the current regime

[cellio]

Like many, I've been appalled by the behavior of our president, who fancies himself a king and who revels in bullying and retribution for perceived slights. He and his buddy Elon are "moving fast and breaking things" over which they have no legitimate authority, banking on the slowness of courts and Congress to restrain them. He attacks, undermines, and extorts our allies (that meeting on live TV sure looked like an ambush), cozies up to a fellow dictator, and suggests that we might not fulfill our obligations under existing treaties. He has some delusion that we have any say at all in what happens to Panama, Greenland, or Gaza. Europe is rightly concerned by his unhinged behavior, and all Americans, including his supporters, should be concerned too.

I've been trying to find the words to express all this (I feel so helpless!), and then I saw Trump's behavior makes me embarrassed to be an American. This article captures another aspect of it, one that hadn't yet risen to my conscious awareness -- he's ruining many things here and internationally in our name. This is blowing back on all of us, not just the king who is exempt from the consequences.

I’m embarrassed that the president of my country sneers like a grammar-school bully. I’m embarrassed by the way his lies backstop Russia’s propaganda efforts. I’m embarrassed that, with Ukraine under siege, our president has been focused on holding up the beleaguered country for rare earth mineral rights.

These are not subtle, difficult-to-decipher strategic moves by a modern-day Bismarck playing three-dimensional chess. They are acts of petty, small-minded, grievance-driven shabbiness. [...]

That’s the worst of it, but it’s hardly all of it. I find it wince-inducing when Trump mocks Canada, saying our neighbor to the north should be an American state and referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor.” [...] It should concern all Americans when their president acts like a braying bully on the international stage. [...]

Now, it’s unlikely mega-MAGA will ever shift its support. But not all Trump supporters fall into that category. Some voted to return him to the White House because of nostalgia for the vibrant economic times he inherited. Others supported him hoping he could fix the inflation this country, along with much of the world, suffered over the past few years.

If they find themselves dismayed at his browbeating of Zelensky; his false, Russia-friendly framing of the war; or other aspects of his international bullying, they should convey that to the White House and those who represent them in Congress.

I don't think all of his supporters approve of all that he is doing. I hope Trump voters who don't support his actions will join non-Trump voters in speaking up. This is not a red-versus-blue thing; this is an all-of-us thing. The extremists are cheering him on, but surely they are a minority -- surely there are people who voted for change but not this change, right?

Comments

[richardf8]

We can hope. But I maintain that given his past performance as President, and the campaign he ran, the fact that he garnered more than 25% of the vote is a serious indictment of America. I do not trust my fellow citizens because they have voted to betray our principles, our allies, and their neighbors at the most fundamental level.

Trump came as advertised, and enough people said "yes, please" to put him in the Oval Office.

[cellio]

He came as advertised, and I hope -- misplaced hope perhaps -- that some of those voters didn't really grok the magnitude and the methods fully. The alternative to that hope is despair that they knew exactly what they were doing. :-(

[shewhomust]

One of the things that is so depressing about the view from outside the USA is how little dissent we get to hear: so thankyou for posting this.

[magid]

If it helps, I (USian) is also appalled about ::waves hands:: all of this.

(I never thought I'd be glad to see other political entities (Canada, the EU, et al) choosing strong anti-US actions, but now I am, since I feel rather helpless on an individual (I live in a state where, while my senators could always do more, at least their views are for helping all, not kicking those who are down, and I do call them, but that will never have the same level of impact that an entire country does. I actually cheered when the NY stock exchange dropped noticeably, because that's an indicator some of them might care about.)

[cellio]

Same here. I never thought I would be glad to see other countries standing up against us, or the stock market plunging, but even though this all hurts us regular people, I'm glad to see the pushback from sources he might pay more attention to.

[shewhomust]

It does help. I know that the country I see on DW is not the country I see on the news, but it's good to be reminded once in a while... (Though it's also good to have a space where we talk about other stuff!)

[madfilkentist]

This especially struck me in the article: "Asked during a Monday media availability if he would describe the autocratic and thuggish President Vladimir Putin of Russia as a dictator, Trump demurred. 'I don’t use those words lightly,' he declared." Yet he said in his campaign that he would be a dictator on day one. More confirmation that he meant it.

But the opposition has been ineffective. I often get "surveys" from the ACLU with loaded questions about what their priorities should be, evidently designed to confirm what they already want to do and to solicit money. This week I got one that didn't even mention the president's abuses of power or the campaign against immigrants. There's lead time in preparing these, sure, but Trump had plainly said what he was going to do before taking office. The ACLU has sunk into identity politics and isn't interested in any issues that can't be framed that way. "Immigrants" don't seem to count as an identity group.

It wouldn't be that hard to appeal to basic American values: honesty, respect for the law, rejection of concentrated power. But much of the "left" (whatever that may mean) thinks the best approach is to pile insults on anyone who registers Republican or voted for Trump as a lesser evil. People who disagree with them on anything get smeared. As a result, they've let Trump take the "America" label. Why not counter him with something like "Make America free again?" They don't seem to know how to do that.

[magid]

I agree that the official opposition to the current (administration? regime?) is not leading well at all.

[cellio]

I got that survey too, and also one implying Dem-party affiliation (I didn't read the fine print), and neither mentioned these abuses of power. One of them (I think the latter) had "preserve democracy" as one of a dozen concerns to be ranked, but no other acknowledgement of what is happening. And I've been finding in my face-to-face conversations with ordinary leftists I know that either many are not understanding, or I am communicating poorly about, the meta-issues -- that the whole system is being abused, that the courts and Congress are being sidelined or manipulated, and that an eventual court order saying "don't do that" after all the damage is done is not going to fix it. Granted, none of us know what to do about any of that, but we need to keep talking about it. His awfulness is not just about specific executive orders and specific international snubs, bad as those things are, but also that he is trying to engineer a system where those in power stay in power forever, evading checks and balances, shutting down opposition.

Let's spread Make America Free Again. They don't know how, maybe we don't know (and don't have the reach), but maybe, one interaction at a time, it can spread.

[madfilkentist]

More often than usual, I've been siding on specific issues with people I don't like (such as students threatened with expulsion by presidential order for being pro-Hamas), because, as you say, vast abuse of the system is the bigger issue. So many people have lost the very idea of arguing from principles rather than sides.

[minoanmiss]

Do you remember those T-shirts from the time of the Shrub that read, in several languages, "I apologize for the US President. I didn't vote for him."

[magid]

Did you ever read Bujold's Shards of Honor? There's a side thing where whenever anyone mentions the president (Steady Freddie), the person mentions not having voted for him.

Er, I can't bring myself to apologize on behalf of a buffoon, but understand the general sentiment.

[minoanmiss]

Ahahahaha I love Shards of Honor and I remember that running gag well.

I always understood the apology to be "on behalf of this group of people I am sorry that some of us did this awful thing even though I was not one of the ones who did it."

[magid]

Oh, I understand the apology that way too, I just can't stomach it in this case. I remain furious that so many people chose this..... ::splutters::... over an actual thinking politician.

[minoanmiss]

I am furious right along with you. Not least since as an educated Black woman I can't help but think about how their choice underscores how much our country hates educated Black women.

[jducoeur]

Yeah, strong agreement. Much of the media is glossing over important aspects, not least the overwhelming amount of "Oh, he doesn't really mean that" during the campaign -- much of which was being parroted by that self-same mass media. And those media were playing both-sidesism relentlessly during the campaign, making it sound like Trump and Biden were mostly the same.

That let a lot of people think that it was mostly going to be just business as usual. And now that they're starting to see that yes, he absolutely meant all that bullshit and more, and moreover it's going to impact their lives quite directly and for the negative, regardless of his lies to the contrary, the ones who aren't true believers are already starting to turn on him.

Republicans are under siege by their own constituents. They're trying to pretend otherwise, and the mass media (utterly terrified of Trump) are mostly ignoring it. We need to make sure everyone knows this, and not let them pretend that the majority are happy with this insanity.