The Moral Authority Crisis of the American Presidency

It has been a roughly couple of days in America. In Kentucky, a suspected white supremacist attempted to attack a predominately black church; failing to get in, he murdered two innocent African-Americans at a nearby grocery store. A far-right extremist attempted to use pipe bombs to assassinate prominent Democrats and critics of Donald Trump; only through luck and the dedication of our law enforcement agencies was the plan thwarted and the suspect apprehended. Worst of all, in the most bloody incident of anti-Semitic violence in the history of the United States, a bigoted right-wing extremist murdered eleven Jewish worshipers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

It is fair to ask: what on earth is happening to America?

In such times as these, it is common to look to the person inhabiting the White House for leadership and words of reassurance. After all, the President of the United States is the head-of-state and is supposed to be the unifying individual looked upon as our leader, transcending, as much as possible in such times, the politics of the day.

American history affords plenty of examples. In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt calmed a terrified and suffering nation in the darkest days of the Great Depression, promising them that help was on the war. When the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed in 1986, President Ronald Reagan spoke beautiful and moving words of comfort to a shocked people. When the Oklahoma City bombing took place, President Bill Clinton did the same. In perhaps the most moving example of all, President George W. Bush calmed and comforted the nation in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and did the same a few years later when the Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed. President Barack Obama sadly had to do it several times during his administration, in the wake of the shootings at Charleston, Orlando, and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Though there were actions and beliefs of each of these presidents to which I object, they were all genuine patriots who loved their country and tried to use their position for the common good, reinforcing the moral authority that comes with the presidency.

In our own trying times, however, Donald Trump will not speak any meaningful words of comfort to the American people. First of all, he doesn't really want to. From his very first day in office, he has made it clear that he does not care about the nation at large, but only about himself. If people are killed in hateful violence, he cares only to the extent that it affects him. One can see this clearly in his blasé attitude towards the recent violence, just as we have seen in his lack of concern for the victims of the series of hurricanes that have struck our country.

Moreover, Trump psychologically lacks the ability to even attempt the comfort the nation. Being a man with absolutely no empathy, he genuinely doesn't understand why anyone should care about the sufferings of others. Indeed, he does not even fathom that there is such a thing as "the American people" at all. In the last few days, he has mouthed various platitudes about unity and decried violence, but no one has taken them seriously because he so clearly doesn't mean a word of what he says. To me, he sounds like the third grader who apologizes for saying something rude to a classmate only because his teacher demands that he do so.

Rather than try to comfort and reassure the nation, Donald Trump has spent a lot more time and energy over the past few days trying to convince everyone that this sudden outbreak of violence is not his fault. He even had the gall to say that the pipe bomb attacks happened because of media criticism against him. As always, Trump is looking out for himself and his interests above everything else. Since the first moment he announced he was seeking the presidency, Trump has done his best to divide the American people and turn them against one another for his own political gain. Nothing he has done or said has had the effect, and certainly not the intention, of bringing people together for the common good.

Trump is right to be worried about being blamed for what's happened. To say that the recent violence is at least largely his fault is as obvious as saying that the sky is blue. What do you expect from a man whose rallies revolve around a chant about throwing his political opponents into prison, who offers to pay the legal bills of any supporter who violently attacks a protester, and who proudly says he supports a congressional candidate because the man pleaded guilty to physically assaulting a reporter? If Trump is not himself guilty of committing violence, he certainly has encouraged it.

Nor has Trump denounced, as any person of dignity and decency holding the presidency should, the conspiracy theories about the pipe bombs being a "false flag" operation designed to help the Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections which have been spread by Trump supporters across the right-wing media. Again, he is making a calculation that such stories may be politically advantageous to him, so he will do nothing to stop them. In one tweet, Trump even seemed to lend credence to the false flag theories and complained that the "bomb stuff" was distracting voters who would otherwise support Republicans.

When I reflect on the man who currently lives in the White House, nothing bothers me more than to think that he holds the office once held by men such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and other giants of the past. They were genuine patriots who loved their country, whatever their human flaws. They had the gravitas and strength of character that became genuine moral authority, which was enhanced when they entered into the high office of the presidency.

So long as Donald Trump occupies the White House, there is an enormous and empty chasm where much of the moral authority of the United States of America is supposed to reside. Whoever is the next President of the United States will face the enormous challenge of having to rebuild that moral authority.

It won't be easy.