The Many Risks To Which President Trump Exposed Our Country

 In my view, all great societies crash.  A key reason why they crash is because citizens take their rights for granted.  They are not willing to fight for them.  Most people in our society are too busy addressing their urgent needs to attend to our country’s most important needs.

President Trump was a threat to our country in many ways:

The following threats are over if he never becomes president again.  These threats were mitigated by patriots who served in his administration, accepting abuse from critics, while protecting our country against Trump’s impulses.

1. His short attention span and unwillingness to consider issues deeply clearly exposed us to risk while he was President. 
2. He Is not loyal to the United States, his supporters, or anyone else.  His decisions are driven by his personal interests.
3. His volatility exposed us to significant risk.
4. His authoritarianism was a threat while he was in power.  This threat was also mitigated by patriotic election officials such as, but not limited to, Brad Raffensperger.  (Trump’s core supporters can continue to be a threat as demonstrated on January 6^th, 2021, but such threats will not succeed.)
5. His alienation of allies was a threat.   (There is a remaining threat that allies might be less confident in us for a long period of time.  In general, our process contributes to such concerns.  However, this may not be a big threat, thanks partly to Putin.)

President Trump leaves residual damage in the following areas:

6. Civility: Trump has had what may be a permanent effect on reducing civility and respect in our society.   We desperately need to elect people who will restore such respect and who will work to bring us together.  The most recent President who worked to bring us together was President Clinton.  I thought Presidents Obama and Biden would do so, but I quickly discovered that I was wrong.  Probably Senator McCain was the most recent major party Presidential nominee who would have done so.
7. Promoting lies as truth: I don’t think Trump even understands what truth is (see the blog I wrote about him in 2016).  It continues to surprise me how much his core supporters believe him when it is so obvious that he is lying.  Part of the reason is that Democrats and the media have lied about Trump a lot.  When Trump was elected, I asked my Democratic representatives not to lie about him because I feared that would solidify his base.  While I think the lies about Trump did solidify his base, I now suspect that a significant part of his base would have supported him even if the media and Democrats had not lied about him.  In fairness, this characteristic is not limited to Trump.  President Biden doesn’t speak in public a lot but when he does, he lies and misrepresents frequently.  He is a more effective liar because he seems more honest.  President Obama was a really effective liar because of his speaking skills.  Obama lied less frequently than Trump or Biden.  He was selective, another reason he was more effective.   Trump’s negative impact on recognition of truth has residual effect.  But most politicians contribute to this.  Our society’s drift away from recognizing truth cannot be attributed to wholly to Trump, nor solely to politicians as a group.

I think the greatest risk that President Trump created is the risk of the potential reaction to President Trump.  Frequently in history, citizens have freely relinquished their rights to correct the problems of a past government.  I respect that a lot of people suffered from Trump Derangement Syndrome.  They reasonably thought our republic was at greater risk than I did, but, more importantly, they discounted the risk from the left.  I have had many conversations with people who blindly support candidates who are anti-Trump.  Some have flat-out told me that they don’t care if the politician is a liar, as long as the politician is against Trump.  Although I did not think January 6^th would occur, I was right that such an effort would fail.  The bigger risk is that people respond by relinquishing our rights, intentionally supporting or not opposing the political indoctrination in our educational system, the lack of free speech on college campuses and elsewhere, and the societal pressure not to speak, or listen to, conservative thought.