in the holidays and the darkest days of winter, seeking hope and goodness in the profundity of available human connection, knowing that the troubled realities of our country will be there to greet us when we emerge, and pondering what it will feel like when we rise up to meet them.
The truth is, Americans are weary. We are weary from the intensity of the election campaign, the existential divisions of our country, consciousness of dire problems overseas, and for those who see danger in the coming Trump presidency, from the knowledge that we already battled through the blatant anti-democracy ploys of his previous presidency, and now are being called to do it all over again, but at a higher level.
This week, though, we had to emerge.
devastation in california
The Los Angeles fires, which spun out of control on Tuesday, January 7, have brought the Armageddon of climate change into our immediate lives. California, says writer Steve Schmidt in his blogpost The Warning, will never be the same again. As the world’s fifth largest economy, the state sets the tone for much of American life. California is part of us all.
Sixteen people have died. Thousands of people have lost their homes, in many cases underinsured because the insurance industry has not faced up to the true implications of climate predictions. Altadena, population 42,000, has seen over 7,000 structures burn, half of its businesses incinerated, at least five churches destroyed, and five elementary schools seriously damaged. The fire has destroyed at least eleven houses of worship across the county – synagogues, mosques, churches. No religious group is exempt. Schools, as well as houses of worship, are known to be of essential importance in helping people regroup and recover after a disaster. There is no elementary school building remaining in the town of Pacific Palisades. Infrastructure for firefighting has been underfunded. The severity of the calamity meant fire hydrants ran out of water. The city was unprepared for the size and scope of this emergency – indeed these fires have shown that the firefighting playbook has become outdated.
President-Elect Trump reminds us, in the face of these shattering circumstances, that his leadership style is not one of supporting those who are having to make the tough decisions or of expressing empathy and encouragement to those who have suffered great loss. Instead, characteristically, this week he seized this opportunity to criticize and debunk, underlining his persistent message that nobody in the US, other than himself, has a capacity to lead. In a series of Truth Social posts, he conjured up a fake document that he called a “water restoration declaration” that, he claims, would have made millions of gallons of water available to the fire-stricken areas, and accused California Governor Gavin Newsom of refusing to sign it. The Governor’s office was forced to divert valuable time from pressing emergency duties in order to refute this fantasy and others.
Trump’s folly
Trump’s words can be toxic, but soon we will see if he manages to follow up with deeds. This week he reiterated his interest in taking back the Panama Canal, seizing Greenland, and making Canada the 51st state. Some of this seems laughable – and it helps to laugh, but only if we retain consciousness that Trump is no laughing matter. “One of the biggest risks of the incoming Trump administration is that the unthinkable will begin to seem normal,” warns Liza Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice. He is moving ahead on tariffs and on detentions and deportations of immigrants convicted of minor crimes, despite forecasts that these actions will increase inflation. Next week the Senate will begin its nomination hearings, asserting its right to “Advise and Consent” with regard to the President’s appointments. The big question is whether Senate Republicans will follow Trump’s lead lock-step, or whether any will push back against nominations that are clearly based on cronyism rather than qualification for office.
President Biden has also been busy, taking what measures he can in his final days to defend vulnerable groups from Trump’s most egregious threats. On Friday he announced new sanctions on Russia and a half trillion dollar aid package to help Ukrainians hold their own. It is the 74th aid package the US has sent to Ukraine since the war began. He has extended Temporary Protected Status for refugees from Venezuela, Ukraine and El Salvador for another eighteen months. He has commuted the sentences of thirty-seven individuals on death row to life imprisonment.
Friday of this past week, President Elect Trump became the first person in American history to enter the presidency carrying a guilty verdict on a felony charge. Comments New York Times presidential columnist Peter Baker, “His critics will find it appalling. His admirers will see it as vindication.” Trump has prepared his followers to believe that any criminal charges leveled against him are merely a Democratic Party vendetta. The felony conviction clearly did not deter people from voting for him. But on January 20, when he takes the oath of presidential office, he will infect a two-hundred-and-fifty-year tradition of basic decorum with the stink of crime. Jack Goldsmith of Harvard Law School sums up the matter: “Trump has revolutionized how the public thinks about the presidency even before his second term has begun.”
Viewing stands and bleachers are already in place in Washington in preparation for the inauguration. Elon Musk, who along with Vivek Ramaswamy has been tapped by Mr. Trump to head a trumped-up Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is seen at Mr. Trump’s side frequently, raising obvious questions about the influence of an unelected but highly powerful personality in the Donald Trump menage. Musk has been recruiting fellow billionaires from Silicon Valley to give six months of unpaid time to monitor “wasteful spending” in particular government agencies. The structure of DOGE is kept highly secret lending added concern that the US is now subject to the whims of an unelected cabal of billionaires.
President carter’s legacy
Sending a completely different public message, Washington, last week, paid homage to the thirty-ninth president, Jimmy Carter, with a state funeral that reminded us of the dignity and grace of which our nation is capable. TV cameras played frequently on the front two rows in Washington National Cathedral, where five presidents, along with first ladies and vice-presidents and their wives from the past three decades, sat in a cluster to share the moment. Carter’s promotion of human rights, climate change awareness, deregulation, and inclusion of minorities and women set him apart in the 1970s. A peanut farmer from the Deep South, he wrestled with his conscience with regard to race relations, starting a new church in his home town when the whites-only church refused to integrate, and, as Governor of Georgia, hung Martin Luther King’s portrait in the Georgia State House three years after King’s assassination. In his post-presidency, he and his wife Rosalynn were hands-on in bringing about the global health and conflict resolution achievements of the Carter Center. His insistence upon putting principle before policy may have irked the Washington establishment and caused some to dismiss him as smug and out of touch. But the Carter presidency stands up well to examination, and his post-presidency proves to us all what is possible when generosity of heart is at the center of a man’s life.
