By Andy Brack
Here’s a frightening question that Americans should consider: Why are so many people willing to accept stuff now that they couldn’t have imagined being tolerated just a few years ago?
For example, what if former President Barack Obama had decided to use National Guardsmen from around the country in Dallas to clean up crime?
As it happens, he asked such a rhetorical question during an October podcast: “If I had sent in the National Guard into Texas and just said, ‘You know what? A lot of problems in Dallas, a lot of crime there, and I don’t care what [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott says. I’m going to kind of take over law enforcement, because I think things are out of control.’”
Then he reflected: “It is mind-boggling to me how Fox News would have responded.” But President Donald Trump has gotten a pass.
In fact, Obama continued, it’s just plain wrong to use the military on domestic soil, except in an extreme emergency. He said using the military in that way seemed to be nothing but “a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy. And that was understood by Democrats and Republicans.”
So why are Americans not holding the increasingly sleepy Trump accountable for things like using masked immigration agents to rip apart families and patrol streets in blue states when other presidents never would have conceived of crossing such lines and standards. Imagine if:
Biden: What if Joe Biden welcomed North Korea and Iran with open arms, giving them carte blanche to America?
Bush: What if George W. Bush had a defense secretary who allowed United States secrets to be discussed in an insecure chat room?
Clinton: What if Bill Clinton fired everybody at the Justice Department when it was investigating him? Or what if he got blue states to redraw congressional maps so he could have his way with Congress?
Bush: What if George H.W. Bush turned the CIA into a domestic spying group to watch American companies and political parties? Or what if he embraced KKK policies frequently?
Reagan: What if Ronald Reagan accepted a free jet from Russia?
Carter: What if Jimmy Carter took away the right to own a handgun?
Ford: What if Gerald Ford raised taxes on the regular guy just to give a phenomenally huge tax break to rich people?
Nixon: What if Richard Nixon had pardoned all of his buddies – and himself – instead of resigning?
Johnson: What if Lyndon Johnson ordered the shooting of protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention?
Bottom line: You can’t imagine any of these past presidents doing any of this. And you wouldn’t have tolerated it.
Through the years, America has been an increasingly tolerant place. But with the rise of MAGA and the intellectual laziness of too many Americans, things that were intolerable in the past have become accepted by default.
And that’s wrong – an excoriation of the traditional American values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
What is happening now in American health clinics, research facilities, national parks, schools, universities, corporate boards, federal agencies, federal courts and the military because of shenanigans in Washington is nothing short of shameful – a slap in the face to American exceptionalism and what the framers of American democracy believed.
We must stop the hypocrisy. As a nation, we can do better. We must demand better. We must stand up to autocratic threats.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of the Charleston City Paper and Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send it to feedback@statehousereport.com.
