John F. Kennedy once said “war will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.” As I sit and watch Ken Burns’ documentary on the Vietnam War it forces me to relive a time when the prospect of being drafted into a war that few of us believed in would present us with a potentially life or death dilemma. Reliving those years is painful, however we are in the midst of a reprise of a country divided today that threatens to be every bit as painful.
The violence that presented itself to these shores in the 1960’s divided this country almost as deeply as the Civil War had a century before. Then, we had the benefit of visionary leaders like JFK who knew the horrors of war firsthand and was deeply suspicious of a military leadership that was always seemingly willing to default to war as a first resort. We also had civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. who was determined to spearhead a movement through nonviolence. And as we dug deeper and deeper into the abyss Robert F. Kennedy stepped to the fore to bring a fresh perspective to the intractable crisis in Southeast Asia that had paralyzed the Johnson Administration. Before summer 1968 all three were gone.
Today we search high and low for a visionary who has the wisdom, patience, compassion, and intellectual gravitas to lead us through a rapidly unraveling crisis on the Korean Peninsula while addressing simultaneously domestic difficulties at home that have deeply divided the nation. Yet what we find is a President enmeshed in the throes of an investigation that strongly hints at treason, corruption, criminal conspiracy, obstruction of justice, ineptitude, incompetence, and a general disdain for the ideals embodied in the constitution. The crisis in confidence is compounded by the fact that the man who occupies the Oval Office was elected by a minority of voters and through a process that potentially involved collusion with foreign adversaries. In all respects we must question the legitimacy of the election itself.
Trump has no experience in governance, public service, diplomacy or management and while selling himself to the populace as an expert negotiator has proved to be incapable of negotiating a single deal even though his political party controls all the levers of legislative and executive power. His dealings with foreign leaders, both friend and foe alike, has sparked international ridicule and his petulant, nearly childlike temperament has brought us to the brink of a nuclear war that could result in the deaths of millions of innocent people.
Yet while this sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of those on and around the Korean Peninsula, including thousands of Americans in harms way below the 38th parallel, Donald Trump initiates divisive rhetoric bordering on outright racism, whether it be his battle over fealty to a flag, mass deportation of immigrants who are here through no fault of their own, or travel bans aimed at keeping legal immigration to a minimum. He engages in intraparty political squabbles (i.e. who will win the Republican Senate nomination in Alabama) while U.S. citizens in the Caribbean struggle for their lives. He is so desperate for a legislative victory that he is willing to endorse health care reconstruction that will deprive over 30 million American citizens of access to affordable benefits. And after 8 months in office he does not have one constructive legislative accomplishment he can point to.
He is most assuredly unfit and unqualified to occupy the position he most likely illegitimately secured through an election he himself warned would be rigged. It was. He is a pathological liar and completely unaware of the inevitable consequences of either his words or actions. It is incumbent upon the GOP leadership, for the sake of the country and the world, to set in motion invocation of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and remove him from office. Let the Special Counsel and Congress proceed with and finish their investigations into criminal activity and financial irregularities and if there is no prosecutable evidence he can be reinstated at a later time if that is the desire of the party. But at this point the consequences of his retaining office far outweigh any benefits from a humanitarian or constitutional standpoint.
This risky experiment with dictatorial populism must end. It has wrought much damage to the nation and the world in terms of our presumed position of moral leadership and as a beacon for democratic governance. So much work needs to be done to truly make America greater: bipartisan corrections in health care reform, a massive and energetic bipartisan national infrastructure program, sensible and compassionate immigration reform, a bona fide national commitment to racial equality, and restoration of the middle class. These are all acknowledged and realizable goals that can be accomplished through deliberative legislative compromise and regular order as codified in our constitutional form of government.
As any good surgical unit in a hospital or war zone does we too must triage our most seriously wounded institutions and policies and address them first. We must allocate our priorities and attack them with the seriousness and professionalism they deserve. In the long run we must be careful to never again allow party power to trump what is in the best interest of the nation and its people. Never again!