The simplest way to put gasoline to use is to light a match. It’s far more difficult to employ it to achieve forward motion.
In Cleveland this week, Donald J. Trump took the easy way out and lit a match.
Rather than channeling the populist revolt he’s leading toward some productive end, he simply stoked the anger and resentment to a fever pitch.
He painted the picture of an America in decline and disarray, a country as dangerous as it is divided. The solution he offers to this dystopia is himself.
Throughout American history, our leaders in both parties have called on us as citizens to lead the way. Lincoln appealed to the "better angels of our nature." Kennedy urged us to "ask what you can do for your country." Even when making a similar promise to restore law and order, Nixon assured us that "with God’s help and your help, we shall surely succeed."
Trump went the other way, claiming "I alone can fix it." Beyond the stunning narcissism, this runs counter to the basic principles of American democracy.
Absent was any discussion of how he would fix it — or really even any diagnosis of what he is going to fix. Instead, there were just vague promises of restoring safety, bringing jobs back to America, generating trillions of dollars in the economy.
More troubling than the lack of specificity for how he would supposedly make America great again is the stunted view of American greatness he offered.
The greatness to which he aspires should be unfamiliar to a country that elected presidents committed to sending a man to the moon, winning World War II, defeating communism or ending poverty in our time.
Trump’s America isn’t a shining city on a hill, aspiring to set the moral, political, creative and commercial standard to which all free peoples should aspire. Instead, his return to greatness would have us turn inward, look after ourselves, with greater protection from the undesirables already here and those that want to make America their home.
If making America great again is nothing more than avoiding death by terrorist or illegal immigrant, bringing jobs back from overseas and establishing a basic sense of order, then our moral ambition is seriously lacking. Apparently, we need to make "great" great again.
Speaking after the recent killing of police officers in Dallas, the last Republican president, George W. Bush said, "We don’t want the unity of grief, nor do we want the unity of fear. We want the unity of hope, dignity and high purpose."
That’s the way American presidents have always tried to lead. And it’s how presidential candidates have always talked. Until now. Trump would rather have us wallow in our fears and grievances than channel that raw emotion into some genuine call to action.
Regardless of party or philosophy, we should all work to ensure that this departure from "can-do" American optimism doesn’t become permanent.
State Senator Jeff Yarbro,
(D-Nashville) District 21
