Grudges

President Richard Nixon used a personal “enemies list[1]” and the power of his presidency, according to aide John Dean, to screw [his] political enemies.”  But President Trump’s constant use of presidential power to punish his personal and political enemies far surpasses Nixon’s and is otherwise unprecedented in American history.

The intention of this blog has been to explore the President’s impact on American democracy.  I have so far tried to avoid commenting on his petty, obnoxious or flamboyant behaviors that seem primarily intended to keep himself prominent in the 24-hour news cycle.

At some point, however, the totality of the President’s frequently petty responses to his grievances not only lowers the bar of acceptable presidential/political behavior but also devastates respect for the executive branch of government and damages trust in government itself.

For several months, Trump has attacked four left-wing, freshmen congresswomen, including Rashida Tlaib from Michigan and Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, because of their support for Palestine.  In mid-August, the President successfully lobbied Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu to refuse the women entry into Israel.  As Isabel Kershner et al write in the New York Times,

by enlisting a foreign power to take action against two American citizens, let alone elected members of Congress, Mr. Trump crossed a line that other presidents have not, in effect exporting his partisan battles beyond the country’s borders. And he demonstrated the lengths that he will go to target his domestic opponents, in this case two of the congresswomen of color he has sought to make the face of the Democratic Party heading into his re-election campaign.

Because of the political response in Israel, however, Netanyahu quickly reversed himself.

This hasn’t been the only use of the President’s power to attack based on a personal grievance.

In addition, writes Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post,

[T]he president has 

• grounded a military jet set for use by the Democratic House speaker,
• yanked a security clearance from a former CIA director critical of him,
• threatened to withhold disaster aid from states led by Democrats, 
• pushed to reopen a criminal investigation targeting Hillary Clinton and 
• publicly called for federal action to punish technology and media companies he views as biased against him….

Trump’s use of political power to pursue personal vendettas is unprecedented in modern history.  [Formatting mine]

Last year after Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico, the President—apparently in response to either criticism from the mayor of San Juan or Trump’s personal antipathy toward Puerto Rico—personally intervened to block aid funding while Congress debated the issue.  Trump told his advisors that he didn’t want any more aid going to Puerto Rico.  In the past two weeks, just as Puerto Rico was bracing for another possible hurricane, the president took millions of dollars from FEMA disaster-relief funds in order to build his border wall.

To the list we could add:

•  Trump’s attack on a “Mexican judge” (actually born in the US) who ruled against him,
• his accusation that the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (whom Trump appointed) was an “enemy” of the United States,
• Trump’s personal attacks on House Representative Elijah Cummings and
• many others.

It’s important to recognize that in each of these many episodes, Trump was responding from personal grudges that had little to do with policy. No other American president has come close to this use of presidential power to settle personal grievances.

The question for this post is: Are these many episodes just more examples of Trump’s pettiness or do they in themselves damage our democracy? 

It’s clear that government depends upon the basic trust of its people.  Unfortunately, this trust has been declining since the mid-1960s and now stands at an abysmal 20% of Americans.  A study by the reliable World Values Study found if the US democratic government wasn’t working well, over half of Americans would support either:

•  military rule,
• a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress or elections, or
• some other form of non-democratic rule.

Although not as serious as some of the President’s other abuses of power (use of emergency powers, obstruction of justice, promises of pardons etc). these petty personal attacks can destroy people’s confidence that the President will consider what’s best for the country in his other essential decisions (use of tariffs, military decisions, tax bills, and so on.)

Individually, the President’s childish behaviors, though troubling, do not endanger democracy.  Collectively, however, they exact a terrible toll on American society. They cause people to lose the faith on which a democracy depends — faith in elections, in the justice system, in the basic notion of truth.

How much more will it take to prepare us for another demagogue more competent than this President?

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[1] Vice-President Ford is quoted as saying: someone “who can’t keep the list of his enemies in his head has too many enemies.”