Every day I get a better understanding of how a great country like Germany evolved from democracy to fascism by a fanatical and egocentric narcissist who fabricated his own reality and had no regard for human life.
425
Unless there are widespread mass protests, with millions marching in all the big cities in protest, day after day, then this domestic terrorist organisation , masquerading as the US government, is white-anting American values, tradition and culture. It will have destroyed the entire system to the point of not being able to self-correct. Notice how the good, decent and intelligent leaders like Senators Cocker, McCain, Flake et al have chosen to leave the sinking ship. While the rest of the GOP will continue to facilitate the sinking of that ship of state, with one rationalisation after another. Notice too how professional experts and dedicated civil servants have chosen to retire or have been sacked. And don't forget the continuous revelations of sexual harassment by prominent people, including Trump. The whole enterprise seems to have passed its use-by date. It is rotten to the core where you will find the ridiculous idiot which none in the media can ignore. No massive mass protest, no cure. The system is simply too dismantled to self-correct. Don't hold your breath. Figure on how to migrate to Canada or Australia or New Zealand. As someone has said : the barbarians are not at the gate, they are inside it !
165
Kipyard wrote, "If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you"
Then I say you must not be Donald Trump.
83
This is not the America we learned about in grammar school..we are now a one party fascist dictatorship. Every principle this country fought and died for since its founding is being covered over in Republican slime. They have no shame whatsoever.
We can only hope that the electorate will recognize that the US was captured in a right wing coup aided and abetted by the Russians and the 40 million voters who stayed home in 2016.. They must all unite to clean the fetid scourge known as the Republican Party and Trump, from our government. Anything less is to descend deeper into a fascist world from which there may be no escape. Remember Austria and Germany in the '30s.
Despite the corruption of our electoral system by the GOP, despite the 24/7 right wing Fox News propaganda machine, despite the rise of hatred, racism, bigotry and xenophobia that is the Republican credo,..this is the time to redouble efforts to motivate voters to say "Enough is Enough" and to rid this nation of Trump and his Republican destroyers of the America of its founders dreams.
199
Well, if you lose it all and try again, you'll probably end up in Californy and live on the street or under a freeway overpass and get fed at the local food center and spend the winter in some gymnasium dormitory.
Shame our great leader can't experience that. Probably wouldn't change him, but it might keep him otherwise occupied.
52
Of course this is America. This is the America that blacklisted and persecuted some of its best creative people, artists and scientists. The America that assassinates its greatest leaders. The America of slavery and lynching. The America that invades other nations on evidence built on lies. I could go on but Trump's America ir really just the same old America.
186
Like another quote from Kipling --the East is East and the West is West and the Twain shall never Meet! One can can always accentuate the negative; it is your prerogative, if you insist. I am reminded of a saying --No matter how high does a Vulture flies, he/she/it tries to see only for dead bodies below! Cheer up, America lives!
This Free Society will not only survive, but will prevail!
20
Once again another excellent essay (NY Times, thank you!) explaining why I get up each morning with a pit in my stomach.
In addition to Kipling perhaps the words of another great Englishman will help us to "steady on."
“Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” ― Winston Churchill
100
Re: "If [...] you know where militarism [...] can lead [...], then you will see that this [...] is a lie."
I agree the public needs to be educated about this issue. Please continue to write about it, Mr. Cohen.
28
My father loved this poem and recited it to us at many family gatherings. We would roll our eyes as the years went by. He also loved our country. He twice ran for Congress and looked for every opportunity to serve- president of the Rotary Club or mentor to young people wanting to go to college. I think of how disgusted and devastated he would be at the systematic, immoral dismantling of our democracy ( or something we called that) and the crude, crass, ugly culture that that moron and his people model. I celebrated my 70th birthday last week and now, while I imagine easily how my father would be feeling, I see how my grandchildren are. They are blissfully able to stay attuned to school, sports, friends, birthdays, but they also see what is going on and ask sad questions. Good people may eventually return decency to our government and society, but there is a generation growing up with this as their imprint. That's where my heart breaks most.
91
This Foxlanidia. America is underground now. As it turns out, the real Americans are outlaws, but not criminals.
43
If you can stand up to Trump and the falsehoods he espouses,
If you can say I believe in social justice and human kindness,
If you can say others matter just as much as I do
If you aren't afraid to die for the truth
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
68
We, the US, have reached rock-bottom. It's difficult to imagine that we can go any lower. However, I have full confidence that the republican party and its president will drag us lower and lower into their cesspool.
64
I suspect Rudyard Kipling's political views would be much more in line with those of Donald Trump than those of Roger Cohen.
14
I was born in apartheid South Africa in 1974. I was raised under a fascistic government which was protested by some but justified and explained away by many. I saw it fall, got to vote for Nelson Mandela, and thanks to my American father was able to move to the US in 1996. A few short years later, I got to vote for our first black President. It's a miracle that I got to participate in this experience TWICE in both of my home countries. What's even more astounding to me is that I now live in a country with a leadership that is AS racist, corrupt, isolationist and delusional as the founding fathers of Apartheid were in South Africa. I fear for our people. I wonder what will come of this. Deep down, I pray that there will come a brighter day for this once great country, but something tells me our best days are behind us. There's no figurehead to be released from jail to fight for America. It's up to us.
141
A country that lets children go without healthcare, while the wealthy senators and representatives and President celebrate the birth of Christ and count their new found tax cut windfall dollars, is on the wrong side of morality, decency and history.
They may be secure in the belief that their God will forgive them but karmic law might not be so lenient!
146
Our president worked very hard for his money, and he worked very hard at the toil that is most rewarded in America: Lying. For most of us it would be an intolerable toil, eating away at our soul until no meaning remained.
For for this man of 'superior genes' by his own admission, this toil takes no toll, because either the soul doesn't exist, or the connection between truth and the soul doesn't exists. Those are some strange genes, alright. Superior?
26
Yes this is America and why I have real bad dreams of waking up in it. A land of work til you drop and pray you don't get sick doing it. A land of 2 trillion in college loans. A land that every nut case can have a gun. A land with little or no social services. A land of no aged pension for all. A land that jobs do not have 4 weeks paid vacations, paid sick leave, maternity leave and superannuation for all. A nation that lives in a paranoid lather of fear of terrorism and a war on drugs that will never end. Hang out your flags and sing God bless America if it makes you feel good, but that is all it will ever do.
93
maybe this is the America that was ignored or we did not know
20
Every day of the Trump presidency is a sad, disgusting day. There is a pall over America, and this article describes it perfectly. America is at a crossroads. Our best weapon is the vote. We must all rise up and vote the liars and bullies out. We must vote the money-grubbers out. We must vote the cruel and inhuman sycophants out. We must look to the amazing African-American women of Virginia who rose up and voted Roy Moore down and out. We must turn our backs on insane diversions, and vote for political representatives who will impeach a hollow narcissist who threatens nuclear war.
60
Just like Trump's empty threats of stopping importing foreign steel have caused a surge in foreign steel, so all the talk about America being "exceptional" have made us blind to how quickly America can slide into being one of those small-minded countries run by self-aggrandizing, clownish bullies we used to joke about.
43
Mr. Cohen, I share you opinion of our current condition and admire your ability to express it.
Sadly, on many of today's Americans, this is so much pearls tossed before swine. "Religion" and many other concepts have become their opposites.
Part of the problem is deficient education, especially about history. Your piece is full of historical analogies, but most Americans give a blank expression when they hear "Mussolini," "Vichy," "Pétain," "Quisling," or even "Hitler."
Those who never learn history get to relive it. Hopefully we will make out better than the Germans in 1945.
36
Thank goodness there are islands of calm and common sense among the panicking masses. Those of us who kept our heads when there were predictions of a Nazi dictatorship were correct all along. When we saw that Trump usurped neither the courts nor Congress, we understood that the Constitution would survive. And when we saw that he was a buffoon we had faith in our fellow Americans that they would see that Trump was a mistake. Whatever harm he has caused will last, at most, for four years, and will be reversed in due course. Trump was a mistake, and a majority of Americans realize that, as his approval ratings make obvious. So those of us who have kept our composure have resolved to survive these four years, after which we know that America will get back to business. A great country, like a failed country, makes mistakes. And hysteria doesn't help reverse them. Keeping perspective is always wise and is the best road to success. Filling Facebook with a million political diatribes is obnoxious and if you are obnoxious in your resistance you defeat your purpose, because reasonable people stop listening to you. The biggest reason Trump won was that lots of Americans didn't like Hillary. The lesson to be learned from that is not to be more obnoxious than the guy in the White House. hat shouldn't be difficult.
16
Dear Mr. Cohen,
Thank you for your eloquence. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword (most of the time). All great action begins with great thought. And you have laid it out for us in few words. Our democracy is in a dangerous place. What must be done? We can't just hold on. "Hold on" is probably what the good Germans did as they watched Hitler and his Nazis seize the courts and the press.
In my opinion:
I think now is the time to shore up an opposing party whether it be called democrat, independent, green, or perhaps the party of sanity. Whatever it be called it should be built on sound democratic principle. But more important, at its core, the center of gravity must be compassion and generosity.
34
No ifs ands or buts this IS America. 128 nations just told us though, representing about 90% of the world population.
22
An eloquent cry for national salvation. This is our country. It is sick now and we need to rally round to make it better, to cure it of the ghastly disease that currently assaials it and learn again how to keep it healthy. Democracy has the built in risk of things going very wrong and there is no automatic device to cure the current fever. Real patriots, not the phoney flag wavers, are going to have to step up and cool the fever and restore health. The disease is a plague and the carriers are known. Next year is our chance to,purge the system of some of the infection. Restore health to the Congress is the first step. The sycophants and the trimmers Have identified themselves. They must be removed and replaced. Then the next step....
12
The following is in a way the worst thing about Donald Trump being our president.
The Republican after Republican who now seem to be signing on to not only support but praise this ugly human being.
Our country is in tatters when this happened.
25
Keep your shirt on, Roger. Trump is a horror, but this is America, and we'll be fine.
2
Trump will be exposed for the inept erratic despot he is when the curtain is pulled back for all to see our lying president. Stock market is not the whole country and 2008 was the last treat the GOP prez left us. Fox and friends operating as our state tv feeding conspiracu theories to our dear leader. GOP fawning praise of Trump just as the North Korean generals express adoration and absurd credit for impossible feats. Reality,truth and facts are the enemies of this wanna be dictator and he will not attain the status of Putin with decades of manipulation of leaders like Trump. Easy to play with flattery no guile or deep thought and knowledge of how our democracy works. We are not a dictatorship Don nor do we wish one 60% of the country will make sure you do not make it one no matter how much Vlad uses his cyber army to keep his asset in power.
8
Scary, sad, unbelievable to read these words that represent reality: “...it is nothing, just a squalid, oversized, greedy place past the zenith of its greatness.” Makes me cry.
16
And then there's 35y later, RJeffers, before even Gatsby was written:
While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity,
heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops
and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make
fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances,
ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life
is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than
mountains; shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their
distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, and when the cities lie at the
monster’s feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man,
a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught
—they say—God, when he walked on earth.
4
Important to note, amongst the potential charnel houses of tomorrow, that Kipling wrote "If" for his beloved, and only son, John. He petitioned the British military to allow John to join the First World War, the war to end all war (apparently) , and, following his son's death ( six weeks after his 18th birthday, and the utter annihilation of his body (it is still contested as to whether his body was ever found), it was Kipling, for all his jingoism, who spent an infernal and fruitless search for his abandoned progeny. Plus ca change !
6
Kipling's "If" is the first Poem more than a dozen lines I ever memorized. This may be the first Newspaper Column I ever memorize. This needs to be repeated over and over and over and over
19
the only way trump can destroy all of this, this country, is if we let him.
Are we going to let him?
22
Where are the heroes? Certainly not one person has stepped up to the plate in a country where so many "heroes" are identified. A man or woman who says what needs saying and does what needs doing? Where are you? Where is the american exceptionalism I hear about from republicans? I only see exceptional bigotry and exceptional greed. I used to love my country. Republicans put an end to that. I am sad that we've allowed the entire country to be hijacked by exceptional short sighted stupidity. We are complicit for not stopping it dead in its tracks. By the way, did you vote?
14
When asked about the greatest threat to America, I would respond "creeping fascism." Fascism has already crept in. We should have a resistance with the courage and devotion of Hans and Sophie Scholl, who gave their young lives to resist the Nazis.
I am not calling for anyone to sacrifice the last full measure of devotion to the cause, but it has come to that. Read about Hans and Sophie, who did. I think about them often and am inspired.
11
Not my America, and not my president. I repudiate Trump and his authoritarian war on the media, truth and factual reality itself. PS: I want my country back.
26
This is the America of untold wealth being available to those willing to sell their souls. The power to command audacious tax changes punishing the working poor and rewarding the rentier is not sad or immoral; it's the reward of those striving to subjugate their neighbour.
This will only get worse. The oligarchs will not allow themselves to be overthrown. Fox News 2, 3 and 4 will be contrived to push home the false flag messages and enrage the clueless plurality. If need be, poll purges will expanded and police-state actions sanctioned to protect "American's freedom". An FBI coup attempt is already underway, according to Fox News.
Small victories might be sited in the rearguard actions of democrats (sic). 48%of Alabama still voted for a horrible human promoted by more horrible people. The loss of American political culture and American democracy is a very, very small concession for those controlling Congressional votes and seeking only their aggrandizement.
16
For the readers leaving comments recounting the tears they are weeping over reading this column, I urge you to remember the words of the labor organiser, Joe Hill, "Don't mourn. Organise!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes
26
All the comments denouncing Trump and the Republicans in Congress are correct. There are no words strong enough to describe their corruption, dishonesty, stupidity, and vulgarity -- well dressed versions of street corner thugs and common criminals.
But words posted on a web site and read by the like minded do nothing to change things.
The only solution is politics, starting now. Yes, please vote, but that's not enough. Every American who hates what is going on in Washington and fears for the future of our country must become involved in the political process by supporting Democratic candidates.
Third parties are our enemies, not our friends.
Send a check, maybe even more than you can afford, to groups that support Democratic candidates, or to individual candidates or state and local committees. Volunteer a few hours a month. Forward pieces like this op ed to people on your email list. Attend rallies and marches and go to meetings. And do anything else you can think of that will help lead to real change.
For example, if between now and October 15, 5 million Americans donate, on average, $1.50 a day to Democratic candidates for the House and Senate, those candidates will have in total more than $2 billion to fight Trump and the GOP.
Trump is President and the corrupt GOP runs the House and Senate because the rest of us did little or nothing to stop them.
Please actively jin the fight to change things.
26
Unfortunately, Mr. Cohen, it IS America.... I realize that it is only 50% of America but they (Black Money barons and the GoP) have used ever trick, massive investment and sophisticated psychology to manipulate the masses who can no longer think for themselves, to think analytically or to tell right from wrong. The USA used to be a country that I greatly admired but that country no longer exists and probably never did. I considered emigration there at one point but now I am so glad that I did not. Like many Canadians, we are getting prepared for the end of NAFTA, more insults from the Commerce department (eg. Boeing versus Bombardier) and a diminished North America. Like many Canadians, we are now thinking twice about crossing the border for shopping, vacations or work. The post WW II America has disappeared with a bully in its place. This is a catastrophe of unimagined proportions and I fervently hope that the other 50% of decent Americans find the ways to take back the values and global leadership that your country has now abandoned in spectacular fashion. Happy New Year to you all!
30
America has feet of clay. Trump's rise has proven it does not have the laws in place that it should have to protect us from an unscrupulous con-man President. The founding fathers and the Constitution are always held up in America like some kind of near-holy entities. Well, there's a lot they didn't think about and a lot that's missing in the Constitution. Trump's Presidency, if we survive it--and the irony is the destruction of a great nation by a small, ridiculous man--should teach us how urgently laws must be promulgated to curb the powers of a would-be dictator or financial criminal in the Oval Office.
12
In the same week that the Republicans in party line lockstep passed this dumpster fire of a tax bill, the city of a Memphis figured out how to legally maeuver around a Tennessee State law that prevented them from removing statues of Klamsman, Traitor and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and traitor and Confederate President Jefferson Davis from public parks. So progress is being made in some areas even as our Federal government continues to descend into madness under Trumplethinskin.
The next Presidential cycle will see a very different electorate with Baby Boomers (sadly mine) not being the largest generation voting. Hopefully we can overcome Gerrymandering and voter suppression and get our country back on track. I hope the insanity and corruption of both parties in recent years is replaced by a more active, informed and involved electorate.
17
You forgot to mention the worst part, dismantling the EPA.
15
Geez Roger, you need to sit down and have a Coke, this paranoia isn't good for your health. Think taxes are going down, markets are going up, major corporations are offering bonuses and talking job creation and there's a general feeling of political/economic/social optimism across the country - what's not to like? Trump's support is getting stronger, and the Democratic opposition are acting like fools, making it very likely that the next Congress will be even more accommodating in making America even greater. So calm down Rog, and take stock of you new tax windfall.
4
"keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..."
I am embarrassed that I missed this quote on the first reading of this column. It is so appropriate to what is happening in America today. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and may goodwill and sanity prevail for the good of the planet.
4
There are only 318 days until the Tuesday November 06 2018 mid terms. Support all efforts to register all eligible voters. Combat all efforts to suppress the vote.
16
"As a new year approaches, stoicism will prevail, decency will prevail, contestation will prevail, over the Great Leader’s plundering of truth and thought. This is not America. It must be fought for and won back."
Thank God women hold up half the sky.
It's Their Turn now.
6
This IS America for at least 40% of our fellow citizens. So do not think for a moment that the America of your ideals will return with the next election or indictment. This is America of 1860. It is certain that there is a long war to be fought for the soul of our country. The only thing in doubt is the outcome.
7
Trump has revealed our country for exactly what it is. The ugliness that we've been whimpering about since the election has always been there lurking beneath the surface. Now that the facade has been revealed perhaps we might actually do something about it.
14
If this is America, why don't you place the blame where it belongs, the voters, not the easy to hate Trump. We are here because we are a democracy and the voters, whether or not wisely, chose Trump and our worthless Congress, present and past.
6
Brilliant column, and the Kipling poem describes fortitude in the face of destruction and assault on values and character.
The total collapse of the Republican politicians and their swivel to fascist paeans is hard to fathom. Aren't they embarrassed? Their legacy will be one of corruption and complicity.
Trump's America is not our America. Nor is that of the corrupt GOP which sold its soul wholesale. In 2018, hopefully we can end this episode of Twilight Zone and return to the real America of the founding fathers where all men are created equal and where lies are not spouted continuously from the White House and GOP leaders like McConnell and Ryan.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From the California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
The corrupt GOP does not get to sell off America to the highest bidder nor does Trump get to destroy it. We will vote. All of us. Different ages, men and women, minorities, different faiths or no faith, the disabled, and everyone who cares about the real America.
8
There is watershed moments in history and president Trump's election was one of them . Mr. Cohen is pining for a liberal America that can no longer endure the voting public . Yes , the photo of the Deplorable's backyard was beyond cheap shot and I will wager that Mr. Cohen", can smell Trump voters at Walmart."
1
Right on. America is lost right now.
Only truth, sanity, and faith in community and shared ideals can restore the American Dream
The greed and corruption of this lying con man and
his appeasing Republican Party and their hideous
policies can seem nightmarish.
But with hard work this nightmare can end and a more progressive and just future can be attained.
5
this post made my cry & I thank you for it because it was beautiful & rousing <3
7
Thomas Merton once wrote that "A child who does not grow becomes a monster." I keep thinking about that as each day our nation's "leaders" age physically but retreat into increasingly-childish--and dangerous--behaviors.
6
Yesterday I read an article about the Rev. A.R. Bernard, who left Trump's Evangelical Ministry Council because he could not endorse Trump's failure to condemn the atrocities in Charlottesville, and this quote stood out for me: `Trump was elected “ . . . as a concession to the people and who ended up exposing the spiritual and moral condition of the nation.”
The most horrifying thing, to me, is this exposure. I knew there were dark undercurrents here, but I had no idea they were so deep, ugly and far-reaching as the Trump presidency is exposing them to be. And Congress? Oh my god! Yesterday was jaw-dropping.
I do not believe these people are the majority and I refuse to let them prevail. This is my country, too, and I will do all I can to return it to the values it used to uphold (imperfectly, yes, I know, but at least it stood for something worth aspiring to).
7
Is there any way that Mr. Cohen’s op-ed could be nailed to the Oval Office’s door?
(Probably a pointless gesture because, unless something is on Trump TV, the Great Leader will not see it.)
9
The following 50 year old lyrics from Dylan best describe Trump and his GOP sycophants:
"There was a wicked messenger, from Eli he did come, with a mind that multiplied the smallest matter; when questioned who had sent for him he answered with his thumb, for his tongue could not speak but only flatter."
6
There are regions of our country that could be fairly described as neocolonialist. Their people's bête noire...and model...is the British Empire, which subjugated their forebears but also provided the rationale and the prototype for their ancestors' own empire in America. The neocolonials believe they hold their land by right of conquest; that the property and labor of the conquered are their patrimony; that laws and customs promulgated over centuries in America are subject to their (covert) ratification; that theirs must be the predominating religion in their domains, and its exegeses, dogmas, and pastoral ministrations will be theirs alone to determine.
The agenda adopted by the majority in our national legislature faithfully reflects the mentality of the provincials for whose support the Republicans prostrated themselves. The GOP has amorally agreed to inhibit and constrain those citizens who oppose the dominance of the colonial class and its myrmidons in finance, education policy, jurisprudence, and religion. They
will achieve this by curtailing government support for health care, old-age pensions, federal subsidies to schools, and poor relief...i.e., by immiserating their enemies in the Resistance.
We're summoned again to repel the eruption of this malign artifact from our earliest history, rapacious colonialism. We need to be as vehement in its repudiation as ever before.
5
There's a spot-on quote to pin on Roger Cohen (and countless others in similar positions at the NYT, academia, and other institutions crowded with the 'learned'): "I'm sure you believe everything you're saying; but what I'm saying is, if you believed something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting." (Noam Chomsky)
The corollary to this is that Trump almost certainly would not be where he is now sitting if you had not provided us with what you have believed for the decades that you've been allowed to sit where you're sitting.
So from your prominent seat here, you can continue to tell us what you believe. But what's also clear from what you've written is that you cannot believe that you are in any way responsible for where Trump is sitting now.
This is indeed America, brought to you in part by you and all those whose 'learned' beliefs have allowed them to serve power from their prominent seats in the learned institutions responsible for instilling these same beliefs in this America.
There is no "if" here; this is America, and it will continue to be this America so long as you believe what you're saying and are thereby allowed to sit where you're now sitting.
2
Simply beautiful, thank you. I hope it's the Amber Alert and not the eulogy.
6
I have an idea that would allow Trump to avoid impeachment.
All he has to do is convince Congress to move the 2020 Presidential election to next November and make it a part of the Congressional and Senate elections then.
That way, Mueller and the FBI and Hillary and the Russians and liberals would have a lot less time to plot against him.
If he turns out he's right about the American people loving him, he would be reelected by a landslide to finish out his four year term; and everything then would be fine for him.
Crazy yes, but so is he.
1
2018 will be the year of good over evil, intelligence over ignorance, giving instead of taking, and humility over hubris. It has got to be or else this country will cease to exist.
10
Great pice. This should be required reading for everyone.
It's like having a bucket of ice water tossed into your face. Wake up, America!
6
Why have so many Republicans suddenly started crawling toward Trump? I have heard at least one theory:
1. The Russians hacked the RNC as well as the DNC. What happened to that hacked RNC information? Is it now weaponized by Mercer et al, and prepared to be used for blackmail?
2. Several Senators and perhaps others have had their email and computers hacked. CNN (among others) reports Lindsey Graham has stated that his campaign email was hacked by the Russians. Lindsey Graham has also gone from Trump critic to Trump sycophant.
3. Trump has been meeting privately with Putin, who is treating him as an intelligence asset.
4. Murdoch is pulling more than 60 billion out of the US, while keeping Fox News? Is he hedging his bets?
How much of the recent fawning is from fear? Fear of what? Perhaps exposure of sensitive material hacked by the Russians. Perhaps fear of a Fox News with no constraints whatsoever.
Perhaps the Russian help for Trump continues with direct consultation with Putin. There is something very strange going on right now across the Republican elected officials. Are they being blackmailed? Why are they so terrified of Trump?
Republicans have done so many previously unheard-of things in the past year. By this time, seeing them cowering from Trump as if a word from him will cause them to be imprisoned or killed starts to be almost "normal"
Do not speculate on a Constitutional Crisis.
We are in the midst of one right now.
7
We all need to discuss the historical and social factors that have contributed to the rise of Trump and Trumpism in America. How much weight do we attribute to each factor? Let me name a few:
The top one percent has as much wealth as the bottom ninety percent. The middle class has been under a lot of pressure, and lives paycheck to paycheck. Big money has corrupted American politics. The Republican Party has become corrupt, irrational, anti-science, and solely beholden to the ultra-rich. Right-wing propaganda for profit has polarized and stupified a large segment of the population. Morality has been weakened and latent racism has resurfaced.
4
You accurately paint a picture of utter despair for our country, one where our crooked, self-serving president, with the eager help of Congressional republicans, is dragging the country deeper and deeper into the swamp. Yet, because you express my alarm and disgust so much better than I can, you give me a bit of hope. There IS honesty and decency out there somewhere. Our urgent job is to tap into it at the ballot box, and save our country from the terrifying danger of despotism.
6
Roger Cohen's column does not mention what may be Trump's cruelest act, which is to break up families by deporting a parent who did not immigrate legally. Of course, there is also his signing the new tax bill, which will take health insurance from millions, thereby killing many people.
4
One of Roger Cohen's best, and saddest, and most terrifying pieces.
4
“The world is too much with us, late and soon. We have given our souls away, a sordid boon.” I guess this is w. Woodsworth in His own poetry. I thought about this poem by him when I read this article. We are too strong collectively as a people to be beaten by a bully and his sheep. Even if I have walk the whole country to meet people face to face to get votes and to run for President myself. I can show people what decency and leadership are...I don’t weep, I get stronger when I see people
Like trump trying to bring my country to its knees.
2
We will prevail. Marching with us are the better angels of our history: the examples of Lincoln, Grant, Sumner, Jane Addams, Frederick Douglas, FDR and thousands of others who gave their lives for the real America that will be restored. "These are the time that try men' souls" said Thomas Paine when this country was just aborning. "we must disenthrall ourselves," said Lincoln in another grave challenge, "and then we will save our country." Now we must save our country again-- but we have done it before, and more than once. We transcended before challenges as great as this one and we will triumph anew in saving our country from the scoundrels and traitors who mock the American ideal. "The truth goes marching on."
1
Election night I felt sick when Trump won the White House. As bad as I thought it could be once he took office, it has been far, far worse. It is unbelievably sad and disturbing to live with this reality in our America. As someone said and I'm paraphrasing "It's a nice democracy if you can keep it." I hope we can all work together to do so.
5
Dear fellow citizens, at least those of you capable of rational thought...as I followed the progression of events pertaining to sexual harassment, I recalled (with embarrassment) that in the midst of the Bill Clinton imbroglio, I told myself that I wasn't really concerned with a politician's sex life, I was focused on policy.
That recollection reminded me to remember that both the Republican leadership and their followers remain shackled by the same type of rationalization. They will never reject Trump so long as he enables them to implement their favored policies.
I believe we need to devote less effort to demonizing the president and his adherents, and devote A LOT more effort to mobilizing the vote. Alabama should galvanize the Democratic party with the recognition that if they get their voters to the polls, they can retake Congress and end this nightmare.
Get out the vote in every swing state and we can start to repair the damage. Please.
6
No one loathes our President than me, but hyperbole like this isn't helpful. We are still a democracy. The majority of Americans voted for the flawed Democratic candidate. They can reverse the course of our country at the November election next year. If the Democrats don't win, they have nobody to blame but themselves .
7
A wonderful, scary, sad piece Mr.Cohen. I have just read that Mrs. May has approved that the new post Brexit British passport will revert to the beloved dark blue missed by many of us for several decades now instead of the boring EU brown.. As an Anglo-American of some twenty years, now enduring the awful Trump lying and deceit I can look forward to returning my US document and returning to British blue. I will be 'home' again.
7
I am sorry, Mr. Cohen, but this kind of cynicism, however well written, is cheap and easy. Yes, Trump is horrible. But all the left seems to offer these days is Trump hatred. What kinds of positive things alternatives can we offer to address the needs of the working and middle classes, minorities and women? Until we do that, we will remain an opposition party.
26
Our apathy towards Democracy and freedom killed the concept of America. Greed is too powerful a drug to suppress. It won. What other country should I move to will be my main concern. That might bring me hope as I have lost it for my country. I will not live long enough to see justice restored here so I might as well enjoy a change of scenery.
18
Not quite as profound, or nearly as heartbreaking, as this column, but for me many situations come down to a film quote: my trump-situation quote is from "Alien," when Ripley confronts science officer Ash about having broken quarantine to allow the deadly titular creature to board the "Nostromo": "And you let it in here."
20
Right, but can America withstand another three years of this? Currently we as Americans are being force-fed like reluctant geese whose livers are then harvested to make pate. And unfortunately Trump appears to have missed out on the "then you will be a man, my son" speech that his own father should have given him many years ago. Instead he got a pass to be one of the most powerful individuals in the world without earning it. Sometimes "the street" can bring about change - sometimes it doesn't. I do know this - without a majority of the populace supporting impeachment or indictment, it will never happen, or if it does happen, it will be shrugged off a la Clinton and then its back to business as usual. The Dems may win back the legislative branch, but will it be too late?
12
This is most assuredly the America I grew up in. Whatever its historically-grounded faults, postwar America was a place of hope and economic promise. The rot began long before the concentrated shift of wealth and power of globalization in the 80s. This country had moral and competitive advantages at the end of WW2 that it has totally squandered. Trump is the end result of a country with no awareness that most of its success resulted from temporary historical advantages that couldn't last. We couldn't have managed worse the transition from top dog to member of a global economy.
10
Mr Cohen-
I think you miss the factors that 'us' people have chosen a Trump vs Clinton.
If political correctness is used instead of honesty, it is the same as calling news fake news- not based on common sense or decency. Just talking heads, filling time and selling commercials.
If a man can wake one day and say I am a woman - and call all others who disagree, fools- then work to get laws passed to call themselves new names vs him/ her--- and the rest abide - who is the fool?
If we can rule the world with empire of 700+ military bases, and then claim to be 'abused' by foreign powers - our media doesn't know or care to know of what we do to influence other parts of the world, actions, etc... without question- then act with surprise that someone else would try those same dirty tricks on us (Listening on Allies and adversaries alike) - who is the fool?
Trump while note eloquent, is a symbol of one thing or another, a reaction to something gone very wrong with America even before his election. A loss of work ethic, and increase in 'hyperbole', dropping common sense, for nonsense.
If the pundits and journalists were in the place of decision-makers or carried more responsibility to fill a page by a deadline - then my America, you would be better informed.
9
One horrible man can't change a country. Especially if only about a third of its people admire his leadership. The nation's challenge isn't to be "great again," but to realize that the greatness Trump's slogan aspires to was an inevitably fleeting product of America emerging from WWII as the only large industrial nation still economically intact. The challenge now is to redefine American greatness in keeping with its better tendencies (adaptive, democratic and generous) rather than continuing to measure greatness in raw power and aggregate wealth. Trump could be a useful antipode against which to redefine our values, but he won't shape them in any lasting way. Maybe history will regard him as a necessary first step -- albeit in exactly the wrong direction -- on the road to re-conceiving what makes America great.
13
Mr. Cohen your words fall upon the deaf ears of trump and his supporters. They are comfortable with indecency, lying, vulgarity, impulsiveness and the con. It is up to the rest of us to change the narrative to policies and ideas that will improve America not tear it down. We must organize, promote young energetic visionary leaders AND GET OUT AND VOTE.
19
I wrote in another comment that it would take a cataclysmic shock to our cultural soul before we would be able to finally change our values to an humanitarian based philosophy.
Trump may well be that shock and we may already have begun the long trek to establish a totally new culture based on caring for each other rather than on a greed based aggressive capitalism.
May the new year bring a new hope and a new beginning to the creation of the America we have always wanted!
22
Reading Roger Cohens's piece gives me a tad of hope for this country. All the violations of civilized norms we observe this 'leader' and his administration commit on a daily schedule can make us enraged and depressed . Our last buttress are great journalists who use perfect words to describe all this horror and are thus giving us a sense of shared misery- And of course, this is why DT hates all real journalists. Thank you Mr. Cohen.
15
There is still hope that sensible and brave Americans will stand up to this obscene representation of our government ; it is up to the people to shake off this nightmare of contrary beliefs . For too long now the far right has made their beliefs the norm by constantly barraging their agenda and convincing a segment of our population that government is too big , bad etc , and that only by shrinking can it work . Divide until those who protest these wrongs give in ; and conquer until democracy is totally obliterated. I have hope yet , that this crass representation of government will not do so , the rule of law must prevail else it becomes a mockery of what this country has stood for.
7
As a youngster, I had this poem on my bedroom wall with the encouragement of my dear mother.
From memory, perhaps not verbatim, my favorite line was this: "If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs..."
That is where we are in America today. May sanity and goodwill ultimately prevail.
12
This is the dismal vision of the American 21st Century.
This began with the profoundly wounding tragedy of 911 and has metastasized since. Trump is the latest dark incarnation of our mostly confused and deeply divided search to right our national compass.
The first step to true north requires seeing and acknowledging the intensity and gravity of our political and social dysfunction and disability.
11
I agree with everything you say. Yet, I can't help thinking that Johnson and Nixon were a lot worse for getting us involved in the Vietnam Was, leading to the totally unnecessary deaths of over 58,000 Americans. Until Trump starts World War 3 with the North Koreans, Johnson/Nixon will rank vastly lower as far as I'm concerned.
1
Trump is seeking to rule as a despot rather than govern as chief executive of the world's greatest democracy. He is banking on his shrinking base of support to maintain his regime. Ever since he entered the political arena, he sought to marginalize the political powerless and racial minorities. To cover for his blatant lying and political failures, he seeks to confuse the public by attacking the press as purveyors of "fake news" and our governmental institutions. Even more troubling is his assault on anything or anyone he perceives as a personal threat, especially the courts, the judiciary, and the FBI. The only question that must be asked, do the American people have the strength of character and the individual courage to stand up to Trump and his minions, since they pose a clear and present danger to our democracy?
11
A word to my fellow Americans as we begin the new year with our effort to take America back from Trumpism........
Remember, this is your fifteen minutes. Don't waste it!
25
Diane Black and Orrin Hatch's servile slobberings were so cringe-worthy that it was hard to imagine that grown American adults could act like that! What is Trump telling these people?? Their families should be horrified.
119
The country in which I now live suffered four years of brutal occupation by the Nazis, aided and abetted by servile and venal collaborationists. Despite this humiliation there were many brave men and women who risked and often gave their lives for the idea of freedom that most Americans have always taken for granted. The French have never forgotten that it was the Americans who restored their country to them.
Now your freedom is now at stake. The risk of allowing American fascism to take over the political system is all too real. It doesn't take much to muddy the truth and corrupt the checks and balances. Luckily, there are plenty of you who believe in resisting the onslaught against truth, the voters who will come out in force to repudiate the lies and to say 'no more'. Europe is watching and hoping that you still have the guts to fight.
Vive la Resistance!
176
There is a pattern here: after 8 years of Clinton, those on the left were not happy. Clinton wasn't perfect. They didn't get everything their little hearts desired. Even so, Gore won, but the SC and the electoral college took it from him. We got Bush and the Iraq war. Four years later and Kerry should have won, but shenanigans in Ohio stole it from him. Then Obama for 8 years. The republicans knew that if they kept him from doing much, his followers would lose faith. And they did. Hillary wasn't good enough. Not good enough for the far left, the progressives, the greens.
So, now we have Trump. And the repugnicans in congress have signed on to the madness. And we will see that it's so much easier to tear down a country, tear down its institutions than it is to build them. The greens may have believed they could pick up the spoils after Trump was done, but they miscalculated...there won't be anything left. Did you catch that pun?
How long will it take to rebuild a country after Trump and the repugnicans are done trashing it? Decades? If we are lucky. But this is what we deserve. We thought the institutions of government would save us...and we were wrong. If the people won't act to save the country starting in Nov of 2018, we will get a first hand impression of what the dark ages were like.
107
Almost a year ago, January 19, 2017, I feared for America becoming a fascist country ruled by a lying, selfish family concerned only to enrich themselves at the expense of poor Americans. How quickly my fears have been realized. I weep for America. Take it back in next year's mid-terms, and boot the hypocritical liar and thief back to his real estate fiefdoms.
79
The sad fact that Mr. Cohen brings out so well is that once one of the personality leaders gets his hands on the countries media, it is impossible to remove them; Mussolini, Hitler, Tojo, Uncle Joe Stalin all held on to the governments for years as they ladled praise on their heads and kept the prison camps open. Are we going to have Trump added to the list of personality boys who have managed to set themselves up as self-appointed masters?
19
I guess one thing we can be thankful for is that columns like this can still be published and read. SAD.
38
For a while, anyway.....’
2
Can one person destroy 250 years of greatness? I suppose so, if he has a cadre of sycophants who worship him and agree to do his bidding. And who stand by as he takes us down.
60
If you are just now (theses past 14 months) shocked, stunned, disheartened, angry, fanaticizing of emigrating…thinking: “I can’t believe THIS is America”…then you are probably not:
1) Native American, 2) African American, 3) Hispanic American, 4) Asian American 5) Poor, 6) Gay…and over the age of 50….or a member of and other ethnic or social group that has direct experience with being directly, continually and often violently marginalized by American society at large.
Every time this middle age, middle class, white, male liberal (me) shakes his fist at the outrages of this administration I hear a poor black female voice in my head saying: "You think THIS is bad....? Man...you have NO idea!"
74
Bravo, Mr. Cohen.
33
Check out Trump's arms-crossed, frown-to-the-jaw bearing at the Sycophants R' Us gathering of just the other day.
Remind you of anyone?
Hint: Google "Pinochet in sunglasses."
26
Geez, I know it's run by a dictator and all, but don't lump poor Turkmenistan in with our mess
19
A brilliant, passionate column. We must fight back. I only hope our country is not already flushed down the toilet. Bye, bye America? Been good to know ya??
11
Respectfully, Mr. Cohen, you quote Kipling about keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs and then proceed to do just that. I don't recognize the protofascist vision of America you depict. Time to keep our heads.
7
On the contrary, Roger, this is America. The real America. Rapacious, nasty, mean spirited, religiously obsessed with money and power. Murderous of any and all who seem different.
This is the real America. Ask native Americans. Ask Central Americans. Ask Africans and Asians.
Ask African Americans who have known slavery, and economic depravity.
Ask anyone who isn't White. They will tell you, this right now is the America they have always known.
And the pretty picture you keep painting for yourself because you believed the lies instead of following the money when you read the constitution, that's just your own privilege that shaded you from reality.
Welcome to the future.
52
my country, my country
7
My grandparents came from Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania to live in a better place, and it was a better place until now. The so-called president is making this country worse not better. We cannot allow it to continue. The fact the republican congress can suck up to such a disgusting man is worse then anything that we could ever dream up. We must hold him accountable for his actions. He has brought out the worst in America. I am heartsick about what he is doing to destroy the fabric of our lives.
30
I grew up in the old left. Below is one of the songs we sang. We knew this was an ideal not fully realized yet it captures the vision of what America strives for. This administration and the base who supports it seems antithetical to this dream.
What is A-mer-i-ca to me?
A name, a map, the flag I see,
a cer-tain word, "De-moc - ra - cy."
What is A-mer-i-ca to me?
The house I live in, A plot of earth, a street,
The groc-er and the butch-er and the peo-ple that I meet,
The chil-dren in the play-ground, the fac-es that I see;
All rac-es, all re-lig-ions, that's A-mer-i-ca to me.
The place I work in, the work-er at my side
The lit-tle town or cit-y where my peo-ple lived and died
The "how-dy" and the hand-shake the air of feel-ing free
the right to speak my mind out, that's A-mer-i-ca to me.
https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/19207507/Frank+Sinatra/The+House+I+Live+in+...
16
Why after reading this article and reading, again, Kipling's poem do I sit here with tears streaming down my face inconsolable in my grieving that something has been lost that may never be recovered?
122
Which Kipling poem?
Ken Wilbur lives in the Boulder/Denver area and is considered on of the greatest living philosophers/theologians of our time. He has this to say about ego and what he calls, "ego-less-ness:"
"When a person's soul [ego-less-ness] breathes through his or her intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through his or her will, it is love. And the blindness of the intellect begins when the individual would be something of itself."
Basically what Wilber is saying is that Ego is the blinding force that limits thoughtfulness (genius) and empathy (love, or better yet the Greek, agape).
Trump, and his entire administration--based on every reasonable assay of his picks for high positions--exemplify Ego. Which is EXACTLY the opposite of all that Jesus preached. Think about that.
45
I agree . One can only hope & pray for all Americans to regain their collective souls and return the America we love and stand for.
1
A the great Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis stated,”We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both”
So what say,We the People, do We have now?
136
I'm at a complete lose to explain to my friends in Canada and Europe why there are not millions of Americans in the streets peacefully protesting.
In my youth the Mobilization Against the War (In Vietnam) drew millions across the country.
Why is there so much apathy? Why do we clearly see the insults to our nation but not behave appropriately?
70
Old model. Some 15 Democratic Socialists have been elected this year. New model
5
Because we are being hit on so many fronts simultaneously that as soon as we try to organize a response to one offensive, another one begins. Trump’s strategy is to wear us out and wear us thin, before we can mount a strong enough rallying cry to drown him out. In any given week, he and his cronies can give a person reason to attend about ten totally different protests that we can’t be in the same place for at once, while still trying to hold our personal lives together.
1
In order for clarity to arise, it must rise from Chaos. We are not close even yet. But you might know it when it comes. That will be your sign. And not until then. It is past time for asking why.
4
Yes! We need stoicism and decency---obvious generalities we can all agree on, well expressed, Mr. Cohen.
But how about some specific suggestions from you--- on fair tax rates, decent jobs and pay, how to finance affordable health care FOR ALL, not just some. What are specific realistic weapons we could use to fight for these characteristics of a modern democracy?
Most crucial….how do you think the US should finance our election campaigns, to rebalance the influence on our lawmaking back to the citizen majority. Any ideas?
Meanwhile is America getting more like the Soviet Union in various ways?
A rw radical party dominates our 3 branches and most states.
This party uses a Gop controlled state-media monopoly across the nation that broadcasts party propaganda and ignores truth itself.
This party has used voter suppression to retain power by pretending 'voter fraud'.
Our political culture legally distributes our nations’ resources up to corporate ‘oligarchs’, while millions of citizens need services they can’t afford.
We watch the power struggle, hoping a weakened Democratic Party can save our democracy. With your international reporting experience, any ideas are welcome, Mr. Cohen.
15
This is call to action, not a policy piece. And I for one am comforted and inspired to keep fighting, as I have done since the day after the 2016 election. Thank you, Roger Cohen, for this timely and beautiful column.
30
Brilliant, Mr. Cohen.
As you suggest all is not lost, yet.
We must weather this storm, fight and win back the values that made us unique.
20
I am an American, since 2011. I am also European. Moving to America in 2001, I read the history of the country I had now adopted - the Revolution, Civil War, Sixties Revolution, Caro's magisterial books on Robert Moses and LBJ. Living close to Concord, MA, I had plenty of local sources of US history and culture. However, I found the country in which I now lived to be a cold, occasionally vicious place; everything was for sale - including health care, which I had regarded as a basic human right in my European home. Employment law was totally skewed in favour of the Employer. No statutory Maternity Leave or even statutory vacation days! I quickly formed an impression of a people working and working harder just to keep up - getting deeper and deeper into debt to keep up their lifestyles and naively swallowing every marketing message that came their way - totally in thrall to Capital which just want to sell them more and more useless stuff and lend them more and more money to buy it. I moved back to Europe, having first become an American citizen (dual) and was appalled from a distance when Trump was elected - but not surprised. The US is a nation that has been selling itself to itself for a long time and has a 'weakest loses' culture - everyone is competing with everyone else in a dog-eat-dog society. There is no room left for civilised (with an 's'!) society. So this American, with a perspective formed outside it, can tell you that Trump is a logical result of your culture.
552
Trump is a logical antidote to Obama. Since your sojourn in America was so short, you might not have appreciated the fact that our Presidents tend to come from both parties and we seem to switch quite often between parties, unlike certain European countries. You can have your socialism and we can have our capitalism. As someone who became a naturalized US citizen a long time ago, I can say that I love America and what it has given me. God Bless America. God Bless the POTUS.
4
So cynical. Why become a citizen and pontificate from afar? I’m an immigrant too, a woman of colour. I love this country, which, like all others, has its good and bad, and won’t let an accident of history and foreign meddling destroy it.
5
The choice of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" is quite appropriate due to Kipling's link to America. He wrote The Jungle Book, arguably his most famous work, in 1894 while living in Vermont. And the "If" has a haunting quality: if the young had voted in large numbers despite the defeat of their standard-bearer Bernie S. ; if the Clinton campaign had been less arrogant; if the rich donors were not allowed to buy elections; and if the Electoral College, created to prevent the election of an incompetent President, had done its job.
Democracy is hard. Thank you, Roger Cohen, for reminding us.
32
Love this creative and heartbreaking spin on a beautiful poem. But, oh the pending doom I feel as I read this piece. This rabbit hole we have gone down is only going to get deeper and more twisted I fear. I hope we who feel we have eyes open can keep things from going beyond point of no return. Thank you for ensuring we stay aware, Mr Cohen.
22
Thank you for this very moving column. You have brought a lot of clarity to my struggle to articulate what this past year has been like for me. If it wasn't for the free press speaking out against this vile administration, I don't know how we'd have made it this far. This is what has been my light in the darkness and my voice crying in the wilderness. Please don't stop calling out these crimes against the very fabric of our existence as a nation. Yes, we're a flawed one, but even within the flawed country I've known there has always been an internal compass that redirected us to self-correct our shortcomings. This is what we must not lose, though we're coming frighteningly close. So, please, all members of the press and all who still believe in an America that can rise to this challenge, keep the faith and KEEP CARRYING ON, in every sense of that phrase!
27
Just brilliant, true, and poetic Thank you. Gives me hope. Can there be a breakthrough of the thoughtful?
11
Reading this piece, my first thought was that I agree whole-heartedly. I try to maintain American pride by remembering the Great Leader and his cronies cannot define a whole country. Mr. Cohen's words were encouraging and reminded me that others share this same view.
My second thought was that Mr. Cohen chose to quote a man accused by George Orwell of being a "morally insensitive" "jingo imperialist." I personally remember one day reading and enjoying Kipling's "If--" in English class and then walking down the hall to be appalled by Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" in history class.
However, I do not believe Mr. Cohen's choice to structure his piece around a poem by a controversial figure discredits his argument. In fact, the use of a beautiful Kipling poem to support a moral message reflects an idea many Americans grapple with today. Most thinking people know our Founding Fathers were racists and hypocrites, but the optimistic subset of that group also knows our founding documents hold indisputably moral values. We know that when the Great Leader wants to discriminate against Muslims or Mexicans or transgender people, our founding documents give him no leverage. This is to say Kipling and our Founding Fathers may have had questionable moral backgrounds, but they gave us great ideals that we can repurpose to fit current times. If the essence of America strongly looks like "liberty and democracy and openness," it is something worth preserving.
27
Possible non sequitur: I was thinking for no reason last night about Monty Hall--what a renowned philanthropist he was throughout his career and his life, the millions upon millions of dollars he raised for charities, the many selfless good works he was known for, then found myself contrasting that with the Koch boys, hoarding billions by trampling the environment, corrupting the political process, disseminating self-serving propaganda as cutting-edge conservatism, bankrolling an enormous program of lies about the effects of their industries on the rest of us for the sole purpose of further enriching themselves, and I wondered--I just wondered.
Fight we must. And we must remember there are countless ways to do that. Evil is a human quality--it belongs to man. And that makes humans the only ones who can vanquish it.
20
Yes, an eloquent article to be enjoyed with friends over dinner but also very much preaching to the choir. We know all the egregious actions and declarations of your President but to change minds of the swing voters and dare say some hard core Republicans the message needs to be short and to the point. Perhaps a competition for the phrase that encapsulates the issue at hand, something non-insulting, making people think and re-evaluate what is important to family and country. Madison Avenue may be more effective at this than even the NYT.
10
While this last election gives us many reasons to worry, I remain certain that the core values of most Americans remain sound. We will have a chance to test that premise in coming election cycles. Either we will see a return to reason, honesty, the rule of law, and concern for all working Americans-----or we will fail as a nation. I remain hopeful, but concerned. Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan have proven they are the least respectful, least honest, least patriotic, and least thoughtful Americans. We must hope that thinking voters will replace each of them with honorable elected representatives.
50
Don’t forget to add devin Nunes, Chuck Grassly, and Trey Gowdy to the list of tribalist deplorables. At least Richard Spencer and Steve Bannon are up front about it.
9
Trump has opened the floodgates to more political( and more importantly) grassroots organizing than we’ve seen in decades. Come 2020 we’ll see candidate(s) who will push to increase corporate tax rates and those of the very wealthy, to fund single payer insurance and to stop the endless wars. None of this would be on the table if Clinton won. It’s a deferred blessing
16
PeterC writes that, "Come 2020 we’ll see candidate(s) who will push to increase corporate tax rates and those of the very wealthy, to fund single payer insurance and to stop the endless wars. None of this would be on the table if Clinton won. It’s a deferred blessing."
Um, you know, if Clinton was President, she would not have signed this tax bill. And I'll stick my neck out and guess that Clinton would not be egging on North Korea to start a nuclear war. The ACA was gaining adherents as it proved successful. While single payer would be better, what we are getting now is a return to the bad old days of uninsured about to be made worse by cutting Medicare and Medicaid to pay for tax cuts to the wealthy.
So much for deferred blessings. It's a lot easier to tear institutions down than rebuild them. Let's not pretend it will be easy to build back up what Trump has ruined. But once we start, at least attempt to rebuild our institutions better than before.
4
You, Sir, are an optimist.
I read this column and wept, not for me, but for my children and grand children and for all in this great land who care deeply about it. My grandparents who came here at the turn of the last century must be rolling over in their graves to see the land they risked all for, on its way to becoming like the lands they left.
With each news cycle, I imagine Patrick Henry saying, "Give me liberty or give me death." Seeing the former being taken from the people, I much prefer the latter.
78
Am not American but I too wept.
We can only watch from the outside but we are suffering with you.
Please save yourselves and save us.
G
22
If this is America, then it is a nation that, since its Declaration of Independence, has known that there are certain truths that can be held to be self-evident. There is no need for -or possibility of - debate about them.
And one of those self-evident truths is this: the current president is a despicable pig, a fascistic monster, a deeply evil and dangerous man. Like America's foundational beliefs, this is self-evident. All rational people simply know it is true.
As a Canadian, I beg you to do something about it.
168
Do you have any concrete suggestions to offer? As we watch our country sold off and getting meaner by the day, of course we contact our representatives, and of course we will vote. Many of us will run for office. But many of us don't have ideas about what more we can do. Serious question.
9
I love this poem, which was a framed gift from my WWII veteran father, who spent three years fighting the most prominent totalitarian in modern history, Adolf Hitler. Such a sacrifice on his part, leaving behind his new bride of only three months into their marriage. Multiple his experience by the millions of other men and women who fought in the same contest to stand up for democracy and to fight fascism. What a world we now have that none of these deceased Americans would recognize; a country that would in fact now nauseate them. In my opinion I can safely say that Americans are now living in a post-democratic and post-Christian world. Trump and his plutocrat Republican sycophant legislators and supporters have killed both democracy and any notion that we are still, in moral practice, a Christian nation. If you try to show me otherwise, I will not believe you. You will certainly be lying; lying, a habit which is the present coin of Trump and his party.
67
Bravo! Wonderful distillation of all that is wrong with the Bozo in Chief. May 2018 be the start of a renaissance for us all.
58
Thank you!
36
You should have used the Unforgiving Minute better than to throw together this trite and tired melange of hyperbolic grievances. Please give us sixty seconds worth of distance run in the general direction of original thinking in 2018. It'd be a start.
4
you could see the damage you're doing to the country in your support of trump and help us fix it.
You always know a fellow is dull if he pulls out the overlarge words.
This writing is not just true, it is beautiful. Thank you.
62
Mr. Cohen,
I always enjoy reading your articles. They are thought provoking, well written and at times somewhat alarming. We need your wake-up call if we are to survive this current president.
41
In the late sixties, my father, an immigrant from Italy who jumped ship in 1929 to escape fascism, would constantly moan "It's the fall of the Roman Empire" after witnessing, as we all did, the the riots in our cities, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, the social upheaval caused by a homicidal war, and the spectacle of Watergate. I was a teenager then and optimistic, however. I felt that we would come out of the turmoil and find the right path - maybe even for the better. I am now 62, and I am talking like my father did. Ironic that my turn to say "the fall of the Roman Empire" comes at a time when our president would quote Mussolini who said "better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep." That slogan should now take the place of e pluribus unum.
38
I took a walk at lunchtime today with a good friend. We stopped to say hello to a dog. The man at the other end of the leash just started talking about the horrendous being living in our White House. He told us he would benefit by the new tax bill but felt guilty doing so. He said he was 87 years old and was grateful that he was alive, that he could still take his dog for a walk, but that he felt he had more than his fair share. My friend and I said that we didn't feel guilty, but did feel very grateful for all that we have be given. And we all three made a pledge to do everything we could to make it better for those who have been given less. The amazing thing is that this conversation took place at all. He did not know us and we did not know him. He had no way of knowing if maybe we were Trumpers and would give him a hard time for sharing his thoughts. I have never had an experience like this before, a total stranger sharing his thoughts and on such a personal level. This is the America that I love.
158
I have fallen into similar conversations in walking my dog--impassioned anti-Trump exchanges out of nowhere. Such experiences give me hope.
There are many more of us than there are of them. We are smarter, more competent, and, most importantly, far more determined. This will not stand.
22
What ideas do you have to make it better for those who have been given less?
Trumpistan is not Turkmenistan because the latter is on the Silk Road and the former is not. Trumpistan is on the Chintz Road.
With each passing day one encounters more quotes from Hannah Arendt being offered up as descriptive of the current malaise. Karl Polanyi and Walter Benjamin also can supply some provocative views. But Rudyard Kipling? While he was surely a talented writer, his romantic Victorian imperialism seems unlikely to point to the way forward: "the white man's burden" and all that.
12
I so agree--- Hannah Arendt's statement about the "banality of evil" is so true! I am saddened beyond words what has happened to the United States in less than 1 year. "Cry, the Beloved Country."
3
kipling was satirizing the idea of the white man's burden, not applauding it
Thank you for your rage.
I share it. It's past time to stop making excuses for evil.
This, I hope, will be the year the America grows up, and discovers that Trump's America First is Making America Small and Mean and Last.
87
I now understand what some Germans must have felt in the 30's. We have the roots of a fascist government beginning to show its tentacles. Why does the Secty of the EDP have to have 13 bodyguard? Next thing we know he'll be outfitting them in black uniforms with scull heads.
66
But this is America, folks. This IS happening. It's not some bizarre anomolie : it's who we always were. We didn't listen to our better angels, and this is the result.
54
Bravo!!! Roger Cohen.
31
"The people who walk in darkness
Will see a great light;
Those who live in a dark land,
The light will shine on them."
(snip)
"For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders,
The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian"
U know what follows, go out and find that man and make him president but not God...
Merry Xmas to all decent Americans from Sweden, Europe!
29
One can only wonder what alternate universe we might be inhabiting now, had the Democratic (in name, at least) party chosen not to nominate a presidential candidate that, like her GOP (in name only... at least as far as the G goes) opponent, was rated EXTREMELY UNPOPULAR; in fact, Ms. Clinton and Mr. Trump were rated the two MOST UNPOPULAR presidential candidates in American history. Polls are (obviously) imperfect measures of public opinion, but given the results of polls that (hypothetically) pitted Sen. Sanders against DJT (vs. those that pitted HRC against DJT), one must wonder what in the world the Democrats (see above) thought they were doing when they nominated HRC. If I could emigrate to Europe (France, Germany, even Italy), I would. I feel as though I am a Stranger in a Strange Land. And it is getting stranger every day.
32
clinton was clearly, hands down, the more qualified candidate, the more knowledgeable and the more reliable. this isn't a popularity contest. the unreasoning hatred of a certain quadrant for mrs. clinton dates back to her "not bakjing cookies" remark and has to do with her defiance of women's traditional role. trump was elected by hatred and fear.
2
THANK YOU. The DNC was beholden to the Clintons and her Wall St. Donors. Any candidate without the decades-long scandals of Hillary would have won the Presidency.
1
This is not democrat’s fault, but republicans. Deflect and distract.
1
I think that Romney should run against Hatch. The man has evidently lost his sense of balance, maybe for having been in Washington too long. When you think that this sorry exemplar of president is considered adequate is preposterous, when he calls him "the greatest ever", Hatch must be out of his mind, because no person with any mind at all would make that statement. And if you run, Mitt, be assured of my financial support. I'll do anything to try to save the US from this kind of lunacy.
29
Replacing one Republican with another will not make any difference.
As we've seen in the recent vote, they are all alike.
13
During the 1980s and 1990s, I had three opportunities to move overseas. I didn't take them, for what seemed like good reasons at the time, but if I had known what this country would turn into in the 21st century, I would have grabbed any chance to leave.
All three of the countries where I could have moved provide a fine quality of life for their residents and aren't trying to bully to the world into submission.
Now I'm too old to be considered a desirable immigrant in any of these countries.
There are occasions when a time machine might come in handy.
52
Oh woe is me, daughter of Americans. I come from a tough lot, but not any tougher than anyone else that found their way to this country. It takes fortitude and guts to immigrate to the United States whether in 1850, 1950 or today. Sometime in 1925 my grandmother forded the Ohio river from Kentucky. She and her schoolteacher husband lived in the valleys that made way to mountains; glorious green hills covered in Spruce, Buckeye and Redbud saplings. Appalachia beckoned, you could lose yourself in the mist. My family survived a financial depression and the terrors of WWII. Our ancestral history, going back to the Civil War, defined us with experiences. There was a creed and it had nothing to do with money (because frankly we didn't have any), 'to whom much is given, much shall be required'. I was taught that 'my word' meant something. Distortion, lies and taking advantage of others wasn't tolerated. I was told decency, honor, and justice built this country. I believed it. And now in a Pollyanna way I mourn the core ideals of my family. But really good ideals have deep deep roots. I want those back. I want to dust America off and say I'm sorry. No kidding, really sorry.
60
the problem is, you see, those supporting trump think it's they who yearn for justice and decency and honor. go figure.
What I worry about is how some Americans are willing to not believe in facts and will give complete obedience to Donald Trump. When people can be easily manipulated by a leader and an "us vs them" mentality starts to grow, it becomes scary. This country isn't immune to ending up in a very dark place, even if we do have checks and balances.
44
Amen
19
This is absurd attack politics of the most obnoxious sort. It's beyond bad.
We are the world's greatest democracy. Trump's election proves that!
All the self annoined pundits hate him, real, visceral HATE. They trird
to keep him out at every turn.
But because the people across the US believed him and not the left wing
pundits he got elected. And he has tried to do what he promised, and delivered when not stopped by the Left.
We the people recognize one trait in Trump that the Left, like Cohen,
hates most of all: he does not speak in the usual coded big lies. He speaks, advocates, and gets enacted into laws and regulations the Great Truths.
Such as .... 1) Illegal immigrants are here illegally and should be deported
2) lower taxes on the middle and highly taxes will help them, and the country, as will lower taxes on corporations on whom the pensions of the old depend.
Sure, a few of the rich pundits in NY and CA and CT will pay a bit more ... but, of course, they are FOR higher taxes!
3) he sees the truth that Jerusalem really IS the capital of Israel
This column is one of the most disgusting I have ever seen.
Calling him a "Great Leader" is even worse ... of course in his head Cohen thinks "Unser Führe". He's calling the elected President of the United states
Adolf Hitler.
11
No, what you saw in this column is raw, naked patriotism and love of country. If that annoys you, tough.
43
You are a perfect example of Hanna Arendt quote on totalitarian regimes: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
76
No, DJT "got elected" because of a non-democratic provision of our Constitution that established the Electoral College. If DJT had run for class president, rather than President of The United States, he would have LOST. How is THAT for ironic (given the vast powers a class president can wield)?
15
Only one more year of the Dear Leader.
On November 3, 2018, you and I will vote along with a WAVE of Americans who still can think straight and know bull from fact, and a Russian conspirator when they see one.
The House and Senate will be stripped of Radical Republican rule and that will effectively end the Trump presidency.
Over the next 10 months, coo coo will absolutely provide many additional crazy moments to motivate Americans to hate him, assuring his downfall.
Register to vote.
Catch the wave!!
63
Roger, please find something better to do. Your whinging is getting so old. Suppose you were more content with do-nothing liberal blather, putting off REAL decisions just because the optics were bad, leaving outdated idiotic public policy in place--like chain immigration--because doing the right thing for Americans would involve making some minority moan. Well, you had eight years of this, and now you have someone who, rightly or wrongly, is not going to cater to your liberal, lying, whining garbage. Find something else to do, Roger. Your whining is getting old.
10
I’m curious about the responders who still find the only safe place to go is HRC. Hello? You won the election. Isn’t it time to stop comparing this president to a loser? A word he loves. How is it comforting to say, yeah, but, you know... Hillary! Sheesh.
7
Actually, no, it's not time to "stop comparing this president to a loser"....a loser is someone without integrity, a loser is a misogynist, a loser is a bully and a loser is a chronic ....liar! All of which Donald...is!
40
As we have seen in other countries, there comes a point of no return, where no appeal to reason with facts and truth or to compassion can stop the descent into mass hysteria, inhumanity and autocracy. Judging from the obsequious behavior of Republicans in Congress, which should be a check and balance against a dictator, I am afraid we are very close to that point. If the Republican stranglehold is not broken in the midterms, our nation's fate is sealed.
45
GOP has always been a party of bait and switch. It uses cultural issues to advance their agenda of enrich themselves and their rich friends. They are not stupid, they are doping the childish praise hungry President with adulation, like Mr.Putin, to advance their agenda. The sad part is that despite claiming to be most patriotic party, interest of country is their least concern. I hope this presidency is a deviation and not a new norm , otherwise it is downhill from here.
18
Donald Trump has his weaknesses, certainly. So does any president. But I think you overblow them. That's easy, in this internet age, to do.
More important, Donald Trump also has his strengths. You don't give him any credit for those. I think they are significant. So too does Orrin Hatch. Even while we acknowledge his weaknesses.
Good character is a good thing. I like Rudyard Kipling's "If" poem too. But in a politician, does it really help? Though not a politician, I think Steve Jobs was a good example of a person with big character weaknesses (which he acknowledged) but great strengths in building a business.
Same with Donald Trump. If you look at what he accomplishes, instead of at how he does it, I think you will be pleased at the end of his term. But I guess we will see.
7
My question here, and it is sincere, is this. What strengths do you see in Donald Trump? They elude me, but I've heard others essentially say what you've said, so I'm interested in knowing what people perceive those strengths to be. From my perspective, President Trump is basically narcissistic, and fundamentally dishonest. Throughout his long career in the public limelight, he has never shown any real commitment to an idea or principle other than his own self-advancement. His attention span, and nearly bankrupt fund of knowledge, seem to stun even many in his own party. And, while some conservatives are cheering the recent tax cut, many conservatives who think deeply about this issue will argue that the changes that were enacted are hardly the ones most likely to spur investment or wage growth. Finally, the self-dealing nature of the recently passed tax cut is breathtaking. So, while every individual indeed has his or her flaws, I think there would have to be a spectacular set of strengths to offset the weaknesses I see in this man. Lastly, though Steve Jobs built a powerhouse of a technology company, I wouldn't want him as my president.
3
What he accomplishes?
You mean like robbing children of their health care and meals?
Forbidding the CDC to use science-based language?
Giving huge tax breaks to his cronies?
Lying about something or other on a daily basis?
Destroying health insurance for millions of people?
These are only a few of the things that he has already "accomplished." We don't have to "wait and see."
So, go ahead and list his accomplishments. I am sure they are many. We are waiting.
1
Being seventy plus I remember a stretch of modern American history, the economic ups and downs, the Vietnam war and the race riots and assassination's. But in all the times of good and bad I was always able to look up at our flag and feel proud knowing we would overcome any adversity. But this time its different there is a cold dark wind blowing threw our land. Its seems to be a multitude of attacks on our institutions, our courts and laws and decency to the common man and woman. The current occupant of the Oval Office has in less than a year unleased so much destruction of what has made this country so great and all at mach speed. Ultimately I pray he will self destruct and together we will win back this democratic republic. We have come to far, shed too much blood and tears to go into the dustbin of history. America is important not just for us it is important for the whole world. We must individually and collectively fight against the those who want this country to be only for themselves.
32
Mr. Cohen,
Your piece captures the absurdity that has taken over America. I will not recount the historical events that have led us to this point. Suffice it to say, the Republican Party created a Frankenstein in the form of the right-wing hooligans that prowl the ariwaves and interwebs manufacturing a treasure trove of conspiracy theories, "alternative facts," misinformation and distraction. Aided and abetted by their Russian intelligence co-conspirators, they have pushed a once great nation to the brink.
My sense is that Americans are catching on. There will of course be the backwash in America that Stephen Colbert referred to in the W. years. But they are a minority representing 25% at most of the population.
My own belief is that the absurdity of Trump has been an important wake up call for average Americans. People collectively seem to realize that voting does matter and all that they have taken for granted in terms of what comes from the government is very much vulnerable to the scheming of a politcal party that has lost its soul.
In a recent op-ed in the WAPO, an evangelical Christian decried the demise of morality in conservative circles. He said, "When you find the sale of wedding cake to a gay couple a moral outrage and yet have no problem voting for a senate candidate credibly accussed by 14 women of child molestation and sexual assault then you have truly lost your way."
Let's hope for a return to sanity.
46
Thank gosh for the NY Times in 2017 and you, Mr. Cohen, for helping us keep our sanity!
19
Do things in America soon necessitate a Ceaucescu 1989 solution? National Salvation Front amongst the military brass anyone ?
6
I never write comments but was moved to do so after reading Mr. Cohen's brilliant Op-Ed. He eloquently and powerfully sums up the vague, nameless, sick feeling in my soul every time I read about our current so-called "leadership" - on both "sides". (Why do we have to take sides? If one loses, we all lose.)
This is America today and as Mr. Cohen points out, could become an authoritarian state if we do not “keep [our] head when all about you are losing theirs.” Yet, I also know an America where we each show kindness and respect for each other every day in infinite small ways; letting someone ahead of you in traffic, pleasantly transacting with total strangers over eBay, and giving a server an extra nice tip. Let's not forget this is America too. And, that it can also get really ugly really fast if we let it.
23
This was an arrogant piece of writing that simply denigrated President Trump and those who voted for him. Trump's view of America is the view of many of us out here that the elites like to look down on rather than listen to their concerns with a fair hearing.
10
The proof of the pudding is in the doing. How much has Trump done for the people who voted for him compared to the elite who look down on them. Now, can we start with the new "GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL TAX CUTS" and then the........
22
You have absolutely no idea that you are being roundly conned, do you? And, your rejection of any kind of rational argument makes it impossible for you to see it any other way
*This* is the tragedy most of the comments here highlight
34
You might want to read world literature and travel outside of Kansas. My life accomplishments are humble, but am I an elite because of my life's devotion to reading and learning and seeking the 'truth that sets one free?' Your concerns are real and need solutions, but to demonize those who have educated themselves is a sad comment on the decline of this country. The world is passing by us. We were once a world leader in science and discovery, but not anymore. How far do you want us to fall before your anger abates?
37
America is rapidly becoming a banana republic, where Congressmen are regularly re-elected without opposition, and where there is a party in power and a party that wants to be in power, and they both bend over backwards for the rich and military.
16
If this is America...well it is America. We're not living in a dream. The Constitution is exactly the same as it was before Trump was elected. We still have the same three branches of government and they're still operating in pretty much the same way. Yes, we thought our Constitution protected us from tyranny and authoritarianism. We thought we were exceptional. We thought the branches of government would restrain each other. We thought the people would restrain government through the ballot box. All of this has turned out not to be true. Hidden within our founding documents, without our knowing it, were the mechanisms by which a totalitarian figure could come to rule this land. Trump became President through out own electoral system, devised by us. What was lost over the years were those unwritten agreements that existed between the legal documents by which those in Congress, the White House, and the Judiciary kept the Republic together. We have seen those time honored agreements now discarded in the naked and raw grab for power and control So now, with the same Constitution, the same electoral college system, the same branches of government, the same set of laws, the same federal agencies we have lost our Republic but we can't say this isn't America because as of today it is.
31
We are now witnessing Democratic party leaders threatening to bring the government to a halt for the sake of the DACA kids (who range up to age 35). You can support a deal for people who were brought here involuntarily, and still wonder about leaders who put the welfare of DACA recipients over that of American citizens who depend on those federal services and, let's be frank, those checks being sent out. When I see posters reading "no borders, no walls", I have to wonder whether the extreme solicitude for everybody except present American citizens is just some sort of globalization daydream of a bright future, or downright hatred of their own country. That explains why the election went the way it did, and why a lot of people who didn't think that Donald Trump could usher in a golden age are still more than willing to give him a chance; I'll support the present Administration because it puts our physical survival and economic welfare first.
7
"SAD" and I quote
1
"I have to wonder whether the extreme solicitude for everybody except present American citizens is just some sort of globalization daydream of a bright future or downright hatred of their own country."
it isn't hatred of our own country; it is the love of our fellow beings.
Really? He threatens world leaders, alienates our allies, destroys our environment, seeks to take away people's health care, and now he's giving away your money to his billionaire buddies. What more will it take for you and your ilk to see that you're being conned?
1. Resist
2. Demonstrate
3. Vote
This is a plan of action that could save a democracy.
27
It is comforting to see that there are still sensible people left in the country. However, I am still reminded that these very same pages of the New York Times had Trump plastered all over them throughout the campaign.
The New York Times and essentially every other news outlet seemed to serve as Trump's billboards, for every excessive thing he uttered. The more he said excess things, the more "airtime" he got.
His every excess was allowed the credibility of national mention and magnified and his ideas emboldened.
Now, the same pages daily have the nation's jesters and courtiers decrying and preaching the incompetence, deceptions and depths to which the sovereign has apparently sunk.
I agree with the criticism, but I still can't understand how and why these same pages were so willing to sell him to the country and world, and magnify his every excess.
Wasn't it apparent then what he was, what he promised, did these outlets think he was "joking?"
Or, are these media outlets now running to clean up and cover up their roles in Trump's and Trumpism's rise and coronation?
Where were these pages when it mattered most?
Why should these admonitions now be believed? Is this another "game" these outlets are playing on Americans and the world?
People say excessive things daily everywhere. They don't get the limelight and legitimacy that Trump got. They are often ignored into the obscurity they rightly deserve.
So, now the same pages cry and preach to the nation day and night.
15
Do not forget Les Moonves head of CBS: Trump may not be good for America, but he is great for CBS. What a true patriot, money ahead of country.
THIS IS NOT AMERICA, "Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration", to weaponize the pain of parents and children, intentionally separated. How many steps between this and physical torture or worse? This is not what America stands for, it is what real Americans stand-up to.
18
This is America.
And, in this America, only about 35% of us have any positive regard for coo coo.
And that number is shrinking.
9
Brilliant, Mr. Cohen. The subject is sad, but the writing brilliant.
18
While elegant, thoughtful and literary; this Op-Ed piece is essentially useless to discuss, post on facebook, or otherwise communicate with the Trump supporting members of my family this Christmas.
Is there a google app to translate 'elitist' to 'plain spoken'?
2
If you had used NASCAR and WWE metaphors you would have reached a wider audience.
8
Fantastically fitting. You should be a journalist. My sleep patterns were poor before. After your column, I may never sleep again. Thank you Roger for your many words of wisdom and insight.
5
While I will always adore Kipling, Robinson Jeffers is perhaps closer to our time in his great poem "Be angry at the Sun" when he started
"That public men publish falsehoods is nothing new"
and ended:
"Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs."
New year. Mid-term elections. Go get 'em. Your actions count!
14
America has been going downhill for awhile now, and it isn't primarily about Trump (abominable as he is). The problem is our politics and the failure is bipartisan.
The Republican party is the party of great wealth--period. They are not a "conservative" party: there is nothing that Republicans would willingly conserve if it stood between a corporation and increased profits.
I honestly have no idea what Democrats stand for. They certainly aren't the party of workers, the party of FDR or Truman or LBJ. Most Democratic politicians have contempt for working-class people, contempt for anyone without a college degree.
Neither party has an economic vision grounded in furthering the common good.
Republicans are hopeless, irredeemable. Perhaps our best bet is replacing the Democratic party with a new Socialist party. If we're going to have a semi-effective party in service to Big Money, we need another one that is forthrightly committed to policies that will help regular people.
11
All is not lost. There are many good people in politics.
5
Excellent article. If this is America, then we are still a democracy. Unfortunately, this is not America, because presently our government is closer to an Oligarchy, and its leaders are Nihilists.
11
That is not true. There are many good people in government positions. This is still a functioning Democracy, despite all our problems.
3
The solution to our current dismal state in the USA is to VOTE for those that will adhere to our demoratic values. The path to better democracy is more democracy, not authoritarianism or facism. Any truly patriotic American will make sure that they, and everyone they know, votes whenever provided the opportunity.
9
It is so easy these days to get lost in the ignominy of the Trump administration, the constant barrage of fractured truth, the complete and comprehensive disassociation from morality and decency that I find hope slipping away. And then I read something like Roger Cohen's column, If This Is America, and I can breathe again, if only until the next global insult or bizarre tweet or attack on our American way of life; and I can feel hope stirring again.
5
That was an excellent comment.
I read the NY Times every day, especially the opinion pages and the comments, to reassure myself that I am not alone in believing that Trump and his ilk are an abomination. That the true nature of the GOP has come shining through with this President. They too are an abomination. But I take heart knowing that all of you out there are of like mind. I know that we outnumber them. We, who revere the universal ideals of the Enlightment, toleration, equality and democracy. We need to continue to speak out, resist, and fight
back, and organize our opposition to this scourge. 2018 will be our year. We will defeat them.
29
I’m with ya brother. It might have to be billed as a revenge of the needs to get any traction.
Please excuse my SAD attempt at humor in tbd face of adversity, But! Since it’s the nerds that started all this, may take fire to fight fire.
1
Inquiring readers might want to Google "The Dangers of Facism in America", a New York Times article written in 1946 by Henry Wallace, FDR's VP. Read it and you will SWEAR you are reading about the Republicanazi takeover of America and dismantling of our Democracy going on at this moment. Then prepare to get concerned, VERY concerned, for our country's future.
14
If people are disenchanted with Trump's presidency so far, remember this: the majority of those whom voted for him didn't do so in hope of a better future. Then again, the same could more or less said for the majority whom voted for HRC as well. The 2016 presidential campaign was unfortunately a choice between bad and worse, and I think a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been marked so far with malaise as well.
If this is America, it should at the least reflect on what transpired last year, and what has accrued from that in earnest haste.
2
Hillary would make a great President. I and many other women voted for her. She also won the popular vote.
11
I agree that Hillary was the better candidate, but that's hardly a sign of merit in view of how bad Trump is. In a year when many yearned for change, Hillary represented a dying status-quo, and was out of touch with aforementioned. Again, neither candidate inspired hope in last year's presidential election.
1
Malaise, perhaps, but not evil.
My eyes are filled with tears; I can hardly see, but all I can make out are the last words in Cohen's column: "This is NOT America. It MUST be fought for and won back." The supreme board game of our lives.
8
No, this is not the United States. I cannot believe that we have come so far, stooped so low, and degraded so many in such a few years. Can we ever 'recover our beginnings?' I'm not sure.
4
An unerring assessment. Thank you.
3
I cried as I read this, Mr. Cohen. One never realizes how precious something is until one is in grave danger of losing it. Your last two sentences must be our mantra in 2018 and every year beyond. We must fight, indeed, to guard against
the tyrants of today and those to come.
11
If we detest “how the G.O.P. has morphed into palace courtiers outdoing each other in praise of their plutocratic reality-show prince”, we should bear in mind Thomas Jefferson’s exhortation against another prince and his group of palace courtiers that “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”.
7
Vote, people - vote while you still have the chance.
Roger, your vivid description of the degrading assaults of Donald Trump and his minions on our national and global well-being, and future prospects, are commendable. It can easily feel mind-numbing to consider that potentially more than 3 years of this corrosive pestilence still lies ahead of us. For me, the path back to anything close to the American ideals that I believe a significant majority of people in this country still want to live by requires taking firm and resolute collective action. This includes reaching out in a personal way to those of a similar mind (as mutual encouragement) along with those who are still playing the reality-show spectator role and basically ignoring what is happening to us together, and even to those now sucked into the Trumpist mindset, with clear messages that "we can, and will, learn the right lessons from this sad affair" - to promote the Common Good for fairness and justice for all, as most Americans of the time learned from the 1930's Great Depression experience.
7
Cute, very clever, Mr. Cohen. I think a similar piece could be written about the Democrats, especially their leader HRC, as the following lines aptly apply.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss.
1
Feeling so bad about backing the horrendous madman in the White House that you're still casting aspersions at Hillary? Your side won; it's time to get over it. You're getting the results you wanted. I can only hope that you suffer under his policies as you so richly deserve.
13
Mr. Cohen, This article belongs in the “Classics” aisle of the NYT archives. As many have said, “Truth is beauty, and beauty is truth”. This editorial is both—in spades.
11
This column is a classic, right to the bone, must read. For everyone, from pre-school to retirement homes. Resist. Persist.
16
If this is America, in which opinion writers freely spin such blatantly propagandist drivel and not live in fear of winding up in prison, there then is hope and it is still a great country in which to live.
4
Thank you. Beautifully written.
And to Christian America, I would like to add this quote, Proverbs 6:16-19:
“There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
Haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked schemes,
Feet that are quick to rush into evil,
A false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”
20
I wonder why Albuquerque doesn't have an ACLU Chapter. We had two in Utah, one in Salt Lake City and another in Logan, Utah. I had been a member for much of my adulthood.
...and Trump is six-for-six.
It is the government that the people voted for. Were they fooled? Maybe. Are they fools? Absolutely. This has been coming since Truman, this march to fascism. One has to wonder if the people have either the desire or the ability to defend the constitution. Look at how passive the Russians are. This kind of control by brainwash seems to work there. We'll see in the next year or two if the US citizens have what it takes to be free, or if they are weak like the Russian people. So far, given the severity of the threat, the people have been pretty passive.
6
Too many people in Albuquerque do not pay attention to politics and are, from a political point of view, illiterate.
I came here from Utah, which had a well functioning ACLU, and I was a member and on the Board for many years.
Albuquerque is a large city, and I don't understand why so many people don't follow
national and international politics.
Perhaps we needed this tacky vulgarian, in the fullness of time, to finally put the nail in the coffin of heartless capitalism, white supremacy and fascism. We had a nice run with our heads in the sand.
7
Let's bow our heads and pray:
Our President , who art in Washington,
Primier Donald be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in America,
As it is in Mar a Lago.
Give us this day our daily Tweet.
And forgive us our collusions ,
As we forgive you who colludes against us.
And lead us not into treason,
But deliver us from fake news.
AMEN
6
Dear Mr Cohen,
What a stunning article. Now you know what it is like to have leader who is an incompetent narcissist who is out to destroy democracy and enrich himself and the cronies around him. But then you forget that your country has done that to dozens of countries. US got rid of democrats and thrust the most odious characters on poor suffering countries. What I can’t understand is how docile you folks are...
10
"recall perhaps the words of Hannah Arendt, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist” — if all this you have lived and felt and thought across this beautiful and spacious land, then you must be prepared to “watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.” AND it DID happen here!
5
Our family visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC last week. The parallels between the Nazis and the current administration were more than obvious and alarming. I suggest all senators and representatives visit the museum during their break, and take a hard look at what is happening now. They will be held accountable.
23
Maybe he’ll close the Holocaust Museum on the same day he fires Mueller.
The thing is, if he does all that, his core base of 30M or so will cheer even louder. Even if Trump should be brought down, the problem is not just Trump but also the Trumpkins.
3
Trump is the conclusion to the problem.
How about starting to examine the cause?
Many of us knew exactly what was happening and it's a real shame liberal pundits like you a decade ago were just blowhard talking heads not able to spot that the US was exactly changing into THIS America even as it elected a black man.
You told us it was all good and the world was a great place because Saint Obama gave great speeches in Berlin saying what you wanted to hear so you likened him to Kennedy while he went off and started five new wars, increased illegal surveillance, extra-judicially murdered American Citizens, used the espionage act against whistleblowers, continued the pillaging of the working class when he extended the G.W. Bush tax cuts and the extortionist Wall Street bail out, supported the police in crushing the OWS movement, stood by as the DAPL protestors fought Big Oil's defilement of indigenous peoples' land, opened the arctic to oil drilling (2X) etc.
The US went rogue decades ago.
You talked it up because it elected a black man. It was this rotten all along and Obama made it worse.
Americans have had years of success in wallpapering over the ugliness beneath the surface of the empire, with Reagan's sunny optimism, Clinton's 'aw-shucks' phony populism and pats on the back for electing black Jesus Obama.
Let's hope that with Trump we are at the point where the illusion will eventually be shattered for good.
This IS America and Trump's a symptom not the cause.
169
You are very wrong. Trump is illiterate and knowledgeable about everything.
4
I disagree vehemently. America has always had a dark side, true - but all nations are capable of that as well as all individuals.
Nevertheless, we honor the rule of law; freedom of the press; science and art and industry. We've made vast progress in human rights - our prison system being a glaring exception. So there is always work to be done.
But this - what we're seeing now is a descent into madness and it makes 1930's Germany comprehensible to me.
I hope we can get our country back from this disaster.
9
Apparently you were living in a different reality than I, because I remember Obama (who never represented himself as a Jesus figure and whose supporters never did, either) trying to stop a war (albeit unsuccessfully), trying to reduce arctic oil drilling, and giving the DAPL protesters not only their due, but success.
Obama was the subject of the current administrations lies and conspiracy theories, early in his first term. He was granted only hate and obstruction by the Republicans elected to Congress.
Trump is one of--but not the only--cause of the horrible deterioration of our country. He, like other wealthy and would-be wealthy people, believe that greed, self-serving, and corruption in the cause of wealth are the attributes of the “successful entrepreneur.” They are wrong, but along the way, they have succeeded in cheapening, tarnishing, and destroying to a great extent the working man’s life.
It is for us to see that they are dismissed entirely, with shame, from our society and the cleansing forces of equality and education, healthcare and environmentalism, wash away all their works.
1
Thank you Roger Cohen for writing what so many of us have been feeling. Resist dear friends!
9
I believe that in the long run trump will prove to be the grain of sand that gets inside the oyster that produces the pearl.
Since the election of 2015 25,000 women have decided to run for office according to Emily's List. This is an achievement neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton could have brought about.
It took someone as crude, ignorant and ignoble as our current president to rouse us out of our complacency, and for that I feel a certain perverse form of gratitude.
12
It is incredibly difficult to be positive when your country, more than a country, an idea working toward a utopian society, is brought to its knees. We are led by a narcissistic, juvenile, paranoid, mean-spirited philistine. Hubris is the character flaw, so say the Greeks, that will destroy one quickly. So, I am trying to look at this nefarious time in our history as an opportunity. An opportunity to come out the other side even better than we were previously.
8
America? No. We're down to "Ameri", but we're still here and we've been down before. If there's anything left by next November, we'll get congress back and then it's all over but the tweeting! Hurry 2018!
3
A democratic republic demands citizen involvement. As the Trumpian outrages continue, citizen outrage should grow. The one true hope to end this nightmare is at the ballot box. The countervailing fear is a unified Republican government, drunk with power, attempting to prevent citizen action! Power corrupts ...
4
Perhaps the USA is starting to realize how the employees of those companies Mitt Romney and his vulture capitalist cronies bought and eviscerated felt.
And yet, today Romney is viewed as the reasonable, moderate Republican. They're all the same, some just hide better than others.
4
Is this America where planned obsolescence may possibly be integral to some cellphones? Is this America where huge tech companies censor what news they feed us? Is this America where a powerful community organizer is given more credit than a powerful international businessman for the current state of the economy? Is this America where a POTUS finally took decisive action versus ISIS listening to his seasoned military leaders? Just wondering.
2
trump is the best thing that ever happened to Canada.the best high tech graduates are now coming to work here.maybe the next facebook ,google will be in Canada.plus even if you do not like trudeau he speaks well in English and French.
6
Our only recourse is grass roots organization to take back Congress in 2018 from a degraded and complicit Republican majority. This year needs to kick off with the March on Jan 20 that will be even larger than last year's to demonstrate that there are millions of Americans who love this country and will not tolerate its transformation into the fascist dictatorship of Trump Inc.
5
And what kind of country can’t find a loyal enough individual to leak those IRS returns?
Maybe he didn’t file any taxes at all.
19
This America has a feature you don't talk about: The large percentage of registered voters who claim to dislike Trump or other Republicans but are too apathetic to vote.
6
This part of the sentence, toward the end of this essay, is really what we presently are: "or it is nothing, just a squalid, oversized, greedy place past the zenith of its greatness." Commentators , including Mr. Cohen, keep blaming Trump for where we are. Really , it is the reverse; Trump got here, does and behaves as he does, BECAUSE OF where we are. Millions of American citizens put Trump where he is, to do exactly as he is doing, and they heartily cheer him on. So, again, we are what that sentence notes us to be.
6
What a sad commentary on the State of Our Nation, once the freedom pinnacle of all peoples of the globe. For we must remember, we did not arrive at this point in time simply by the election of a single President, but also by those elected officials who have declared in the recent past that fiscal responsibility is their most important driving force. Instead it feels that everything we have long held dear has been placed on the chopping block of politics. Surely there is a better way than what we have become!
1
I am an American who has lived in Europe for 25 years. I have never been so embarrassed to be a US citizen as I am now. Thankfully, my friends and colleagues, as well as Europeans in general, distinguish between the American people and this horrifying administration and its supporters in Congress. But the American people need to wake up - in 2018 - and see what Roger Cohen is pointing out.
7
Your friends would be well advised to distinguish among the American people. A substantial minority of our citizens, perhaps 30 million or so, are fully Trumpian. I find it rather embarrassing, and really annoying, to have to be among these people.As an American, I find myself envying people like you who live in a place where the true values of America are being publicly honored and followed.
2
Bravo! I appreciate the passion in this morning's column. There are a great number of us in this country who are truly distressed to see how many friends and relatives have elected to suspend reason and decency and follow this Pied Piper down to the sea. Season's greetings have been exchanged with no mention of what's happening to the country — all of us politely avoiding what's on our minds. Like a lot of other people probably, I wonder whether these relationships can survive this fascist moment we find ourselves in. On a personal level too, the country is disintegrating.
2
A word of warning. As Cohen points out, he quotes from a poem directed by Kipling to his son. Kipling also relentlessly both pushed his son, who had previously been rejected by both the UK Army and Navy to join anyway and pulled strings with his influential, highly positioned friends, to admit his son. John Kipling was commissioned into the army, received a bit of training, was sent to the trenches and died there in 1915 shortly after turning 18. Notwithstanding Kipling's exhaustive efforts, John's body was never found. Perhaps the lesson for us is that words are insufficient, we must take action no matter the risk. Run for office, volunteer and/or donate to a campaign and keep your spirits up.
As a former Vermonter who lived in the north country known as the Northeast Kingdom, I remember
the many abandoned old farms where just inside the barn door, the old farmers' work clothing and usually a hat hanging on a nail made for a painful sight for the many suicides.
Just today, in President Trump's speech on the Tax Bill, he mentioned that the Death Tax on farms will be lifted and that death need not mean losing a family farm. What a joy of hope to hear of such news.
The estate tax is applied to only a tiny number of huge farms, not to the small family farms you're thinking of that dotted the countryside in the long-ago rural America you and i grew up in. Those lovely little farms with grazing Guernseys simply couldn't compete with the mega-farms that exist now, with their mile-long barns and Holsteins that never leave their stanchions!
Check this out:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/sep/28/donald-tr...
Or are you going to remain willfully ignorant and continue to blather about the "death tax?"
9
"Willfully ignorant and blather" - I'm not the enemy, I could be wrong on the details -
or maybe you are. what is important is the lingo you use. Don't be filled with anger, the only blood pressure you hurt is your own.
Merry Christmas
1
As a former farm boy I knew a number of rural suicides. To a man they came about as a result of competition with big-business agriculture, the type favored by Republicans everywhere. By and large, their farms were not abandoned but sold by their heirs to big operators at big discounts.
6
"This is not America. It must be fought for and won back."
To do that one needs to ask what needs to be done differently in order to make that happen. This did not happen overnight, it has actually been taking place for over a decade. How could Democrats have become so politically incompetent to have lost so much? It wasn't like there weren't signs that it was happening, and to have just watched the tide change, maybe at best shrugging one's shoulders. It is rather incredible, something to spice up political science for generations to come.
I wish Democrats the best, they've shown some signs of life recently, but until 'America' for Democrats includes everyone across the country I will be watching as an Independent.
I have faith that the democratic principles and the institutions created to protect them will withstand the constant battering and deliberate undermining that they are taking from Trump and his cronies. Has the free press ever been so crucial?
There's no question that these democratic institutions are being tested; and that's not necessarily a bad thing. We need to be scared and to be vigilant. We tend to take democracy for granted. If we're not paying attention, if we trust blindly that it will always be there, we may wake up and find we've been robbed.
1
This is one of Roger Cohen's best articles yet.
Reflecting on my country, I keep remembering a friend dying of melanoma many years ago. Despite the sweet spirit that always remained inside and fought for health to return, the tumors prevailed—took over her body and snuffed out her life. Our country has an aggressive form of cancer and fully one third of its people cannot yet recognize it for what it is, call it by its name, let alone begin treatment.
4
Bravo, Mr. Cohen, for capturing a collective disappointment and despair so beautifully. And yet, there is still hope, and still determination — that we can recover what has been lost during this era of Trump and his lackeys.
1
At a bar in Clarksdale MS last night, I overheard a man saying that going into space was physically impossible; you couldn't "break through the firmament unless God wanted you to". He then went on to say that he didn't believe in science.
This is the part of America that voted us to where we are now. What price universal suffrage?
7
I wish you were joking, but I know you are not! Unfortunately, a lot of educated, well-off people voted for him as well. I am shocked by some of the people I know who actually did.
Clearly democracy has been co-opted by the fat cats so that fewer votes prevailed. Billionaires have turned the rest of us into proverbial "Three-Fifths" human. We just don't count as much as they do. I suggest we respond by spending less and less and less. Adopt a more American attitude, more thoreauvian. A non-violent approach. The fat cats think they can do this to us because they think we care about stuff as much as they do. Let's show them what really makes us American. Votes don't count as much as money coming out of their pockets does.
2
This is America! Gilded ages are nothing new. For those who lived through any part of the latter half of the 20th century, it feels like a foreign land. Those days are gone. However, the founders built the republic based on representation for a slim minority; white, male, property owners. For most of its history, it has lived up to those principles, to use the term loosely. Take what you can, get what you can now in a dying America. The wealthy already have.
2
Trumpism, alas, may be the end-stage of a disease that has afflicted the Republic from the start: the supremacy of wealth above all other values. It’s what led Plantation Owners to automate their field with human robots. And it’s what has led families like the Mellons and the Koches to pursue, first as a self-actualizing hobby and then as a confirmation of their own greatness, to finance the gaming of our system for the last 50 years.
When property rights are raised above all other values, money super-empowers the wealthy. Some, but not all of the super-rich then use that wealth to game the system for further enrichment that gathers even more power. The passage of the Tax Bill is the culmination of their efforts that may be irreversible because of judicial packing, voter suppression, corruption of the Census Bureau, and further gerrymandering.
I’m afraid that when the inevitable riots or serious domestic terrorist event occurs, a domestic Patriot Act-like bill, long in preparation, will be enacted as an emergency. With the militarized police forces in place, we will have domestic tranquility with the proper pre-New Deal state of affairs finally re-established: the Hereditary Elect, self-deluded that their position is solely the fruit of the moral rightness of the market, firmly in control. Fascism.
426
You should have gotten a thousand thumbs-up for this but people just don't see what's coming, and when they do finally wake up it will be too late.
5
With a president who craves instant gratification, who has no interest in past or future, we are dealing with the mind of a child. The bull is in the china shop and the carnage cannot stop until he is removed. Good luck America. The world is watching. “Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.” (198?) Arnold Toynbee
4
All things being equal--or more precisely, all things being completely nuts as Trump et al sell off America and take out a fourth mortgage on the country's future--Trump et al are honing for a serious whupping next November.
One wonders if the "resist," brigade will show up, though: maybe it's just seeing Jill Stein onna TV this morning, early blatting the same old guff about both parties being the same, but I'm not excessively optimistic today.
2
Some commenters talk about gett'n' out while the gett'n' 's good. We've talked about that at our house, too--but the reality is that, aside from the god-awful expense and stress of moving, there is nowhere safe in the world anymore as long as these smarmy suckups roam the halls of Congress, living off the fat of the land--our fat, our tax dollars, supporting their cushy sinecures as we PAY them handsomely to fawn over a demon and pronounce him "exquisite." The only answer is to UNITE under one banner and VOTE! The Trumpublicans unite their voters behind gut-grabbing lies and false promises. We must unite our voters, urging them not to be distracted by single side issues, but to focus on driving out the trolls and gargoyles.
12
Amen. Now is the time to stay and fight.
You wouldn’t want to miss the fun, right?
2
Roger Cohen is the soul of the NYT. Thank you
7
I haven't said anything to my right wing Fox "news" cult coworkers or family members about Trump or the tax bill, but when I do, I will start with, What do you think of the Iraq war? Did you believe Iraq was responsible for 9/11? Were you in favor of invading Iraq? So, now you have Trump. Do you believe what he says?
3
As much as I respect Joe Biden, he is, alas, wrong about Republicans. It is not about Donald Trump. He is only the tip of the pimple while the Republican Party is the underlying puss infecting the skin in much the same way they infect democracy with their authoritarian leaning. The sooner the Democrats come to their senses and realize that the GOP needs to be put down like the rabid dog it is, the better. The Great Leader. Every time I see him with that stupid smirk on his face it makes me cringe. Forget the street protests, I'm ready to man the barricades.
19
We ll need military help for that.
Come on guys and gals in the armed services . Show a little muscle.
The public will back you.
1
I cannot fathom what has happened to the Republican Party. Remember when a whiff of plagiarism in college sufficed to sink a Presidential campaign? And now the GOP is evidently all in for a sociopath, a refractory liar, an ignorant bozo, and a sex offender. Can the leaders of the Party possibly not apprehend these facts? This is difficult to imagine; they are not stupid. They therefore must have made some sort of cynical and pathological calculation that it is time to betray America and all that she stands for. To my mind the Republican Party has abdicated any right to future participation in our democracy and Republic.
19
More republicans than people think have taken the Russian money and are in...all in.
1
What a ridiculous. Get out of your little bubble. Just remember that half of America voted for trump. Your characterization of the Cabinet reflects your bitterness at losing. Calling the president Mussolini's understudy reflects your complete lack of understanding. What was Obama's cabinet? Weren't they complicit in his outrageous number of executive orders?
2
"Just remember that half of America voted for trump."
Hillary Clinton received 48.2% of the total vote.
Donald Trump received 46.1% of the total vote.
2.8 million more Americans voted for Clinton than Trump.
6
Typical Republican diversion: Only mention Trump's unctuous cabinet, and you reflexively chirp, "well whattabout Obama's cabinet?" The point is that this ridiculous Republican bootlicking competition is unprecedented, a risible mockery even of lip service to independent thinking. Can't you see how insulting this is to thinking Americans and the horrified world?
As to the 62 million who gorged on Trump's feast of clumsy lies, they include the worst of America --- white supremacists, unapologetic racists, triumphant plutocrats, and shameless nativists, all aggregated under Trump's flattery as "fine people." We have always had a contingent of aberrants, but they have never seized control and inflicted their irrational beliefs on the world. The leering, molesting, manipulating, and greedy Trump simply exploited them while laughing up his sleeve. Even conservative stalwarts wince at their shameful appeasement of this gluttonous tantrum and bully, shaking his rattle and inflicting his misspelled tweets on the public. Don't make us laugh with your lame, shopworn reminders that "we lost." It's America, including you, who lost. Name one country that approves of Trump --- whoops! Almost forgot about Putin, holding his sides at Trump's cowardly sycophancy toward him. Our adversaries were handed an unearned victory and can't get enough of Trump.
5
@John:
Yes, (nearly) half of the electorate who showed up voted for Trump. My estimation, FWIW, is that about half of them are hard-core Trumpkins. These are the ones whom Hillary, with her typical political ineptitude, identified as deplorable.
Thank you for reminding us that the problem is not merely Trump, but more so the thugs and haters whom he persuaded to crawl out from under their rocks. Given their demographics (older, less educated, and vulnerable to victimization by their own political movement), eventually they will be out-of-the-way. But we must not forget that they are out there. Again, thank you.
1
The Mussolini analogy is a perfect one....just journey back in history when Hitler and Mussolini joined forces. Can a Putin/Trump alliance be far behind?
Having lived through my college years straddling Vietnam and Watergate, my wildest imagination never thought I would see America come so low
15
Does anyone else find TR collapse of America to be hilarious?
No. People are suffering. Children. The elderly.
3
Really ? Have you read anything about Venezuela lately ?
3
There is no way to put a happy face on this debacle or even to paint lipstick on this pig.
Trump is an original American invention, the ingredients of which are the basest instincts dredged up from the bowels of that same greedy pig...lipstick or no lipstick!
7
Kim Jong-trump and Nitwit Nikki outdid themselves this week in the premier international body headquartered in New York. While Orrin Hatch and Paul Ryan swoon over Trump's exquisite presidency, their Dear Leader repels all our allies except in the United Nations except Israel, Micronesia and Vanuatu -- and a lot of help they'll be in a major crisis. Putin can only chortle "spasiba, spasiba, spasiba" for the gift that keeps on giving. If this keeps up the U.N. will soon be moving to Moscow or Beijing while we remain friendless.
10
Beautiful piece.
The fawning, embarrassing spectacle of republicans saying ridiculous, humiliating things to this clown of a "president" was absolutely surreal. I needed a shower.
Have they no shame? Have they no pride? Have they no decency? Sickening.
24
Trump is a despicable man and is destroying our country at a breakneck pace.
And every day, with every horrible decision, I remember Bernie’s babies saying there’s no difference between Trump and Clinton.
12
Give it a rest. This was not due to "Bernie's babies." This happened because the Democratic party and establishment neglected its base. Time to grow up and move on.
8
@JJ:
Yes, time to MoveOn. But the Bernie buddies failed to recognize that Bernie would’ve lost by a much greater margin than Hillary. They by themselves do not constitute a sufficient base nationally, even if they can win some Democratic primaries.
Bernie would’ve gone over like a lead balloon in the heartland and MI, OH, and PA, where independents and lukewarm Republicans are necessary for a win.The failure to recognize that by so many Democrats is in fact an example of how the Democrats have neglected their base. Let’s move on and start picking winners.
2
@ Brad
The corrupting influence of money in the political process has destroyed both parties - so much so, that the Democrats lost what should have been the easiest race in US history.
Don't blame the voters.
Blame the candidate that lost against a a genitalia-grabbing, moronic reality TV host and the people that thought only Hillary could beat Trump.
My poor country
9
Only one word need be said: Hallelujah!
1
Because children will no longer have CHIP? Because the elderly will no longer have Meals on Where? Because our air and our water will now have toxins? What’s to cheer about? Oh yes the rich will be even richer.
1
If this is America - born amidst the fires of revolution - it is once again time for a revolution, whether it be in voting booths or the streets. A moronic jackal of a president followed by his pack of congressional quislings needs to be brought down now. Because soon enough, it may be too late to save America as it once was. If this is America at all.
21
Sublime. Thank you.
10
A+
9
And yet we have the Party in control of all branches of government in obeisant debasement to all that its tin-pot leader has debased. People we once took seriously, like Orrin Hatch, are unapologetic in their new-found Mussolini-worship.
It is frightening how fully and willingly politicians have jumped into the cesspool of fascism for which the "swamp" is being drained. The GOP has fallen beneath shame. It no longer even pretends to constitutionalism. It is all-in for the obscenity of authoritarianism, dragging the country mindlessly behind.
12
Hard as it is I have been wondering whether there is anything positive in President Trump!
Now I know beyond any doubt that it is unveiling of the Real,America that Cohen so dexterously summarized I
The America that had been sold to,the World ., and to,the poor hapless American public , was a well produced PR job by CApitalism that managed to turn the terms progressive, leftist and Socialism into,dirty words that made those striving to,better life conditions with general,working class , antipathy , ranging on actual,enmity to " we never had it So,Good " to, self inflicted delusions !
For that radical,unveiling act new generations will,have to be grateful. To,Trum ..distastefulas that is!
3
Trump ought to watch the PBS show "The Story of the Jews with Simon Schama".
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/story-jews/
From medieval times, Jews disapora thrived only in Islamic countries, they were shunned only in Christian countries. The Jews of today owe it to the Arab and Muslim states and patrons who kept them alive, and thriving. Jews became wealthy, educated, learned, enterprising and flourishing because of the patronage they received, the shelter they received from Muslim rulers. The Christians were out to get their blood.
Trump and his administration (especially his son in law), are sorely lacking in history lessons.
15
You had me at -he threw paper towels at the Puerto Ricans to clean up the mess after the hurricane. Forget all the fancy words-he's nuts!
17
You write a critique on American militarism and nationalism and then quote Rudyard Kipling, a name synonymous with, oh yes, militarism, nationalism, and imperialism??? You (rightfully) criticize the administration for outlawing the word "transgender" in CDC reports, and then carelessly quote a poem about outdated and gendered "qualities that make a man"??? Perhaps read his other poem that you may have heard of, "The White Man's Burden," do some more research on Kipling's gross history, and then reassess your content. Context matters!
I do agree, this is not what America should look like. But THIS just seems another white middle class guys writing to make all his other white middle class friends feel good about themselves. I hope you do feel good about yourselves, but maybe say something meaningful next time.
4
I had to scroll through a hundred comments before finding one that noted the absurdity of using Kipling -- author of the pro-imperialist poem, "The White Man's Burden" -- to critique Trump. The whole column is overwrought and incoherent.
1
Maybe teh time has come for Americans to behave as if it is time to have "...A Watch on the Rhine"
1
Comparisons to Turkmenistan, fascist Italy and a referenece to Newspeak (Orwell 1984) based on Trump. Roger, we just exited an 8 year period when the alleged brilliance of President Obama were praised daily, wall to wall on all the mainstream media outlets. An 8 year period when the organs of government, from the IRS to the EPA to the AG were politicized to punish political enemies. An 8 year period where opponents of the exalted Obama were characterized as poorly educated religious gun owners who were too dumb to understand his unsurpassed vision of the future. My gosh, we watched Nuns having to fight for their religious beliefs in the Supreme Court. Roger, you and half the country have developed a convenient amnesia to what and how things were done under the prior regime.
3
Paranoia on the right regarding Obama is obviously overwhelming. But remember Trump’s exhortation. “We love the poorly educated.”
7
We watched the Koch brothers pay for a bunch of nuns to take their case of trying to enforce their religion on their employees to court.
I grew up in Catholic schools and those women at SCOTUS are an embarrassment to the nuns I knew. Nuns were among the original advocates of abortion rights in NY and American nuns have been repeatedly castigated for being too socially liberal.
But like the Americans who elected Trump, the Little Sisters for the Poor have embraced the identity of the persecuted while actually trying to persecute others, dragging this country by the hair into the past.
Except that what you are saying is unsupported by any actual evidence
"if you can meet with Trump and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same". Did I just write Trump?
2
I have nothing to say other than, “Thank you, Roger Cohen.” This really REALLY helped.
Steady as we go…
4
The question is, “Why does the Republican Party side with the Russians and Putin against the US government in the form of the FBI?”
11
BecauseDon, they have been paid off also.
Putin’s throwing some lucky dice.
2
Exceptional column, even for as fine a writer as Mr. Cohen
4
How fittingly ironic that the author would use Kipling as the foundation for his outrage. Kipling, who coined the phrase "white man's burden" to recast terrorism and theivery against the "half-devil and half-child" darkies of the globe as well-intentioned, benign salvation (i.e., imperialism). Trump isn't introducing anything new to the world nor to the United States, so let's avoid the hysterical fantasizing that some never-before-seen alien creature has invaded and subjugated our tranquil egalitarian paradise. The question I have for Mr. Cohen and other indignant liberals is the same question I have for trumpsters: just when, exactly, and in what ways, was "America great?"
We may be a "work in progress" but let's not delude ourselves that "progress" isn't measured against every decade of our existence: slavery, disenfranchisement, manifest destiny, segregation, institutionalized racism, legally sanctioned domestic terrorism, global interventions that amounted to terrorism and war crimes by our own definitions and standards. Trump is here as a "natural" reaction to the horror felt--consciously and subconsciously--by many Americans that one of these "half-devils" and his family occupied the White House for 8 years.
To paraphrase Samantha Bee and a former trumpster she interviewed: this administration is merely ripping the clean band-aid off a festering wound that is long overdue for attention.
6
Gustav, remember our Declaration of Independence? Remember the founding fathers and Emerson, Thoreau, Franklin et al?
To misparaphrase Ken Kesey, we were once, “ Sometime a Great Nation”.
Roger concisely summarizes our current position: a Poe inspired panopticon in an Orwellian dystopia at the bottom of a Dickens-esque rabbit hole, though instead of a red queen we have a mad orange infant emperor, new clothes and all. I'm ready to concede we would have been better off with magic undies than the current too-long ties. Watching cabinet secretaries and congresspersons genuflect and evangelize for our Homer Simpson/Alfred E. Newman putative Putin puppet, I'm reminded of certain characters on South Park. The so-called president and his cohort bring to mind halloween, chernobyl and the plague.
W. did some of this, inserting political officers in institutions, departments and agencies, attempting to control language and thus control message and mission. His efforts, however, pale in comparison to the breathtaking immaturity, gall and incompetence of Trump, even considering Mike "Brownie" Brown. t could be worse, of course, Bannon could have been secretary of defense.
With the tax "triumph" now poised to put that lump of coal in our xmas stockings, then charge us for it down the road, all the evil elves and bridge trolls in the palace of the little man behind the curtain are tittering in holiday glee. When the move on to "entitlement reform", watch out for flying monkeys, poisoned apples and a move to rename the Mississippi river as the Volga minor. How long can it be before we have military parades on the mall, running right thru orange square? Bah, humbug!
7
"...and it pains you to see the world voting against the United States at the United Nations with the exception of Micronesia and Nauru and Palau (and a few others),..."
You're the last person that should have to be reminded that that vote was much more of a reflection of worldwide disdain and hatred for Israel than it was a rebuke to the U.S. The pathetically aimless U.N. never misses an opportunity to take Israel to task.
We've always been a squalid, oversized, greedy place past the zenith of our greatness. But we proudly keep going despite all that, the shining garbage dump on the hill.
That's what makes us great, we keep pretending that we are, even though we know were not. Like that old saying, fake it till you make it.
And as long as we keep spending money on nukes and aircraft carriers, the world doesn't have much choice other than to humor us while we settle onto that final glide path toward oblivion.
4
I couldn't believe how Nikki Haley vomited on the UN. I know she was just keeping her job but self respect comes before a job. And she lost all her self respect. It will take time for her to gain it back, if she ever does. The world will survive without her and her master.
5
What bothers me the most about this time period is just how easy it is to manipulate the thinking of so many Americans. I would never have thought this was possible in a literate society with a vigorous free press. We always thought this kind of mind control was possible in Stalin' Russia or Hitler's Germany, but not in America. Maybe we should return to the days when Orwell's 1984 was required reading in our schools. Thank you Mr. Cohen for such a superior editorial.
7
America, where are your checks & balances? This madman Trump already has done damage to your great country - inside and abroad - that will take years to correct and heal. What are the checks & balances worth, if one imbecile, cheered forward by an irresponsible bunch of nose-browners, can even attack the most fundamental pillars of your constitutional structure withouut paying a price? What are they worth if donors apparently rule the passing of a so-called "tax-reform"? What are they worth if an increase of voter turn out from ridiculously low 20% to a still embarrassing 40% like in Alabama is already celebrated? Could it be that none of these checks & balances work properly, because a majority of your citiziens does not seem to care, ie inform themselves and vote? Never would I have believed I´d ever write these words about your great Nation but are you still a functioning democracy where facts are treated as facts, liars are removed from office, voters are not barred from voting but donors are barred from calling the shots? It scares me to see how far the US has already been removed from its allies, how dangerously chaotic its foreign policies towards N-Korea, Persia and the Middle East are and how disrespectful Trump treats the UN. PLEASE, someone assure me that midterm elections will put a stop to some of this madness and truth and the facts will prevail! Please, someone?
5
Wolfgang--Here are two someones. We'll do our darndest to poke a stick in the spokes of their wheels and send them flying over the handlebars onto their smug mugs. As Democratic precinct chairs in a red state, we are part of a massive grass-roots movement to Get Out the Vote. Local meetings are packed. People have been asking to take part in the resistance. Hillary won our 60-R/40-D precinct in 2016; Democratic-leaning candidates have won in a couple of local elections, and voter turnout in the off-year elections was double the 2015 turnout in our precinct. We have planned our strategy for 2018 and are champing at the bit to get out there with our candidate leaflets and voter information.
3
IF you always look at the glass as half empty ... you will neven ever see the glass as half full. JMHO
1
I can’t see half full when my granddaughter loses her health insurance.
4
Jesus and nukes. What could go wrong? America is Christianity- a vile belief system that has given the world Trump.
7
This country has been heading towards fascism since Reagan, including Clinton/Obama who were both to the right of Nixon. Trump is just the final stop on the fascist train. We either turn this thing around or we will have successfully transitioned from arguably the greatest country in the history of the world to the most dangerous.
7
Here is what my magic mirror showed me this morning:
It is the year 2024. The two-term President, and the self-proclaimed Emperor of last year holds court with his "House" and "Senate" kneeling in front of him along with his cabinet members, all dressed like the slaves of the Roman Empire, are throwing garlands at his throne. Today's agenda
is paramount: destroying the last vestiges of that long- shredded document known as the Costitution and allowing limitless terms.
In attendance are worshippers of "alternative facts", the likes of Conway, Hannity, now bloated with smug satisfaction. Seated on plush seats adjacent to the "Emperor" are his most ardent donors : Adelson, Koch, Koch, Mercer and wall street monarchs ( they all look like kings now!)
Next to the throne are large urchins: they hold the ashes of the once-revered institutions of Nineteenth Century America: the CIA, FBI, EPA, etc, etc....
Occupying a decorated circle around are personal friends : Putin, Sise and other autocrats...
The ceremonial procession begins, with coffins of Press, intellectuals, artists, musicians, middle class workers....The next phase continues with people looking darker and different.....
Suddenly, I see Abraham Lincoln saying to me:
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today".
Thank you Roger
1
Kill gerrymandering. Overturn Citizens United.
Then we can regain a land of, by and for the people.
8
In this new America, the new normal is to wake up every day wondering what level of chaos the world is facing because of a tweet or a decision made by the Deranged One. Anyone serving in this administration has sacrificed their honor as a result of pledging allegiance to a proven boldface liar. For these sycophants and for the Republican congressional members who use this liar for their own purposes, the good of our country comes in a distant second to their agenda. In this new America, a small-minded man, with the aid of Fox "News" has trashed institutions like an independent media, our judicial system, our intelligence agencies, endangered our environment, and he has given fringe racist groups a bold, new standing. If their is a god, may he or she have mercy on the USA for electing this menace and forever polluting the world.
3
Don’t just focus on the Leader. Focus on all who are enabling him, all fellow travelers, all the turncoats. None of this would be happening were it not for the Republican Congress and the evil sycophantic fascistic cabinet, Fox News, all who digest it, all the monied contributors, all the creepy....this has happened before. This is what we fought against in WWII. The current anti-FBI GOP fabricated witch hunt is right out of Comrade Stalin’s playbook. If you avert your eyes, turn away, retreat...you are complicit. This has happened before elsewhere, in the very countries that rebuked the USA yesterday at the UN. We helped rebuild the very same Western European countries who rightly reject us today. In that respect, 70 years ago, our country did right by the world in the final analysis. I pray that our friends abroad are prepared to help us this time around.
, despite the scorn and abuse heaped on them by this Regime and it’s shameful abettors. We’re taking names, too.
13
Wow. Brilliant. I leave you with this:
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
2
I come from agricultural middle class America of many years ago. When I visit that part of the country, families are now gathering together, moving into houses and communities where they can be close to each other, protect each other. They are the children of now-passed war veterans, who once worked very hard to make something of nothing. Our government has taken so much wealth from their children, so much hope for the future. Yet these now aged children remember their parents' sacrifices and gather their own children and grandchildren as close as they can. It isn't the common man and their ignorance that is the enemy, it is our leaders' greed and corruption. Even the most ignorant Fox media watcher knows what's really going on, they just haven't figured out how to approach a solution, and that could be a real problem.
4
I hope the media will stop shying away from equating what Trump and his minions are doing to recreate fascism. It is happening again, and we can't be afraid of naming it what it is; "Deplorable."
10
Inspired.
2
I am surprised that I am surprised that the republican leadership is behaving the way they are.
1
Roger, this is a must-read column for every thinking American and I hope, for the Democratic Party leadership and elected office holders. You had me until your last paragraph. I do not share your optimism, your confident use of the word "will." How so, Roger? How will "stoicism, decency and contestation prevail?" Most of the dems I know feel so beaten down after this onslaught on the general welfare, and that is after just one year of this travesty. Where and how to go forward...
4
Trump Presidency is a "Stress Test" for this Democracy, Republic, Experiment, Phenomenon or whatever else you care to call it. Either this entity can withstand the destructive forces that are pulling it appart and emerge unscathed, or it will shatter into a thousand pieces ushering in the collapse of the very thing that makes a nation Civilized: The Rule of Law. I dare say that so far, The Republican Congress in lockstep with "their" Glorious Leader are conducting this test and the Fools are cheering them on!
1
A beautiful, heart-felt, expression.
Clear, kind, and firm.
We have a choice; which will we follow?
Kipling's "If,"
or Eliot's "Hollow Men"
[This is the way the world ends .... not with a bang but a whimper.]
3
Such a beautiful and frightening description of where we are as a country. Roger, you have been nailing this painful experience for months now and I, for one, am grateful to see the feeling in my gut put so aptly into words. There is one thing I don't understand, however. Why are the toadies so frightened? They will not be executed a la Saddam Hussein if they fail to genuflect. They can stay or leave, believe this nonsense or not, but why the nauseating subservience?
2
The tones and moods of the country in the 1920s-30s vs. those now...what
are the essential differences? There was ugliness en masse then, racial
and ethnic violence, mass ignorance, mass resistance to transcending
ignorance, media manipulation spewing propaganda
of the ugliest sort. There was crass display
and celebration of vast wealth, indifference to mass deprivation (at least until 1932), and resistance to confronting that deprivation.
The ineptitude and corruption of the political class, can
one really assert that it is worse now than then? The amounts of the bribes
are higher, but the image of the politician on the take at
all levels can hardly be said to have begun post Citizens United or
the koch brothers (and a few others) buy out of an entire political party.
This society seems deranged, unmoored, deeply
split into separate mental universes, incapable of more than acting out
fantasies of power or resistance. But was the rural/urban
split 90+ years ago less dramatic?
So what are the differences specific to the present? Is it only
that today's Charles Coughlin tweets instead of orates? or that he has much more power? Is it that public pushback to this more ineffectual?
The fact that power is now concentrated within a particularly odious clique
of pompous nitwits does seem new.
The belief in the importance of a common civic society seems quite vitiated.
This seems different.
The promise of a better future...has this too withered too much?
2
Congratulations for expressing so well what many of us feel; disgusted and anxious. So when are we as Americans going to really wake up from the long apathy that got us here? I offer words of wisdom from those who in the past defined democracy and its preservation.
"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."
Baron de Montesquieu
"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men."
Voltaire
"Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."
John Locke
7
"It must be itself, a certain idea of liberty and democracy and openness, or it is nothing, just a squalid, oversized, greedy place past the zenith of its greatness."
Great lines to consider, especially this time of year.
I know the America I want, and the one Trump is bringing us.
Resist.
2
It's not the America a lot of us hoped for. But it is reality. Now stop whining and start fixing.
4
"Throughout this column, I have been quoting Kipling’s poem, 'If"
I'm thinking more his "Recessional":
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
1
Thank you Roger Cohen! You succinctly stated what many Americans believe. We need to resist this President with all lawful means and we need to vote his supporters out of office at every level of Government.
4
A beautiful poem with which to rally us all to the existential challenge before us-to rid the world and ourselves from the pestilence which is Trump. We may all feel emboldened that this time we know collectively what is at stake. There will be no divided ticket, there will be no Jill Stein/Russian collaboration or FBI shadings over Trump’s rival. There will be the national equivalence of cold blooded self defense as we protect ourselves from this monster we let loose.
3
Incredibly well written and very stirring - but it's just making the choir weep harder.
How do we reach the millions of people who still support this travesty? There are those who will read these words and sneer - they are a lost cause. But I have to believe some the ~ 40% that still support can be moved if only they can be reached - how?
1
Let them reap what they sow. Sometimes you gotta let people be slapped around a bit.
1
Roger, I am with you all the way in empathy and beliefs. But I suspect we might have to go back to re-instituting the tactics and strategies of the Continental Army in 1776 and thereafter in order to regain our country again. Better that than to live in fear.
3
Bravo. A wonderful column based on a wonderful and insightful poem.
2
If it was only just me, I'd never surrender...
I look in my children's eyes, and I ask myself: "Is this the nation I should be raising them in?" Nearly 400 years ago, my ancestors looked around England (and, briefly, Holland) and said NO. They had the courage to build a new society in a new land.
Decent Americans may win elections, maybe even most elections.
But as long as we have a nation where a majority of the white people cast their votes for Donald Trump, Roy Moore, white supremacy, oligarchy and kakistocracy, this nation will be a broken one.
A house divided can not stand. I don't see how different election results can change that.
1
Lincoln won the Civil War. Remember that. He saved the Union. Now we must save that Union.
1
I have known several people with cancer, some survivors, some who knew they were terminal, who declared that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to them. It rid them of the petty dresses that our culture would have us believe are important. They woke up and saw themselves, evaluated their lives and got down to the business of what truly mattered.
I see djt and this congress as a cancer on our nation. It is an opportunity to wake up and declare who we really are and fix what is wrong, to take our government back from the control of the plutocrats. Or we may wake up and find out that this IS who we really are--if that is the case then I fear our republic has died.
6
Ideals are uniquely human quirks.
We lose so much when they are abandoned - especially when they're abandoned for money and the social power money wields.
If Roger Cohen's article does not make you yearn to vote (tomorrow) and next year then we are indeed, lost. Many years ago it was said that "Freedom is not Free." Americans, especially the large, comfortable middle class has become complacent and accepting of mediocrity.
Mr. Cohen's rational and thoughtful presentation is truly a call to 'arms' via the ballot box in Nov. If we fail to respond, all will be lost.
3
I fear we are quickly moving beyond the time where we can rely on our "Institutions" to save us. I fear we are quickly moving past the time were calling and writing Congresspeople will be enough.
WE the PEOPLE need to begin to take matters into our own hands, not through violence, of course, but by actively and aggressively participating in the political process. Vote, help others register and vote, legally push back against gerrymandering and voter discrimination laws. March, protest LOUDLY, and let the voice of the people be heard.
Join and donate to organizations that fight to maintain the rule of law. Work for an honest, open, and free press by supporting those that best do so. Insist on honesty and fair play in in your dealings with others. Respect and listen to your neighbor, and find what common ground you can with those who might disagree with you.
Maybe my words are needlessly alarmist, and America's core will hold. If so, no harm will come from taking the actions above, and they will serve as a reminder of America's true values.
If however, what we are seeing is truly the early warning signs of becoming an oligarchy, or fascist dictatorship or (insert your worst fears here), than we must begin to ACTIVELY act now.
We can either peacefully rise in protest and action now, or we will have to violently revolt later. Either that, or we can choose to live as sheep, and play with our I-phones and VR games to numb the pain of losing our collective souls.
3
Thank you, Imagine Moments. Now is the time to act. This election of 2018 may be our last peaceful chance to take back America.
A large chunk of people in every country want a strong leader, someone who will make them feel safe and affirmed. Trump has tapped into this emotional need exposing the desire for a strongman in many Americans. These people will accept anything they are told because of how it makes them feel rather that if it is logical or truthful. Since it is impossible to argue with feelings, especially fears, until Trump does something to make people feel insecure, what we have today is what IS America.
Thank you Roger. If hope springs eternal then maybe this is America.
2
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves." Trumpism, in all its malignancy, has always been part of American culture and good does not always triumph over evil. I fear we're not even close to rock bottom. Trump didn't appear out of nowhere, he was elected in large part out of spite.
1
Sure focus on things that are not part of his job, this is America where the rule of law is supreme. Where I saw the president this morning give great credit to others, then shake hands with military families when he wanted to be on his way. I see a president who in his appearances and Tweets is different, but in his official duties is excellent. Not a problem if you respectfully disagree, but for three more years he is president. Learn to deal with it or not as you think best.
I saw a President to dodged the draft with fake bone spurs, paid for by his rich father. I saw a man my cousin replaced in Vietnam with his best buddy who died there in Trump's place. I saw a grifter who cheated poor people out of their money with bogus college degrees; they finally had to settle for pennies on the dollar. I saw a man who insulted minorities and the disabled. I saw a man who brought in the stench of Bannon, Mnuchin, Pruitt and Zinke. I saw an unqualified loser approaching senility, flying to golf courses in AF One, eating junk food. I saw a fat load riding around in a golf cart, waddling around with a yuge behind. I saw a man who has brought his predatory family into the house once inhabited by men like JFK and Eisenhower. I saw corruption in living color. That's what I saw. And, I will deal with it, together with millions of others, at the polling place.
3
Beautifully written, Mr. Cohen! Thank you for strengthening our courage and our eternal optimism. And now we must VOTE THE BUMS OUT OF OFFICE.
4
Thank you Mr Cohen for speaking out loud - the truth.
It is sickening to see on TV - all those Republican Congress people kissing the 'Trump's Ego' in order to be co-dependent upon his dysfunctional personal power.
May 2018 - provide all Americans with the stark truth - reveling to everyone without question - who Trump & Pence truly are - so, we can freeze them with our Mid-term votes - bringing the Democrats into power to be the ones who truly clear this Trump Swamp.
Please keep speaking out loud - the American people need our Free Press more than ever - you are our Front Line to the Facts as they really are.
Thank you - Wishing all of us a Happy New Year come November 2018.
10
Yes, Roger, this is not America, and it must be fought for and won. My question is whether we can prevail over the blatant and rampant gerrymandering that has taken place over the past 10 years. For I fear that the House of Representatives will only represent one side of the aisle for a very long time to come.
9
Gerrymandering is theft, no matter which side does it. Should be illegal.
4
All of you, please take some Dilantin or Keppra so that you can stop your collective apoplexy and become reasonable. While there is serious trouble in America, not all of it, nor even most of it resides with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump did not cause the average life expectancy in the United States to decline for the second year in a row nor for the US to rank 31st in the world in average life expectancy. Life expectancy has been steadily increasing in most other developed countries. Declining life expectancy is indicative of a panoply of serious social problems that have been festering for many years under the watch of BOTH political parties.
When democratically elected Officials can be forced out of office without ANY due process, without having been officially charged much less convicted of a crime, that is also indicative of serious moral rot.
Conversely, Messers. Mattis, Tillerson, Mc Master, Kelly, and Dunforth are accomplished men of moral integrity who are doing a good job of steadying the Executive branch in spite of a suboptimal boss. They are all serving because America needs them. If there truly is a compelling reason to invoke the 25th amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office, these men can be counted upon to do so. We need them to ensure steady competent leadership should a real crisis occur. Please do not disparage them as “terrified toadys.”
Removing Trump will not remove the underlying political and social rot that preceded him and caused his election.
1
but it will be a start, let's go
2
Kelly lost all dignity when he suggested the Civil War could have been avoided with some sort of compromise. Compromise with slavery? Compromise with holding human beings in chains, using them like farm animals, housing them in dirt floored hovels, lashing them with whips? That compromise? Tillerson the former CEO of the company which polluted the Arctic shoreline? There is no honor serving under a crooked grifter. There is no honor speaking for an unqualified bigot. Honor rests with those will stand up and vote him out. Trump dishonors his office and all those who are willing to serve him. He is just the biggest pig at the trough.
Some things are worth fighting for. I'm not convinced America is still one of them. I hope and pray 2018 renews my faith.
5
My favorite poem, and one that became the favorite of my oldest son. I never imagined I'd see it used to point out the travesties of this dumpster-fire of a presidency. Nice writing, Roger Cohen. "If" now becomes "We Must." We must hang on and turn-out the Republicans at every level in 2018 and 2020. We must, because this country and its ideals and its people are worth fighting for. We must.
11
As Roger Cohen once wrote: "You can live somewhere for decades and still in your heart it’s no more than an encampment, a place for the night, detached from collective destiny. "
I guess for Roger, America is nothing more than an encampment. For the rest of us, who were fortunate enough to be taken in by this glorious country, it is home.
God Bless America and God Bless the POTUS.
1
America has something rotten and destructive at its core. About 30% of us are opposed to democracy. They are authoritarian personalities, racists, white and identify mostly with evangelical Christianity. They are relatively older and they vote. They are encouraged, organized and funded by libertarian think tanks and donors. Their goal is the overthrow of democracy. If the rest of us do not become more actively engaged in our political processes and vote, this 30% will be successful, as we have already seen. We, People, have neglected our democracy. We elected Obama twice and failed to vote in mid-terms, and then complained that our president didn't get enough done. There is much analysis of the many reasons for this lack of voter turnout and there is probably truth in most of it. Nevertheless, if we fail to vote in very large numbers we will not have a democracy any longer. We are saddled with a large minority that will bring us down if we continue to ignore them. If they make it harder to vote then we need to try harder to vote. If they gerrymander districts, we need to try even harder to vote. and once we have won enough elections we need to create laws that guarantee and protect everyone's right to vote in fair elections.
I am scared. Even with all this recent attack from the GOP our local elections in Clark County Washington experienced a 30% turnout. That's not sustainable for a democracy.
18
Trump is better than the alternative!
Rsmith: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I would appreciate if you would provide us with a thoughtful and reasoned explanation for the one which you express here. In what ways do you feel that Trump is “better”as it relates to you and/or the country as a whole?
I could certainly present my case for a different point of view.
4
Putin?
3
Why would anybody want a president who thinks, is capable of speaking, and has a conscious? (not Trump)
1
"This is not America. It must be fought for and won back." Mr. Cohen, I hope you are right, but I fear you are wrong.
Why? Because it isn't the words and deeds of the "leaders" you described. It is because of the one-half of our citizens who believe they're living in a wonderful America -- one to which only they, white, Christian, straight, are entitled. The America the rest of us believed we had a place in is clearly gone. Will it ever return? At this point, I wouldn't bet on it.
Understand that half this country's people absolutely love what has happened to America. They don't care if this country is shredded, as long as those they deem less "worthy" continue to be targeted. Continue to have their civil rights stripped. Continue to be marginalized. This half of America loves what Trump has done -- and what's worse, they'll fight to keep Trump's America for as long as they possibly can.
There is no reconciliation. Fight for the America the rest of us once believed in? Get ready, because we will need to. Along with this hateful half of our citizens, we have all three branches of government against us. The damage that has been done this year will take decades to undo, even if we take back one house of Congress in 2018. And if we fail to accomplish even that, I shudder to imagine what this country will look like in 2020 or 2024. But I do know one thing -- decent people do not tolerate fascism forever. And there will be a fight. We will not go quietly.
9
I saw America a few days ago. My wife who is from Spain was taking her Oath of Naturalization in Sacramento together with 1400 others and another 2000 friends and family. It was a simple ceremony. The part that got me was when the lady from the immigration service read out the whole list of countries from which the new Americans had come. It was a long list, 85 different countries. She asked that when your country was announced you should stand up and let us all see you. Most of the countries just had a few who stood up. Mexico, the Phillipines and El Salvador had the biggest numbers and shouts and applause.
The joy and relief in the big hall was moving. I thought to myself that this is the real meaning of America that I have not felt in a long, long time. To see that all these different people from all over the world, from Canada to Khazakstan, who all took the risk to leave their homes and did the years of work to become American citizens, that now they have agreed to vote and attempt to get along with all the others, there is some hope there for us all. And that this president who is attempting to divide one group from another for his short-term personal political gain will fail in the end. America is not for one man.
13
This may be America, but the enlightenment ideals of it's founding are displaced by an alternative underside of our development. We need to remember our ideals and adapt to our times.
1
Our founders also appreciated science.
As an American, it's not easy to remind myself of this, but the people of every great political entity, at least since the time of the Romans, seem always to have assumed that their society would last forever.
No society ever has.
9
Kipling is not my favorite poet.I would rather put my beliefs in prose.
I belive in the basic decency of the majority of Americans. I think that they will disown the awful GOP in 2018 and 2020 and get rid of Trump in the process one way or another. Mueller's investigation will find the facts despite the GOP's effort to create false diversions.
I am not a Polyanna. I am old enough to have grown up during the Great Depression in which my family at one point had to put its furniture in storage and lived in one room in a rooming house, sharing kitchen privileges with other residents. My parents could not afford to send me to college but I got scholarships to college and law school and worked part time for living expenses. I served in the Army during the Korean War. I have paid my taxes without complaint. believing with Oliver Wendell Holmes that taxes are the price of civilization.
Hang in there We will see better days again.The current administration is an aberration.
6
Roger, it is being sewn in the churches --- they are propped up by the monied, and they're using every kind of mind game on the people to keep them in their fold, voting for their interests and against the interests of all. It's almost time to have someone turn the tables over on the money changers again.
3
Inspirational. Just what I needed to pull my shoulders back and persevere.
7
We need to remind ourselves and the world that 3-4 million more people voted for Clinton over Trump. The fact that the candidate with the most votes doesn't even determine who becomes our president has made me rethink the very idea of American Democracy in the first place and if I even want to live here anymore. Lately, I've thought a lot about my ancestors that escaped the Pogroms and poverty of the Shtetls of Eastern Europe to come here. More and more I wish they had gone somewhere else. Living in Seattle, I feel like I can escape the supporters of Trump and everything else Trump is destroying but I'm becoming less optimistic by the day. My wife and I are expecting our first child soon and more and more I ask myself if it's time to go to another country. If Trump really is such a great negotiator then the least he can do is arrange a pact with Canada or Europe, literally anywhere in Europe, for all the liberals and the rest of his "enemies" to relocate. Then he can finally become the Supreme Leader of the Evangelical Fundamentalist Republic of America and let the rest of the world move on.
9
@Fish: I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you are setting forth a cowardly point of view. Your ancestors--and mine--braved incredible dangers and hardships to get here and build a better life for their children, childrens' children and future generations. Stay and fight. This is OUR country.
1
You forget, the fascists need your money! They will not give up their slaves easily.
All I can say is welcome to the game of "hardball" that is being set in play by the oligarchs. The hits are brutal. The game is played viciously. The powerful want to take us back to the age of Andrew Mellon. That is their truth, which in their minds makes today's truth a lie. They will stop at nothing. This is a well run and organize Clausewitzian war campaign to achieve their ends. And just like Clausewitz's hero, Napoleon, Trump will not be defeated until the opposing sides, until the Left gets unified and organized as well.
My wish and hope is that Al Franken's leaving the Senate will be a blessing in disguise. He had the energy and intellect to start and lead such an effort to mobilize our country against these incredibly well organized oligarchical forces.
4
This put me in mind of David Bowie’s great song This Is Not America. Its lyrics more apt today than when it was written.
1
To have the America we believe in, we must awaken The Force and launch a unified Resistance to the Galactic Trumplican Regime.
Everyone can be a hero of the Resistance. All you need to do is to contact your Democratic precinct chair and volunteer to help get out the vote. No pressure--whatever small part you feel able to play will give you such a feeling of empowerment! You could stuff some envelopes, prepare info-packets for distribution, deliver voter information to a street or part of a street, knock on doors if you like, ferry some elderly or disabled folks to the polls--and you get to meet enthusiastic, like-minded folks in your neighborhood. It's inspiring to be part of a team that is actually fighting evil.
What are the tasks? We must register voters; inform them about candidates and their positions; make sure they know where and when to vote early; and encourage them to vote in every election and vote Democratic, however reluctant they may have been to support the candidate last year or however hesitant they might be about this or that plank of the platform. The Trumpublicans unite their voters behind gut-grabbing lies and false promises. We must unite our voters, urging them not to be distracted by single side issues, but to focus on the one noble cause of restoring truth, justice, and the American way.
4
Mr Cohen, your heart must be breaking, mine is. This is the second of your recent writings that have brought tears to my eyes. Tears from fear of the scenario you report and tears of joy in the hope that you give.
11
I can see a viable slogan as such for democrats to embrace.
3
It is difficult to feel anything but despair, while my president, suspicious and jealous and needy, at once lashes out at the world outside his head, and turns this country and its citizens inward. The adulation and opportunism of his appointees and beneficiaries are sickening. The plundering of the commons through regulatory capture, presented as a "victory," is maddening.
I said at the beginning of this administration that "we'll be OK." But it's clear now that "OK" is far in the future, and this won't be a mere four year pause, but a terrible destruction that will require determined rebuilding for years, if not generations.
We must now "watch the things [we gave our generations] to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools."
2
Utterly terrifying. The descent of America. In what feels like slow motion.
5
The irony is that it is the left, not the right, that has to make America great.
5
On TV, the talking heads are snickering at the dishonorable performance of the senators praising Trump as the moral champion of the day.
Here, he's taken for a spin as Great Leader.
It's not funny. What we see is astonishing, but we shouldn't be astonished. It may be ridiculous, but we shouldn't giggle. There are no good metaphors or analogies. He isn't the leader of North Korea. He's here. He isn't a schoolyard bully running around with a pack of impish punks. He's the president and they are the Republican congress. Their power, and its consequences. are no fiction.
They are thrilled with their audacity. Look at what they can do. They imitate the mess of a president, and become as brazen. Then they improvise, all on their own. Look what they can get away with. Unimaginable that this would happen.
Massive dishonesty and massive, massive, dishonor.
It can't become regular.
It can't be a metaphor or a joke.
11
Thank you Roger for this article. Maybe now after the first year of this utter catastrophe for the country, we can review what we have learned from this. There are no conservatives, only people who use the term to masquerade the cronyism that has taken over the Republican party and allowed them to rob our children's future so that they may reap the riches they do not deserve, today. The evangelicals of this nation have surely shown themselves for what they are and that is being without principle. They refused to follow the teachings of Christ - we have now turned our backs on the sick, increased the taxes upon the poor and, when you factor in the soon to be increasing health care premiums, the middle class too. And soon, the wealthy crony Republican members of Congress paid for by the Koch's and Mercer's and other company, will cry about the deficits so that they may take away the social safety net, as minimal as it is, to further enrich themselves. We all know the truth now that this was never, ever an honest argument about policy but only about using lies as a means to increasing power and wealth for a few. Maybe many of the racists deserve this, but the rest of us do not. They supported this man while knowing the facts that he abused his wives, other women, of his business dealings that demonstrated fraud and the shameless incompetence that led to his collusion with Russian gangsters. If only a hundred thousand Bernie supporters had voted, none of this would be. Remember.
4
Don't be fooled, every single Republican politician is behind Trump, when if ever they disagree, it is just part of the dog and pony show. As the rule of law, free speech and a free press are destroyed and the reputations of our institutions are reduced to a joke. It will be the Republicans that will be responsible. I have tried to contact my Republican Congressmen, but it is utterly futile. I have no representation in Washington. I'm the subject of the dictatorship.
6
Perfectly said. Thank you Mr. Cohen.
1
In recent years I have become European. Instead of "head West young man" I've done exactly the opposite and don't regret it one bit. Even here in dysfunctional Italy, I can see why the rest of the world no longer admires or wants to emulate the U.S.. Face it. You're being crushed by the weight of your own self deception, your lack of empathy, your smug arrogance and your increasingly malinformed citizens.
The picture that accompanies this essay captures perfectly the incredible disconnect between the flag (the ideal) and its shabby, run-down surroundings (the reality). Americans would like to believe they live in that "shining house on the hilltop," when the truth is, you're nothing but a Potemkin village, falling apart and without substance.
Sorry to break you the bad news, but the future is here and you're falling behind instead of moving forward. I wish you the best, but lately, you seem to be your own worst enemy.
1031
The end of the American Empire (as with all empires) happens slowly and then collapses all at once. To everyone's great surprise, except for those who saw it coming from a distance, re : "Mission accomplished" 2003. In Europe, it's easier to have that distance.
8
Yes please everyone who dislikes our country should move, immediately would be great.
3
Every time I read or hear Trump or one of his people say "the American people", they lie through their teeth; the American people as if we're some swarm of generic sycophants like Pence don't support these goons and exploiters, their siphoning of wealth, or their turning this country into a non-existent version of the 50's they've fabricated. Americans do not support this. America is not this.
23
I can only weep reading this. Trump is a neo-fascist bully and a symptom of what the GOP became over the past 10-15 years. For one thing, the toady Pence has a job: To keep that part of the base in line that believes God sent Trump to hasten end times. That pre-Enlightenment group actually exists in our country. And the greedy mega church "preachers" live off such insane views and feed them. That is the Pence role--his rhetoric is not arbitrary. Preachers come to the WH and tell Trump they believe God sent him. Bonkers. Then there are the hateful, resentful types who just love the thuggish language and pure ignorance of Trump--it is like the Rush Limbaugh sugar fix of cruelty and crass racism. They need it now. This is our America. No common base of knowledge, and no love of democracy any more. MAKE NO MISTAKE: The GOP has decided that if the "wrong" people are the majority, they want to end majority rule. And they are succeeding. Chuck and Nancy need to cede leadership to strong, outspoken Dems who can connect these dots, or my friends, your children and mine are doomed to autocracy. The packed Courts will make sure of it.
858
Earlier I was reminded of a saying that goes along the lines of this:
"There are two types of men who amount to nothing: Those who cannot do as they are told and those who can do only what they are told."
It struck me that in Trump and Pence we have them both. Perfect bookends.
3
Spot on! Bowie's "This is not America" playing in the background...
3
This part of your excellent comment bears repeating:
"the toady Pence has a job: To keep that part of the base in line that believes God sent Trump to hasten end times."
and:
"The GOP has decided that if the "wrong" people are the majority, they want to end majority rule".
6
Trump and company should read another Kipling quote:
Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.”
— Rudyard Kipling
960
Here here L martin! Love that quote from Mr. Kipling.
4
'Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.' - Plato, The Republic, ~380BC
3
So it is Roger, it is so.
3
Thank you--
3
It is the American people who are tired of being lied to by the elitists who write these columns. No terror attack in Sweden on the previous night in Sweden? So what. Sweden has had quite a few problems with uncontrolled migration not to mention the run away truck in the middle of Stockholm maybe a night later, not to mention the country being known as the the rape capital of the EU in recent years. The people are thankful for a president who does not continually lecture us about the “religion of peace.” We are smart enough to make distinctions. As for the Russia story? Where’s the beef? All the digging and it keeps coming back to Democrat dirty money paying for a fake dossier to help elect a tainted unpopular candidate, Hillary. Finally, a change in the weather will not convince me that the actions taken by AT&T, Wells Fargo, Fifth Third Bank, Comcast and Boeing this week are not great for the people. For all of the moaning in this paper about income inequality, plans to lift the minimum wage and give out nice Christmas bonuses should be a cause for celebration in your alternative universe.
2
Why are you even reading the New York Times as it no doubt falls into the category of Fake News ?
I live in Europe and the last time I looked no one was calling Stockholm the rape capital of the EU. And it DOES MATTER that Trump refers to an incident that DIDN'T HAPPEN. The man is a laughing stock outside of America. And by association, so is America.
Enjoy your oligarchy and short-lived tax cut. The world will get along just fine without you.
6
Brilliant, Roger!
4
The Republicans, since Reagan have been corrupt liars. Of course, now they have their "leader" and they will bow kiss Donald Trump's shoes, if it means a payout for the tax heist. The Republicans have no shame, and will use whatever means possible to gain power, and service their corporate masters, and the wealthy top 1%. The stupid voters who have fallen for the Republican shtick, will hopefully realize they've been conned...I doubt it.
2
I'm a leftist who has been criticizing the FBI and the CIA, and institutional racism for many decades.
But right now I'm trying to save my constitution and the institutions created by the constitution and constitutional laws.
Right now all of the progress we have made over the last 500 years, including the Magna Carta are under attack.
The ideals of a republic, separation of powers invested in co-equal branches of government, are under attack.
Trump attacks the judiciary regularly. He makes personal, often racist attacks against judges, and constantly declares rulings irrelevant. He pardoned a sheriff who was convicted of contempt of court because he repeatedly ordered his subordinates to ignore court orders. He nominated judges to the federal bench without even a first year law student's knowledge of the law. He supported Roy Moore, twice removed from his judgeship by other judges for ignoring the constitution and ordering subordinates to ignore supreme court decisions. Moore also wanted to cancel the last 37 Amendments to the constitution, including the woman's vote and the end of slavery.
Trump attacks the FBI, firing the FBI director, over what he called "the Russia thing," and now Fox is accusing the FBI of being the KGB.
Trump's core base identifies with enemies of the USA: the Confederacy, Nazis, The Soviets (Putin is KGB), and the terrorist Klu Klux Klan.
The enemies of the constitution are dismantling our republic from the inside.
2018 may be too late.
4
But how do you fix the 46% of morally defective people?
At some point one needs to abandon ship......
9
Left off the bottom line of the great poem: "...you'll be a man my son."
Our Great Leader is a boy, a perverted Peter Pan who will never become a man.
8
Thank you for your op-ed.
I share with you my rewrite of
the song "America" lyrics
by Samuel F. Smith.
"My country tis not me,
Mine stood for liberty.
but now it stings.
Land of the people’s will.
Now is a corporate shill.
And every penthouse hill
Now owns everything.
My native country thee,
Once stood for being free.
Thy name was dear.
I loved the rocks and rills
Where now stand fracking drills
And National Parks are filled
With logging gear.
Let music swell the breeze
That comes from burning trees
Glaciers give way.
Land richest on the earth
Obsessed with women’s birth
And pro insurance dearth
Vote them all away!
My country tis not me.
Mine stood for liberty
To Thee I sing.
I want my country back.
Get rid of every PAC.
Don’t let our lives be hacked.
Or make Trump King."
Sung to "God Save the Queen"
15
excellent sad truth
1
Bravo! Excellent column Mr. Cohen.
6
Brilliant! This is the 21st century's "J'accuse" and Cohen it's Zola.
5
Yes, yes, yes.
2
there must be some mistake....the usa is a land, we're all told, of rugged free thinking individualists who kowtow to nobody. that's why Donald trump, who i also compare to Mussolini, didn't become potus.
oh.......
7
Sigh. In "this 'murica, few will bother to slog through this column, let alone be able to identify Kipling.
3
Brilliant and terrifying. Trump is - I believe - a bumbling, thoughtless (and therefore unintentional) fascist. He does not comprehend the threat to democracy which he represents and is, therefore, the more terrifying.
Perhaps his idiocy, insidious as he is, will also be his undoing. It is difficult to believe that rationality and good will will not win the day. Unfortunately, in the short term, they sometimes do not.
11
Trump the Great Leader of the greedy and those who love totalitarian nationalism...
How far we have fallen and how much lower will we go as a country before we ride ourselves of this small little man and his toadies...
3
Amen, and thank you.
2
The final line of the poem is the least applicable to our alleged "President" and his toadies in the cabinet, as well the sycophantic boot-lickers in the Republican Congress.
They are neither men, nor women, as they are human invertebrates more concerned with their dysfunctional political party and personal ambition, servile to the bidding of their morally bankrupt donor base.
As an after thought, why do the wealthiest and most fortunate persons in American society always need "more"? Will they ever have "enough"? They decry meager benefits doled out to the poorest of us who need them most, while poor-mouthing their way into preferential tax treatment and elimination of estate taxes which can historically be traced as far back as the Egyptian Pharaohs and Julius Caesar.
4
Let them reap in infamy.
2
Murga. The Feudal lands that replaced the United States of America. Welcome to Dark Age America.
3
Steven Miller and his French right-wing philosophers will destroy the United States of America and Trump will not take his goofy baseball hat off.
What a gigantic joke.
3
If this is America, how does Roger Cohen get through entire column about the fall of the republic without mentioning the word treason?
If this is America, and Fox News says the FBI is executing a coup d'état, how can Roger Cohen avoid speaking the simple truth? It's not the FBI, it's Donald Trump who is executing a soft coup d'état right before our eyes.
If this is America, why isn't Roger. Cohen attaching the word traitor to the Great Leader' sycophants, and naming names?
If this is America, is everybody afraid to tell the truth because they fear the consequences, that they will be used by the Great Leader as rhetorical foils to increase the viciousness of his mad campaign to bring down the republic?
Oh, and if this is America why is Roger Cohen or anyone else suggesting we'll survive? History suggests that we will not, that our fundamental institutions have been so damaged that the people's faith in them will never recover.
Poetry isn't going to save the republic. if this is America, I don't know what will.
Put this, from the Great Leader's playbook, next to Kipling and Arendt: "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan." Hitler, Mein Kampf
2
Remember, Trump is someone who characterizes the practice of his own religion thusly: “I eat my little cracker, and I drink my little wine.” So much for the Christmas spirit. We have the grinch and Ebeneezer Scrooge all rolled up into one gross ball of coal in the Whiter-than-White House. God bless us everyone.
1
If this is America...you can have it.
3
Beautiful Op-Ed piece. Years ago I memorized that poem, and something in it happens to me every day. But since Trump was elected, everything in it happens every day! He is a real monster. How he appeals to the electorate I truly don't understand. Mass hysteria, and the willing suspension of your identity to a man claiming to be greater than yourself, just like Hitler, is the frightening conclusion.
3
I've always wondered which kind of person I'd have turned out to be in the 1930s: one of those who saw through Adolf Hitler from the start, or one of those who were taken in for a while, to their everlasting shame? It's easy enough in retrospect; but how, I worry, would my brain have worked when immersed in the attitudes and propaganda of the times?
The case of Donald Trump has tentatively given me some faith in myself. Seeing through him from the start was a snap, so perhaps I'd have been proof against Hitler as well. Or would I? After all, there's no blinding aura of competence about Donald Trump or his crowd. There's no oratory that can cast a spell even on thoughtful people. It's not really much of a test.
So I must content myself with being glad I didn't face the moral challenge of the 1930s, and glad to see so many people rising now to the challenge of our own time. That rising, I believe, will prove to be America.
3
Trump is the inevitable culmination of a country that was founded on the genocide of the indigenous people and the kidnapping and enslavement of tens of thousands of innocents. We have collaborated in the murder of tens of millions of people throughout the world, many of them children. Like Weimar Germany, we have put our own selfish, narcissistic concerns above the general welfare, and we have reaped what we have sown. Ignorant and irrational, we elect vengeful, cruel buffoons (with precious few exceptions) to our legislative bodies. The current state of affairs should come as no surprise.
3
Indeed!
To continue in the poetic vein, Trumps has defaced our good name as Americans. And as Shakespeare wrote:
Iago:
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Othello Act 3, Scene 3
I go to various international academic conferences, and I'm embarrassed to confess I'm an American. Trump has stole and sullied our good names and we will be stained forever by association with this ignorant stupid lout, Donald Trump.
2
Hear, hear!
The Trumpification of our beloved Country has made choosing my resolution for 2018 easy: resist.
2
Thank you Mr. Cohen.
1
I am a 64 year old, white republican and when I read an article like this it brings tears to my eyes. I can’t believe the American public elected such a narcissistic, unqualified, stupid person to the highest office in the land. I also can’t believe the way the Republican members of congress have sold their souls to this person. These are indeed dark days for the United States of American, there is a shadow of hate and despair cast over the land. But I have hope that our republic will survive Donald J Trump, and we will be a better nation for it. I have always believed people are at their best when things are worst.
10
Michael Wishman, thank you for commenting today. You brought tears to my eyes. Perhaps thinking people of both parties can work our way out of this-- we are better together.
3
The biggest losers in Trump's America will be the suckers who fell for his spiel and voted themselves out of any government aid in the future. It is both comical and sick how the adults in this government feel that have to worship and praise our supreme leader. Nothing new, it has been happening forever in countries like North Korea. He will go down in history as the worst president ever, who would have thought George Bush would look so good so soon. He is so obviously unfit for the job, just hope he doesn't start another war we cannot afford because somebody offended him.
1
“And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss”.....
Well, Trump has done that throughout his sorry and sordid life, but always had daddy’s money and then the bankruptcy courts to fall back on.
There is no “bankruptcy court” for America when he drives us to ruin.
He must go and take those stomach churning sycophants with him. VOTE America !!!
1
Thank you, Roger Cohen, for this amazing column.
"...watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools..."
Hopefully we can get through this dark time and then begin working to repair the damage and rebuild the destruction.
"...you'll be a Man...!". Unfortunately for us, this POTUS will never be a Man.
Note to self: Support whoever opposes Diane Black.
"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
Thomas Paine would understand what we now face.
"The Christian Mythologists, after having confined Satan in a pit, were obliged to let him out again to bring on the sequel of the fable."
Paine might have applied this from "Age of Reason" to analyze what had occurred at the love fest of delusion and book licking yesterday.
Amen brother.
2
I just find the giddiness of these people so jarring. The joy in the White House when the Russians came to visit. The Twitter preening, the cabinet taking turns genuflecting, the post tax cut photo opp; a sea of happy labs with wagging tails and the grotesque behavior of Vice-President-turned-fan-boy Mike Pence to be utterly bizarre. It’s like a dysfunctional family hell bent on pretending everything is utterly amazing and Daddy is not a dangerous idiot under federal investigation. The amount of effort this up-is-down-rah-rah routine takes is exhausting.
4
Amen, Mr. Cohen.
3
Thank you Roger.
This is indeed not America as It was intended, how it has led , innovated and represented. A place where all have equal opportunity and are respected.
We will need to fight very hard to get it back, it may be painful, we may have to retrench but I am hopeful that I can be proud to be an American once again.
1
Your beautifully written column made me cry for the America I have known all of my life, until now. I will do my level best to "Hold on!". And I will do all that I can to resist. I can only hope my fellow Americans will join me.
876
You are not alone!
4
I will. Every vote counts and I will vote! I will stay awake and pay attention and do my part.
5
YES---be loud, be vocal, join the marches, write your congressmen often---remember, democracy dies in the darkness and when 'good men & good women' remain silent!
5
Thanks,
I recently decided to make stoicism my intended way of thought. It does help in these times to keep your eyes on the ball when they are using every magician's trick in the book to keep us distracted from the important stuff. The tweets are for the most part distraction. They can not be ignored, but they should be put in perspective. I am more concerned about a racist appointee to a judgeship than I am about a racist tweet. As long as we focus on the tweet, we don't have enough space in the news cycle to pay attention to the appointee. Especially when dozens come through at a time. That is their strategy. And it is working.
644
Your comment is exactly why the NYT has to be held to a better standard. The media decided last year to treat tweets as news. That was a mistake. I tweet is a variant on gossip. It is not policy. It is not a road map to anywhere.
Where in this publication has there been any real reporting on the fact that about 200 people are being tried for crimes that could get them 50 years in prison for protesting the Inauguration in January? THAT is news. THAT is an attack on our First Amendment right to assembly. If we let that go, we are well on our way to being silenced completely, to a world in which only corporation have the right to free speech and to lobby our officials.
Act Up got it right when they made a slogan of "Silence = Death."
6
I am an 86 year old Korean Vet and I have never felt so much shame for my country as I do now. Perhaps it is not my country. I don't recognize it.
1683
I’m with you Desmo! At nearly 73. I could perhaps call myself an “Education Vet” - having been back to school so many times. And being schooled daily in the shameful outrages which have become our daily ‘bread’ - in this bleak time.
So I too wonder: “Perhaps it is not my country.”
I too no longer recognize it.
8
Ohio went to Trump; who did you vote for?
1
Margot, Ohio overwhelmingly wanted Kasich.
Kipling's If is a brilliant piece. I have called on it often during times of trial; trying to get up that hill with a 100lb bergen on my back, dealing with the injuries that go along with repeatedly getting there, dealing with tossers who haven't once attempted anything difficult. But more so these days in trying to manage my own slowly dwindling brain by memorizing these wonderful old poems.
There is one more line which these fawning politicians should adhere, lest they deem never again to reclaim their pride:
"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue."
6
Sorry, but this yet another example of how the coastal elites view recent events as opposed to us “anti-intellectuals” in fly-over country.
It’s also telling that you use a picture of an unknown shack with an American flag. Did the condition of that home occur in the past year, or over the last 50 years of so called anti- poverty programs?
Bonnie, perhaps you will cheer up if you read a poem or two. Maybe the words of others more eloquent than you might make you aspire to some clearer thinking. Or you might just enjoy a good deep healthy breath. Merry Christmas.
4
Perhaps a poor person who still believes in America hung that flag on that modest structure.
3
Always remember, NSDAP got 38% in 1932...the percentage of authoritarians in any nation, no doubt.
7
The obsequious, sycophantic behavior of Pence, Hatch, Ryan and other GOP "leaders" was absolutely disgusting and only matched by Trump's smiling acceptance of the undeserved praise. What ever happened to personal dignity?
17
They left their "personal dignity" at the door of Midas the king. They are beyond reprehensible. History will not be kind to these men who sold out our nation for pieces of gold.
2
This country is not called America. It is called The United States of America. America refers to the American continent which is comprised of North, Central, and South America. Actually the continent is named after Amerigo Vespucci who was an italian navigator and cartographer that mapped the northeastern and central coast of Brazil. Please stop referring to the US as America, it is simply not accurate.
8
Pick your battles, man. There’s a larger point here. We all attended 5th grade. We get it.
2
Sorry you are wrong. The US is the only North American, Central American or South American country to be called America. In Germany, I am called an Americanerin (Ami) for short, not a vereiegestaden von American. The Americans changed the song ‘God bless the Queen’ to ‘God Bless America’. It really doesn’t matter. It’s just that there is enough to slam America about now that your comment is ridiculous.
1
Never, till this moment, have I decided to print out an Op-Ed and hang it where I will see it every day!
This is a piece to read. And reread. And ponder deeply.
The photo that accompanies its, I plan to save as well. It is a painful reminder - along with its flag - of how low we are sinking.
America has become a SINK HOLE! Originating at the White House. Which has become a Blight House. Or Bleak House.
Mr. Cohen has written a masterpiece!
15
The complete capitulation and servile attitudes of republican leadership are so dramatic that one can't help but wonder what forms of direct enticements and overwhelming pressure were put in play to achieve such total moral collapse, particularly among those republicans we held some hope for. How much will we ever learn about what has gone on behind the scenes during and since this election? One thing I do know is Trump can't be managed and anyone associated with him ultimately pays a price.
7
Thank you for your thoughtful wishes in recovering America from it's current predicament, a stinking hole of despair and misrule, with no precedent, anew in it's malignancy and pettiness. This is certainly not the America that immigrants created, by escaping religious and tyrannical persecutions in the 'old country' (Europe), if I could take the license to discount our plundering of the land of the American Natives and the unforgivable racist abuse of slavery. This country used to abide by some appearance of 'law and order', and decency, until we voted for lascivious brutus ignoramus Trump, ready and willing to destroy any vestiges of this democratic society, currently an institutionalized violence by way of an Oligo-Klepto-Plutocracy. But as much as I hate to bring it up, 'we' elected this vulgar demagogue in spite of all the baggage we knew he came with (a consummate liar, a proven crook in all his dealings, a discriminator, a xenophobe and mysogynous pervert; and further, an 'expert' in sowing fear, hate and division, to rein unimpeded); the fact that 'we' tried to fill this vacuum (created by the complicit cowards, and hypocrites, in a republican congress) by elevating an unscrupulous thug to the presidency, is a judgement on our feebleness and gullibility, and in need to have our heads examined. Let this be a lesson, if humble enough to admit guilt; democracy can be a passive sport only at our peril. Let's fight for the truth, however maligned, based only on evidence.
2
WE did not elect this guy. Trump lost the popular vote. But we all share responsibility for allowing our country to be corrupted by venal politicians and judges who have made the dollar a measure of speech.
If we don't get money out of politics things will go from our current very bad to much, much worse.
1
If 'we' did not elect this corrupt ignoramus, then why are we keeping the anti-democratic "Electoral College", a vestige from the old days (when only white men could vote), so to deny people's will via the popular vote?
Really Beautiful Roger.
2
There was something very sinister about the obequious thank fest yesterday. Almost like a hostage video. Whether it was the fawning with the necks so tilted and they would look like they would break or the shaking tremulous "adulation" of Orin Hatch, senior statemenand fourth in line to the presidency. A few weeks ago many of the folks who bent the knee yesterday had been sounding the alarm about Thump's mental and emotional competency. All falling in line now like quaking blackmail victims, pasting scared smiles in their faces to please a mad child king.
16
I swing back and forth between the urge to flee an existential threat, and the determination to fight this situation as a momentary deviation from normal.
When I was younger and naive, I marveled how many Jews sat tight at the onset of the Holocaust, until their opportunity to flee slammed shut. Now I get it.
I watch the evening TV news, and see these aberrations presented as normal, or not presented at all, as in the weird, twisted statements of adulation and fealty being showered on Trump. Why do I only learn this stuff on the late night “comedy” shows? Or, thankfully, within columns of the New York Times and other genuine news outlets?
I am so torn whether to stay and fight the demise of our formerly decent democracy, or quickly liquidate and flee to a safer country. Both require enormous stores of energy and resources, which are more scarce in my twilight years. And is any place in the world truly safe when/if the most powerful country in the world goes down?
The stakes are higher than we comprehend, and the hour is late. And still I dither.
21
Stay and fight. That is how we win back our country. Fight with every weapon you have - we will prevail, and this blip in our history will be studied for years as an example of what happens when we take our beloved land for granted.
5
Stay, and help us regain and rebuild America. Don't give up the ship, or this nation.
1
Peru might be good, Mexico's too close.
Canada will be overrun by the fearful who
speak only English. Do you have a passport?
What skills can you offer? A bank account?
It's only as good as the value of its currency.
What's a dollar worth?
Bring your soul with you. Let it be seen.
Roger,
The damage has been profound. But a lot comes down to next November. And everything, really everything, rides on the Democratic party smartening up -- really, really smartening up -- with an ironclad viable candidate in 2020.
13
No, this is not America. This is not the country I was born in. That country, that shining city on a hill, that beacon of hope, may be gone forever. We may someday get some semblance of it back, but it is like iron: It bends but does not break, but it is never again the same.
7
And yet. . . I still don't know how we will recover.
Sure, more need to vote, and more need to vote blue.
But what then? How do we overcome the political polarization? How do we "get over" the fact that even so-called moderate Republicans (btw, there is no such thing, and that means you, Sen. McCain) vote the party line more often than not? How do we undo the damage, to our own people, to our global relationships? How do we rein in the American plutocrats and oligarchs? And these are just a few of the thousands of puzzles we are going to face in the 2018 election cycle and beyond?
3
70% of America do not approve of Trump.
We are in the vast majority and make our voices heard!
It is healthy to vent with comments on NYT articles/opinions. But we must complain directly to the very people who can do SOMEthing about our issues...that is, Congress.
Our outrage will not fall on deaf ears when these GOP representatives (even those who are not your representatives) are flooded with relentless communications...emails, tweets, instagrams, snail mail, phone calls...every single day. There is power in numbers and we hold 70%.
2
Strenuous defense, that is what democracy thrives on, and strenuous women, students, Latinos, and black Americans have demonstrated that Americans still have it. So does the reborn free press, the professors of actual facts, and many old Bush and even young Bush GOPers. Warren, Sanders, Maddow, and progressive Dems are still strenuous in defending the rule of law and the welfare of all citizens.
At least 57% of people oppose tRump. 19% of his base, very base, voters have turned away. If we are strenuous in opposition for just 11 more months, tRump will become a hiccup in our arc toward justice. Let us make him the last proto-fascist so long as we practice strenuous defense of our American dreams.
3
"IF", is exactly the wrong message!!! We, the American people, made huge, catastrophic mistakes, going back many years, both passively and actively, that resulted in our Constitution being desecrated, and in reality, rescinded, now, daily routinely by the government. If there is a lesson in this tragedy, it is that what we, and our children, try to build in our economic, political, governance, and social structures going forward, not be an exercise in stupidity and futility - i.e., not rebuild the same structures that destroyed our democracy.
I have my list - free market capitalism, the worship of greed, the refusal to confront climate change, overpopulation, the failure to evaluate the risks of technological advances to our society, as well as the presumptive benefits.
The Constitution is a marvelous document that attempted to protect us from the evil angels of human nature. Our capacity to learn from our mistakes is one of our better angels. A society, to borrow a phrase from Bob Dylan. "not busy being born is busy dying"
2
My new year's resolution is that, on Jan 1st, I stop condemning The New York Times and one of its foremost op-ed columnists for not reading the sociopolitical winds, and so early, and so fervently, endorsing Hillary Clinton.
Bernie Sanders would have made a great president.
2
Look forward and build the future. No time for regrets.
Trump and his GOP toadies use the all-too-transparent trick of accusing their enemies of being, or doing, the very things they are busy with. They are methodically and steadily dismantling the greatness they promise to restore to America.
It is difficult to feel anything remotely resembling hope this season as the Republican political steamroller flattens everything in its path. It is not just Trump! It is the entire GOP that aids and abets his hooliganism. This is how nations sink into darkness and depravity.
Those of us who see these vile men and women for what they really are must fight harder. Democrats need to wake up and start making as much noise as they can to promote their alternative to this madness and position themselves as the forgotten American's true advocates. Voters need to get rid of EVERY Republican on the 2018 ballot, from governors and senators the lowliest county clerks.
2
This piece nearly perfectly captures the spirit of an awakening in America to the dangers of sleep-walking our way into decline and despair. I hear these same fears daily from friends and strangers alike. Recoil and resistance are autonomous reflexes to the abomination that is this administration. From Trump to his Cabinet to Congress the rot runs deep. Retaking America will require action from patriotic resisters. The battle for the hearts and minds of the greedy, the venal and the ignorant has begun and the ballot box is the grail. Let's get to it.
3
The Republicans had always sold their brand as the defenders of democracy, the staunch crusaders against the communist menace.
Now we see what "defenders of democracy" they truly are.
For a few pieces of silver and a place among the power elite, they folded, abandoned a 200+ year ideal.
4
Bravo Mr. Cohen, Bravo!
1
WOW!
What an indictment of the current America. Roger Cohen has outdone even himself with his assessment of the GOP and its grave-digger in chief.
I wil have to re- read the article to catch the despair and inner rage of what is happening to this former great country.
It will take generations to undo the damage done by the GOP and their ilk.
1
And Cohen doesn’t even mention the role apparently played in this wanton chaos, by the enthusiastic anticipation, by too many players, of The Rapture. It is terrifying. Samantha Bee did an exposé this past week that chilled me to the bone. This is mass mental illness. When asked by a reporter if he was ‘ready’ for The Rapture, a well known evangelical who happened to be at an airport, lifted his bag and replied, “I’m all packed!” What?! I’m not kidding folks, they seriously want the world to end, and they have the ear of the mental defective president. I can barely wrap my mind around this level of mass destruction institutional insanity, that has found its way to the top.
3
I think he's great!
You're right, Roger - this is not America - this is the "great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River" that Trump and his Republican sycophants are drowning us in to fill their swamp with self-serving, political toxins at the expense of American ideals and institutions.
1
Just wait. Someone will give him a ring to kiss, and that may cause us to take to the streets. George Washington is spinning in his grave.
Please let's not start calling him"Great Leader" this will catch on and he will become what we have inadvertently willed
4
Carol Williams--Try reading "mensch" for "man"--if you must-- and then focusing on what Roger Cohen is saying, rather than dragging feminism by the ear into a poem that was written in 1895.
1
I kept a copy of Kipling's "If" on my cubicle wall for 15 years.
In the corporate world you're either a threat or a target. I took a lot of comfort and serenity from those words when the corporate rats, posers, egotists and back stabbers came around...
1
I will leave Kipling to you. Shakespeare is mine. If this is America then let Trump be "hoist on his own petard."
1
They should have elected Bernie Sanders instead, but when people get mad, they get stupid. This is how nations fail.
Trump tapped into resentment about wealth inequality and turned it absolutely on its head, getting elected only to make wealth inequality worse.
Look for more of the same, if the Uber-rich, the corporations, and the financial industry keep squeezing the margins of the 99%.
1
If we can agree that the Republican Party exists primarily (some would argue exclusively) to represent the interests of the wealthy, and the Democratic Party generally represents less well off Americans, how do we account for folks who receive less than $50,000 of income per year, have little or no savings, and who religiously vote for Republican candidates?
A genuinely high-minded person might say something to the effect that the individuals in question are "sadly uninformed."
However, when one considers that the vast number of these people, however we choose to describe them, are in the millions (probably tens of millions) and, AS A GROUP, have the power to A.) FURTHER ADVANTAGE THE WEALTHY (is this even rational?) OR B.) potentially INCREASE THEIR OWN MODEST PROSPECTS (but certainly not further disadvantage themselves), i.e., by voting for Democratic Party candidates, the LESS high-minded, among us might opt for the less charitable designation "morons" when describing this particular cohort of voters.
Perhaps worth repeating (from a year ago):
"Transfer of Power”
From class to crass;
From thoughtful to vengeful;
From a model of cool to a model of cruel;
From careful humility to misplaced virility;
From real-politick to reality-show politics;
From an occasional smoker to a self-avowed groper;
From a constitutional professor to a constitutional aggressor; From an eternal optimist to a tone-deaf narcissist;
From a cabinet of advisors to a corral of yes-men;
From global inspiration to global perspiration;
From a man of character to a mere character;
From a great dude to 'il duce.’
On with the great American experiment!
1
Bravo! The "Great Leader" should become the go-to moniker.
It's impressive to read the despair in this article and many of the comments. Certainly a reflection on the past year. As much as I detest Trump, I refuse to despair in this fashion. I have faith in who we are as Americans, and our institutions. I refuse to allow one man to destroy my faith in America. This is America, Mr. Cohen. Stop wallowing in your self-imposed misery. It's pathetic.
1
Democratic Congressional representatives are weak, meely-mouthed cowards. We have watched the tRump administration and Republican Congress decimate science-based agencies and add bloat to the Swamp with hacks and cronies. All while Democrats moan and sit on their hands. Republicans would have been up in arms, vocal and in the streets from the day after Election Day onward. Chuck & Nancy perpetually look like someone stole their lunch money. Will Democrats ever grow a spine? The party has made me ashamed to call myself a Democrat.
1
So eloquent and so beautifully to the point. I am in tears.
Who could have believed that our nation could be so diminished in one year, and who could have believed that scene of Republicans giving up their last ounce of honor , if any honor were left after the travesty of this congressional year?
35
Thank you Roger Cohen for stating what so many of us feel. As a friend put it, we will survive but our values are being trampled beyond recognition. I can't help wondering if there are Republicans left beyond those who have already defected who understand through the sound of their one hand clapping, that the response beyond an attenuated minority of plutocrats, pols and true believers is dead and shocked silence, if not outright fear and disdain?
Nor is the revulsion felt here at home limited to our shores. The difference between DiCaprio's cry, "I am the king of the world!" in "The Titanic", a possible title for the era of Trump, and the president's is that Leo's character was well aware of the irony and jubilant nevertheless just to be free and alive in a beautiful world. With Trump there is no irony and the world he claims as his own is obviously in his view there for him to plunder, pillage and rule over like an authoritarian thug who must be obeyed.
So, while the Grinch and his paying or tax funded guests celebrate the upcoming New Year, those of us still living in a world of facts, evidence, ethics, conscience and boundaries will have to greet 2018 with inner resolve, keeping our heads for the fight ahead.
9
Those of us who our mourning the loss of healthy political process in the United States should hold Requiem for a Dead Democracy events and read this column out loud together in public places while we still can.
11
If this is America, where scientists are treated like Galileo was, and observed data is declared false and even to mention it is unacceptable.....
If this is America, where truth is trashed, and the leader's favorite broadcast company is complicit with propaganda, lies and craziness--like a Fox...
If this is America, where poor children are left without healthcare while the wealthiest get tax cuts.....
If this is America, where 19th century coal mines are reopened--just in time to give the middle class and poor a lump of coal for Xmas....
If this is America, where higher education and lifelong learning for most citizens is no longer seen considered a virtue, enabling everyone capable to aim higher....
If this is America, where more than 3 million citizens are allowed to suffer for months with no water and no electricity, stranded on an island...
If this is America, where Bible Belt pastors sing praises of a man who constantly is a liar, who is notorious for philandering, and who swindled millions from people in a worthless " university"....
Then it is time for us to awaken from a national nightmare. The winter solstice is passed, the darkness will start to recede and a new year is almost here.
Let us maintain our values, our strengths, and never forget: Freedom is not something won once and forever. In every generation, we must renew our commitment to freedom and equality.
41
God, I hope that was cathartic for the author, because it certainly wasn't illuminating for the reader.
3
Really Robert?
English is my third language, and I found it very illuminating......
4
Speak for yourself @Robert
3
I have always wondered, since Trump owned or ran all those casinos in Atlantic City, how could he not be in bed with the mob? I am not reassured when he now acts like a capo. Will he next ask them to kiss his ring? It's like a scene out of the Godfather. I feel like we are in a movie and I keep waiting for it to end.
9
Mr. Cohen,
Thank you for a beautiful column. Your message of hope is well taken for I am on the verge of despair.
11
More than a place, more than an economic powerhouse, more than a global superpower, America is an idea. We set our ideals high, and have not always lived up to the country we purport to be. Especially now. For those of us that cherish the ideals of America--the "city upon a hill" (Winthrop), with its civil liberties, its "unalienable truths" (Jefferson). its "unfinished work" (Lincoln)--these are gut wrenching, soul searching times, full of daily despair and hourly hopelessness. We see now that we are not immune to the winds of history, to the whims of personality and megalomania, and this has been a rather bitter pill for many of us to swallow, to be sure. We thought this couldn't happen to us; that it has still feels surreal, raw, incomprehensible and utterly exhausting to live through.
But just as we are not as noble as we have believed ourselves to be, we are also not as morally bereft as we feel right now. After all, if Lincoln could find the civic faith to proclaim in the midst of a brutal civil war "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" with the still-fresh stench of dead soldiers in the air, then surely we can find it within ourselves to psychically rebuild from the democratic rubble we're living through. "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray" that 2018 gives us the moral courage to light a path out of this darkness.
10
Thank you, Mr Cohen for reminding me of the poem of hope that was a centre piece of my childhood. Another childhood recollection is of the Saturday Evening Post to which my maternal grandmother subscribed. It portrayed an America that seemed like the stuff of dreams. No doubt that portrayal could be criticised for overlooking that era’s ills. But it stuck with me until my first visit to your shores in 1980. There were many after that, as three cousins had made their lives under the Stars and Stripes and, later, one of my daughters lived in Boston for 10 years. But now I have no wish ever to return to a country that has sunk into insularity and sick self-absorption. A country that descends to bully boy tactics at the United Nations. From afar, I find it impossible to understand why and how this has happened. - to understand why a man who was and is obviously deeply and dangerously flawed got into office and, thus far, is allowed to stay there. I am left puzzled in the extreme and very sad.
9
I fear not the injuries done by the Republicans, but the incompetence of the Democrats. When Kirsten Gillibrandt, who I admired and hoped would go so far, takes time out of her busy - I assume - schedule to castigate an inarticulate actor for daring to suggest that inappropriate touching is less offensive then violent rape, we seem doomed.
Where are the leaders on the left? Mr. Sanders is great at fulmination, but not at governance. For example, corporate tax rates, a secondary tax relatively insignificant compared to the primary individual tax, should go down, but the tax on pass-through income should not. This is obvious - seriously! - to anyone with even mild familiarity with the tax subject matter unless ideologically driven.
Where are the leaders on the left? Mr. Cohen is eloquent at bemoaning the ghastly situation in which we find ourselves, but we need more than ever better version of 'o tempora o mores!'
Where are the leaders on the left? Leaders who can actually get elected, not just strut and fret their hour upon the stage. Let's find a competent, effective white male to command an electable majority, or truly extraordinary women or minority candidates who can do the same. I really don't care which, but demanding an unelectable candidate just because of their gender or ethnicity at this juncture is intolerable. We need to win.
6
Zeman- for the thousandth time- Bernie Sanders was not a far left candidate! Large majorities of voters agreed with his policy positions in almost every area!
4
It was in the summer of 1928 when my mother, living in Norway, was asked by the captain of a German flotilla of torpedo boats training in the fjords of Norway to go with him to Germany. My mother was 21 and he was in his late 30s. He was tall, bright, engaging, commanding and a good dancer. But her heart was set on immigrating to America. "Why would you want to do that," he asked? "Germany is the country of the future. And Germany has a new great leader." She declined his invitation. Yet, after his flotilla sailed and from along the way, he wrote letters asking her to please reconsider. He sent pictures from his time with her in Norway. From Kiel he wrote to please come to be with him for Christmas. He would be meeting with the new great leader, the furhrer, who would be pleased to meet her. She still declined his invitation and came to this country six months later. Twelve years later he was the commanding officer, the Admiral, on the newly commissioned battleship Bismark, the pride of the German navy, as it was sunk on its maiden voyage. He was loyal to the great leader to the end. My hope is for more than that for America.
12
"tthe Great Leader’s plundering of truth and thought." Truth and thought are not the only thing Trump is plundering.
4
In the short span of one year Trump and the GOP have alienated most of Europe and the nations of the UN. I used to have pride in our form of government but that pride is being squashed by the bully leader we elected. He has replaced the heads of our governmental agencies with incompetent, hateful, spiteful people with an ax to grind. Pruitt stands in spiteful disdain for the EPA, forcing many workers to leave-----some willingly some by force. There is no climate problem! How can anyone be so dumb and stubborn as to ignore what our best scientists and those around the world are saying. I want my pride back and I believe we can gain the upper hand in 2018. We owe it to ourselves to fight against this lot of thugs and vote in 2018 in spite of the vicious gerrymandering they have set in motion. I have had enough Trump wins for a lifetime. Let's force him out at the voting booth.
6
This piece is beautiful. I am going to read Kipling' poem now.
I have no words to describe the disgust I feel for this president and the Republicans in Congress. Anger, depression, helplessness come to mind. Hopefully if we fight against him, we can stop the destruction of democracy before he destroys it. I truly fear that things will get much worse before they get better.
1
Trump has been a corporate dictator his whole life, answering to nobody. He has never held elective office and his basic attitude isn't going to change now.
Russia's worst enemy in America is the FBI. Trump is currently trying to discredit the FBI in any way he can.
Two major checks on the president, the free press and judiciary, are also under total assault by Trump. One of Trumps federal judge appointees this week withdrew his nomination after his testimony revealed he was completely clueless about his job. A federal judge. Purple heart war veteran and Republican former head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, is being treated as a traitor. Daily we hear chants from Trump about "fake news", laying the groundwork so his drool cup crowd of supporters will disregard any sordid discoveries the press brings forth about Trump.
The message from Trump is crystal clear. He is working day and night to establish himself as an authoritarian dictator.
7
The Republican tax bill now completes the Kansas-ification of America. If you want to know what our future is, just look at the unfolding disaster in that benighted state. Eliminating their public school system is actually on table! Kansas proves that Friedrich Hayek was a charlatan: the road to serfdom is paved by Austrian economics.
For better or worse, Republican economic policy is not sustainable. Better because the tax bill, by accelerating the bitter impact of income inequality on white affluents, means the Trump-Ryan-McConnell axis of delusion will collapse sooner rather than later. Worse because there's no guarantee that a mass of armed white affluents, suddenly discovering that the locusts at the top have played them for saps, won't replace the axis of delusion with an axis of evil.
In a greedy, restive and grasping society like ours where we all believe we're entitled to limitless opportunity, rapid expanding income inequality is a kind of social nitro-glycerin.
5
It is worth noting that the son to which "If" was addressed was killed in WWI, an event that somewhat cooled Kipling's simplistic patriotism.
The current situation is often compared to the Gilded Age, but I suspect that Edwardian England is a better fit. We too are an empire that has reached both its pinnacle and its finale. Kipling's "Recessional" is worth taking a look at, particularly as we know how things all worked out.
1
Last year about this time, nervous at seeing the incoming president continue to cross lines of accepted leadership behavior that would be reported, with optimistic neutrality, as "unprecedented," I began reading autobiographies of citizens in Germany, Russia and Hungary whose countries, during and after WWII were being squeezed by encroaching dictatorships. The chilling commonality among them was the incremental nature of the squeeze. Like the clicking of a chain that once tightened could not be freed. When I read Roger Cohen’s excellent piece, I was bathed in chills of recognition and gratitude. Yes, this is happening. Watching the adulatory spectacle yesterday I, too, thought of North Korea, and their “Dear Leader." Yes, it is this bad. I felt deep thanks for the clarity of Roger Cohen who so eloquently points to how we might stand. Not silent. Not mindlessly ”resisting" but with staunch upholding and defense of "truth and thought." Thank you, Mr, Kipling, and thank you, Mr. Cohen. And really, thank you NYT for keeping at it.
9
With you, but I have a problem with the constant reference to the banning of key words at CDC in the press. As I understand it, the words were banned from budget request to Congress. It is appalling that CDC grants stand a better chance of getting funding without key words, but it is a far different thing to ban their use from budget request from a hostile Congress than to ban them uniformly from the CDC.
Great courageous, intelligent and impressive article! thank you!
4
State of America at Christmas time 2017?
In the confused America of today I'm currently practicing the Larry McMurtry method of keeping sane. Not only am I reading a McMurtry book at the moment (Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen), I am practicing McMurtry's read deeply, become a great reader, method of overcoming challenges in life. I can think of no better method, one available to all Americans, of getting some sense in life.
Just study McMurtry's own life for proof of that. He recounts growing up in Texas in the middle of nowhere, of pioneer stock, being afraid as a child of the family's poultry pecking him, with no books, and starting from scratch by some books given to him by a cousin and then getting more books at the stand at the local drugstore.
From that empty plains beginning he talks about learning to write like cowboys drive cattle, herding sentences and paragraphs like cows, penning them into books, and he acquired thousands upon thousands of books like acquiring vast herds, becoming a great book collector and dealer in books.
If McMurtry could rise from nothing to all that, surely Americans can read at least a few books during their lifetime, enough to have at least some sense in their heads. In fact it might be historically Western society is at a point where people have no choice but to read widely and deeply to survive.
Many people have spoken of our need to become lifelong learners today. That is close to needing to be a widely read person.
1
I have begun to place more emphasis on intentional kindness throughout my day as a micro-protest to the comic-book villains coming to life all around. But I have also made it a practice to maintain social media and in-person relationships with people whose political opinions differ from my own - and to engage as respectfully and constructively as I can, even when they insult and rage. By engaging in thoughtful dialogue and refusing to give in to insults and name calling, I have seen - and I hope been part of the reason for - toxic social media threads becoming much much more calm and civilized and refocused on common goals. Ultra-nationalism and authoritarianism thrive when people are scared. I find if I can hone in on that fear and help people recognize that their fear may be real but its cause may be misplaced, that we can have a very human discussion. I believe that this is part of the way forward.
2
Without constant, widespread vigilance by an enlightened public, democracies will inevitably collapse into oligarchy, tyranny, or anarchy, according to Aristotle and Plato. America has descended into oligarchy, and tyranny threatens. Anarchy, it would seem, can't last for long, for nature abhors a vacuum, although 45 and his Cabinet have existed for nearly a year, thus implying that his administration is more tyrannical than chaotic. Guess we're not at the lowest circle of government yet. T'is the season of hope.
1
How does one fight this? It has to be a bi-partisan coalition of those who do want to "make America great again." It it's just democrats, it will lose credibility and be called "bleeding heart liberals." I would like to see a diverse coalition - young/old, conservative/liberal, men/women, straight/lgbt who can respect each other's diverse views, respect one another and work together. How do we get this going?
1
Thank you for this timely and bracing commentary. Kipling’s “If” is just the (poetic) stiff drink we need for facing the second, and hopefully last, year of this thoroughly disappointing presidency. Beyond the myriad ways in which this administration has already harmed the country—more by executive and administrative fiat and incoherent policies, at least so far, than by legislative enactments—the moral bankruptcy and ego-driven nature of the president’s leadership has had detrimental global consequences (e.g., the unnecessary weakening of relations with many of our country’s traditional and long-standing allies, the ratcheting up of tensions with North Korea, and, perhaps most notably, the man crush our president has for Russia’s Putin). It can be tempting to become demoralized by the actions of this president and the tenor of his administration, but I believe that many have heard a wake-up call and will be constructively pushing back in the coming year against the man-child now in the White House and his intemperate and isolationist policies.
I only pray that you are right, that in the coming year we can prevail. At least I'm trying to do my part.
I am a patriot. I am showing it by cheering the United Nations condemnation of my country. I am showing it by protesting, writing to my representatives, donating to progressive causes, and voting. I do not soften my opinion in the company of others who support this current travesty.
Dissent is patriotic. Perhaps the most patriotic of stances. To engage in dissent ensures our great democracy will no end with a whimper. Resist, and never accept that we are broken. We cannot allow the abuse of this administration to turn us into what T. S. Eliot titled "The Hollow Men."
3
Dissent so far doesn't exactly seem to be doing the trick. It'll have to be something else or let's declare that we've lost and leave the field.
1
ADN -- Saddest words I've read all day, and so true.
One of the best columns yet from one of the best most perceptive observers of life in America. A perfect evocation of the way America is being cheapened and vulgarized by "a squalid, over-sized, greedy" man child, the most successful con man in American history.
One of my greatest fears, as I bear the pallid, denatured journalism and compromised vernacular of today's journalists, is that the new generations coming into the profession won't have the context and depth of historical knowledge to accurately see and report, as Orwell put it, on what's in front of their noses. Mr. Cohen is the ideal combination of age, wisdom, and justifiable moral outrage.
2
Thanks for giving voice to the corrosive sadness and stress of watching our core values squashed by a craven man-child and reminding us that America is ours to save - or rebuild. But we can't stop at Trump. He is just catalyst and cover for all the 'I've got mine' Republicans who have been fighting for years to return to the good old days when white men were white men and everyone else knew their place.
1
This year has taught me how patriotic I am. I used to say that if our baby president was elected I would move to Mexico. But here I sit and type. I love this country. But if this IS America, my love is being tested, worn thin, and I have never been more embarrassed. Must we we hit such an abysmal low before we can rise above the muck? The 2 party system is broken.
As Winston Churchill said, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voters."
1
Beautifully written...now, it is ours to turn those words into revolution and regain this great country of ours.
2
This IS still America...but it is barely America. This is the first time one person or one party has completely abused all our conventions and beliefs to such a degree. The GOP has torn the social fabric completely apart. For the first time we can see what happens (as a result of Citizens United) when billionaires run the country. Not even the ones in the cabinet, but the money men that are willing to spend $100 million to win the presidency. Could the office be worth so much money that these people would spend that much money? Now we see it. We're being treated like serfs by these nobles, like they are the Romanovs. We don't want a revolution here, but we must find peaceful ways to turn this around.
1
This has been evolving since the moral majority began to nurture what is negative in us. Ignorance, anti-intellectualism, and intolerance of the other. What was see as a virtue, our "youthful innocence" as a nation, is now willful ignorance of virulent populism.
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union was our sworn enemy. Why? At least in part because it proposed the opposite of a democracy. How? Through lies, through fear mongering, through what George Orwell called doublethink and its progeny, doublespeak. The tactics employed today throughout the administration are absolutely aligned with Soviet techniques. Look at Sarah H. Sanders, the mouthpiece. She lies without compunction, and even though many recognize the lies, nothing can be done to silence her. The United States is a very new nation in the history of the world. How ironic that we are now becoming Soviet.
4
The best Christmas gift to give anyone over 16 is a copy of one of Hannah Arendt's books. If this isn't Germany in 1933, it certainly acts like it.
2
A great column and use of Kipling’s poem to marvelous effect.
Question: does our Great Leader see in the North Korean Great Leader his own image? Is that why our own is so bellicose and so immune to any concerns about ordinary Americans? Do dying children and mass malnutrition, a degraded environment, and isolation from much of the rest
of the world, inter alia, lie in our future while the minions surrounding our GL eat, drink, be merry, and laugh all the way to the bank?
Perhaps we should be paying more attention to the realities of the situation in North Korea so as to have a peek at what just might lie ahead for our own under the sway of GL Trump.
As a German citizen I would like to thank Mr Cohen and many of the comments writers for this article and the spirit and literacy it shows. I've joint the Breitbart Newsletter lately to build my own opinion on it. I was so scared reading it and reading all the hatred in there. People like you give hope for a better future. Thank you.
1
A great piece. Thank you Mr. Cohen.
1
I applaud undeservedly your critique of a president who projects both the laughable bluster and fearful vindictiveness of a tinpot dictator, but I wish you hadn't called on Kipling, who wrote of the "white man's burden" during the American misadventure in the Philippines at the end of the 19th century, to frame it. Pushing our weight around will only motivate and expand the roster of our enemies, but so will patronizing those we might consider our "lessers," or just less fortunate than us. Responsible leadership has to recognize the dignity and rights of all people, nationally and globally.
Great column. Thank you Mr. Cohen. Unfortunately this Christmas we are having to ring alarm bells rather than Christmas bells. The question we have to ask ourselves now is, “Can it happen here?” Can we actually become a fascist state with a ruler rather than a president? Anyone who thinks that isn’t what Trump longs for is deceiving themselves. For so long, no matter who we elected, or what reactionary steps we took, I always believed that we Americans were too smart, too respectful of our Constitution, and too dedicated to our ability to participate in government decisions to allow a conman to take the reins of power and undermine all that we (not him or his family) fought wars to defend and take pride in. But this week, watching the Republicans fawn over this conman because he supported their need to payback their wealthy donors was like a wake-up slap in the face. It also was a painfully unavoidable answer to the question - Yes, it can happen here and those are alarm bells you’re hearing.
3
I noticed the Kipling. Nice touch. However, once again, I gather the sense of collective grief and disbelief. The ending message runs counter to body of the message. I think we need a little more optimism. The "Great Leader" is obsessed beyond anything with winning. As Faulkner taught us, "The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools." The President has paved his own path towards destruction. We only need patience to witness the result.
Thank you for an excellent column.
This is America, just turned upside down, where lies are to believed as truths; there is no justice for all, just Trump justice; there is no healthcare for all, just Trump, his administration, and the GOP; there are no tax cuts for all, just for GOP mega donors and the wealthy; there is no reality, just the narcissistic nether world inhabited by Trump; there are no Americans other than white wealthy ones; there is no equality unless a mercurial Trump mood swings your way; there is no Constitution to uphold as Trump and his anti democratic minions are tearing it apart; there will be no justice for all meted out in packed Trump courts where members die in these lifetime jobs; there is no justice for all, just for the precious few; there are no qualified Trump appointees just inept, clueless Trump sycophants and knaves; there are no morals, ethics or principles in place as they get in the way of profits; and there are no needy people to embrace or empathize with or care about unless they have assets totaling in the billions or more.
Trump has always pointed his finger at others for crimes he has committed. He and his appear to be living in dire fear of upcoming criminal charges. Rather than face the music he is changing the tune to discredit our system of justice, the FBI, and Robert Mueller who can withstand the scrutiny. Trump, however, came into our WH with the most disgusting and disgraceful reputation ever held by an American president.
3
An eloquent statement of Truth!
..."or it is nothing, just a squalid, oversized greedy place past the zenith of it's greatest"...
As always, the words you pen just blew my mind to the truth and clarity...but how do we survive when all I can recall is the pray for the dead and tears fill my eyes?
Can the Republicans convince America that trump is the greatest President we ever had, have too many of us drank the Koolade and given up on fact and reality?
Only in discarding the high minded rhetoric and realizing that this is America can we see ourselves for what we are and change. We are many things and this ugly rendition has always been around. Luckily, in a Democracy, we have a tool to stamp down the Great Leader and his minions. The real task will be in not letting future generations forget what happened and repeat the mistake. Our fragile planet cannot abide too many Great Leaders.
Trump may be "Mussolini’s understudy," but Mussolini was a far more formidable character than Trump. It is difficult to name a suitable lightweight to whom Trump might fairly be compared.
That has always been obvious. The Republicans were desperate for anybody but Trump, even Ted Cruz whom they hate.
Yet the Democrats managed to lose even to Trump.
Follow the advice of the poem quoted so extensively. Stop moaning and bellyaching. "And lose, and start again at your beginnings / And never breathe a word about your loss."
Start by cleaning your own house. Get that log out of your own eye. Even her own hand-picked replacement to head the DNC now says Hillary cheated Democratic voters. Fix your own mess.
Another quote, "I will survive."
"At first I was afraid, I was petrified,
Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong,
And I grew strong, and I learned how to get along. //
Go on now, go. Walk out the door
Just turn around now 'cause you're not welcome anymore"
We can do better than either one of them. And we will survive this. The US is far greater than anything Trump can do in a few years.
4
The writer of this message proposes a fake equivalency between Trump and Clinton. This is false. Clinton was respected worldwide, Trump is reviled and despised worldwide. Clinton would have never brought the US to the brink of war with North Korea or to the brink of triggering a war in the Middle East just to satisfy the people who voted for her, which is exactly what Mr. Trump is doing. He's just trying to satisfy his base by talking a tough game with the dictator of North Korea and changing the US embassy to Jerusalem, thus defying international law and decades of diplomacy. Shame on the writer for promoting this false equivalency between Mrs Clinton and Mr. Trump. No, with all her weaknesses, Mrs. Clinton would have been a vastly better President than Mr. Trump. She would have been internationally respected for her knowledge of international affairs and experience. This is the truth. The Republican Party has sold out to big donors, knows no shame, no morals, no empathy. It will implode in itself, at least so I hope, for the sake of the USA. To quote the current Great Leader of the US, believe me, the world can survive without the US, but I do not think the US can survive without the world. Right now, the US is a pariah in the international community. This is sad, and it would have never happened with Clinton. Too bad so many voters were duped by Trump and the Republicans in voting for him, instead of voting for a competent woman.
1
Clinton was not respected worldwide.
She would have taken us into even more wars than Trump has or might. She boasted of it and campaigned for it. She is an open warmonger through and through, which is why she is not respected worldwide.
2
"America...is just a squalid, oversized, greedy place past the zenith of its greatness" says Roger Cohen. We have been on this path for some time. It has only been with the thank-you-for-allowing-us-to-have-you-presidency of Tump that the compassionate conservative masks have been dropped; PC speech is banished making neo-nazis fine people; and shameless grabbing from the public coffers is greeted with smiles and cheers from the Randian chorus of sycophants. America is now openly run for the benefit of the very rich and big business which includes the Pentagon. Maybe this is America in the 21st Century.
830
"Thank you for allowing us to have you as president" IS politically correct speech.
Political correctness seeks to avoid insulting or belittling those who receive the message. Think.
Amen.
But I would suggest that we have now, a United States of Trump.
Yes, instead of a US of A, we are moving toward at US of T.
==============================================
But I think there is hope, if we can label what Trump is doing to destroy our very identity. We are not yet a Trump Tower Nation. there is still time to focus on Trump's game of domination and push back.
I think we can start of simple catchwords and labels like US of T.
I hope the Times and the Dems will find ways to define Trump's game.
2
And maybe emigration is looking very good right about now.
2
Thank you. You made me cry for what we lost but I see light through the tears. My husband and I, being from two different countries, made a conscious choice to come to the USA as we both believed it was the best place to raise our children. I grew up under a totalitarian regime and the first time I voted shortly after I became a citizen I felt validated as a member of society and that I was standing up and being counted (there is much to discuss about that, hello? electoral college?, but regardless). Through time I have seen the values and traits that attracted us to this great country being eroded, chipped away and then, after election day 2016, fall through the rabbit hole. But I refuse to accept that we are done for. Decency and compassion are woven into the fiber of american people and right now they are hard to see but I know they are there. To echo some of the comments below we must endure and stand up and get to work.
17
Thank you Mr. Cohen. As others have stated, this column was beautifully crafted. It raised my spirits which had sunk low after the passage of the tax bill which will be devastating to so many. One thing that has given me hope is the election of Doug Jones in arguably the reddest state in our country, Alabama. People are becoming galvanized into political action, and working very hard for the election of decent, ethical people. We have to keep that momentum going in 2018, and work with all the political strength we can muster to change the balance of power in Congress. Right now, we still can vote, and voting is where "we the people" still have political clout.
Trump has made a mockery of the presidency. He is vulgarian in every respect of the word. We stand shamed before the world at the United Nations. I must say I have wanted to just give up because of feeling so impotent, but this is our country and its founding principles are being challenged, and it is up to us to defend our Constitution and the freedoms we still enjoy enshrined in the Bill of Rights by voting. Doug Jones dared to run for office as a pro-choice Democrat in Alabama, and he won. As President Obama kept reminding us "Yes, we can".
15
The time for sitting at home and reading editorials such as this one and responding with a brief comment is over. People need to take to the streets at every opportunity and work to make 2018 a wave election. It's not enough to be angry and depressed. Everyone that has commented on this article needs a way to make a difference.
65
Expect great nation-wide protests should Mueller be fired.
1
It would help if the Democratic Party showed the least interest in doing its job — getting its silent nonvoters out to vote. The appearance is, it's doing nothing. Worse, the RNC has vastly larger sums in the bank than the DNC. The money is going elsewhere, not to those who would fight.
Well said, my friend. The troubles of the world are greater than the fall of America. Still, the need for honest, informed, and humble leadership has never been greater. I am befuddled and saddened evert day. Yet I feel helpless to effect much needed change. As the Great Leader would say, “Sad.”
11
There is only one thing to do--RESIST. Fight every day, sign every petition, call your members of Congress about every issue, respond on government comment pages on line, join a resistance group like Indivisible or Move On. Never accept this as the new normal--ever. Finally, do every thing you can to elect progressive Democrats.
Thanks for a great column and for your other great columns in the past.
38
My family fled Latvia in WW2 to escape Russian Communist brutality. We came to America. America was our refuge. Now, the Russian menace is threatening to undermine our refuge, our America. It's like a bad dream. I can't believe the ignorance and stupidity of Americans who have been bamboozled by Trump and his GOP stooges. They truly deserve the GULAG when and if it comes. And it will come if America doesn't wake up.
57
Yes, Mr. Cohen, this IS America of the twenty-teens. Still reeling over a black president for eight years; still concerned about non-white people thinking that they have equal rights; still concerned that they need a strong man to put them all in their place; still not strong enough to do the right thing after all these many years.
I'm not sure we will recover from this one. We recovered from the Great Depression and World War 2, so, maybe we can. But we have a long reconciliation ahead of us.
32
Trump is a nightmare along with the current legislature, however the largest threat to America is the large percentage of people who don't bother to vote. . The population of America has a voice, but most refuse to use their voice. That alone, above all else, destroys everything in this land. It would be so easy to erase the blunders and cruelty of our current government, except that silent electorate just doesn't care. "The thing about democracy is this - you actually get what you voted for."
23
Michael that’s because the ignorance in this country is pervasive. There is a very large population of Americans that don’t know history, geography, and what is happening in other parts of the world. I have traveled all over Europe and the people there are well read and informed about not only their politics but ours as well. I don’t see that changing until those in our country become better educated and start caring for the truth.
President Trump is not doing damage on his own. The press needs to zero in on McConnell, Ryan and Fox.
55
Bravo! The die is cast. Forward now, forward.
4
A powerful and well-written piece indeed. But blaming it all on "the Great Leader" still doesn't resonate. The sickness in this country that allowed this person to assume the role he has is only now being exposed, and rather than sniping at Trump, the media should put it's considerable influence toward making the argument that Trump's vision of this country is an illusion.
Preaching to the faithful, which this column does, will not save us. We must take on the much more difficult role of converting the non-believers.
I am reminded of the end of the March, 1954 "McCarthy" episode of Edward R. Murrow's "See it Now" because it puts the problem in true perspective:
"This is no time for men who oppose [him] to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. . . ."[His] actions . . .have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it -- and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
36
Let's hope you are right Mr. Cohen.
" stoicism will prevail, decency will prevail, contestation will prevail, over the Great Leader’s plundering of truth and thought."
7
I want to express my gratitude for this articulate and hopeful piece.Your thoughtful distillation of the most depressing year in my life (I'm 67) watching key institutions being attacked and weakened does give me hope. I'm not alone. You have reminded my how hard it is to find "truth", even in an opinion column. Yet, I still cannot believe, and watch in abject horror of what is happening in my country. Even Wharton educated, how can "I" help to start the revolution of removal of the Stage 4 cancer in the White House and Congress? Thank you again!
22
This is how it ends. Like a coin dropped in a hyperbolic funnel, things roll along nicely for a while. Then the authoritarian causes the public to lose faith in the press. Even though the public sees that things are deteriorating, they believe the Great Leader. Things get worse, and the Great Leader blames opponents. The Great Leader calls for more authority, and the Assembly gives it to him. The courts are stacked with judges that move even more power from the assembly to the Great Leader.
The coin starts to revolve quickly around the narrow throat of the funnel.
The children in Venezuela are starving to death. How long before the adults are also starving? Who can save them? Turkey is not too far behind Venezuela in the political process. The US looks like it is following Turkey.
The coin disappears down the black hole, circling amazingly fast, and then is gone.
Listen to the LIGO chirp.
5
America started its slide under 'W'. We are a debt ridden nation. Much of what looks like success is nothing more than very unequal distribution of hyper-inflated assets. The bubble will burst or the US dollar will be greatly devalued.
My fear is that he will start a war with North Korea, strictly as deflection. Perhaps Kim needs to be taken out, but I don't have confidence in this administration's ability to fight such a war without devastating global consequences and DJT doesn't care.
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." This is a triple sin. You hurt yourself. You hurt your victim. You hurt all of society. Thousands of years ago they realized that if it happens enough and the truth becomes revealed, people don't know who to trust or what to believe in. This is the beginning of the end of that society.
7
Absolutely brilliant column. Thank you, Mr. Cohen. You column says it all, as always.
12
The Great Leader, and his devotees, are profoundly anti-Constitutional. Our guiding principle of how and why government should function is the Preamble.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to
form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
They seem to have different guiding principles.
"We the Rich and Powerful People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Corporation,
establish Justice for Ourselves but not Others,
insure domestic Repression,
provide for our Legal defense,
promote the general Misery,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to our wealthy selves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Carnival for the United States of America."
Does that sound like a good preamble to you? Cos it don't to me.
I want our Constitution back. I'm tired of the hypocrites who use its powers to trample over its mission.
18
"A man who dies rich, dies shamed"
Andrew Carnegie.
3
Until this bloviating charlatan and his GOP lackeys are finally removed from power, the USA is in for a long, dark ride.
Like passers by at the scene of a horrible accident, those of us in the rest of the world will shake our heads and shudder with a mixture of sympathy and disgust as we do our best to avoid the carnage and collateral damage.
Best wishes for a full recovery.
11
Nothing lasts forever.
The corrosive greed of capitalism can dissolve even a "shining city on a hill."
6
Let's not lose our minds - Trump is doing us a favor in the long run by exposing the GOP for what it really is. The cockroaches are coming out of the woodwork.
Republicans always go too far, then Democrats clean up the mess.
What I am hoping for, and not at all confident will happen, is that when the Dems regain power, they will undo the Trump presidency the way he is doing to Obama. Will they pass laws that actually change things - i.e. make it mandatory for prez nominees to release their tax returns and eliminate the presidential exemption from conflict-of-interest laws? Will they do something about the electoral college?
Meanwhile, they could be flooding the airwaves with ads to remind people of how the Dems have made their lives better through the decades and why we have the Bill of Rights.
This summer, we can all look forward to a huge military parade through DC on the Fourth of July with the Great Leader looking on. Won't that be a pretty picture?
As I read in NY Magazine this week, he may or may not be the worst president of all time, but he probably is the worst human being to hold the office.
Just keep telling the truth and don't give up.
17
Thank you for poetically calling out the tweeter-in-chief. America is better than this. America's strength is its diversity. The win-at-all-costs mentality is ultimately a losing bargain.
3
I am embarrassed and ashamed FOR my Country, for the first time, ever.
Thanks, GOP.
22
Truth is painful at this point in our nation’s history, but it must be faced.
We, as a nation, must admit that Trump has done more damage to our Constitution, our international reputation, and our own national self image than Putin could have dreamed of. We have a dangerously delusional, psychotic narcissist proclaiming himself “The Greatest American President EVER,” while wallowing I’m in sycophantic adulation from his toadies.
We MUST take action to STOP THIS INSANITY before the heartbroken population gives up and simply accepts these outrageous assaults on our nation from the home-grown terrorist in the White House.
3
"This is not America. It must be fought for and won back."
Amen. November 6, 2018.
11
Not sure why you'd quote kipling at the end if you're rallying against racism.
Like that recurring dream where you know you've been in this place before, but nothing looks familiar and everything looks ominous....where is my country?
2
I was born in 1962, a tail-end Baby Boomer. I didn't experience the height of America's euphoria after WWII, but was born into the benefits of middle class security. I was too young to fully understand the cataclysms of JFK's and MLK's assassinations. I vaguely understood that the Vietnam War and Watergate were demonstrations of moral failings of our country; but I didn't understand the depth of their meaning. I grew up with the fear of hiding under desks in a nuclear attack, which evolved into a sense of safety at the end of the Cold War; until the feelings of constant fear returned in our Post-9/11 world. I was disheartened by the normalization of political lies, witch-hunts, and demonization of others during the Clinton era, Swift Boating, the Culture Wars, Newt Gingrich, and the rise of the Moral Majority. I was incredulous at the destruction of objective truths by Fox News, Limbaugh et al, the Birthers (and their enablers, i.e. so-called reasonable Republicans). I felt that we overcame all that with Pres Obama and the legalization of gay marriage; only to be terrified at the rise of Trumpism and the destruction of all the progress we've made since my youth.
As I was driving home last night, I started to cry, thinking that we'll probably have another national cataclysm or WWIII by the time my life ends; and that I doubt I'll live long enough to see our country and our culture recover any greatness. That's the America I'm going to remember when I die?
9
I too. cried last night for the same reasons
1
I am a Retired Naval Officer, who served from 1974 to 1994, and I cry over the death of the nation and ideals I served to defend while the other 98.5% of the nation forgot or ignored what the dream of America really meant to both them and the rest of the world.
The concepts of generosity to poor and oppressed people that made “America Great” in the past, and made our nation a true world leader, have been replaced with a self-serving obsession with tyrannical power over others that radiates from our so-called “President.”
I cry because our citizens are becoming normalized and accepting of the stupidity and lies blasted at them daily be our “Leaders.”
I cry because of a deep personal pain caused by my giving up a huge piece of my young adult life protecting the freedoms of those that are now destroying the valuable concepts I swore to give my life for.
And I cry every time the idiot with a bad hairdo gladly claims he is ready to put “his” military in harm’s way, when he lied and cheated his way out of what was in the past required military service.
That’s why I cry....
1
Thank you Roger for this anthem. I couldn't read it without crying for our country. And will pass it onto all my friends and family members.
3
"If beyond every abuse, this is yet America...and you are aghast at how the GOP has morphed into palace courtiers...and you know where militarism and disdain for intellectuals and artists...and contempt for a free press can lead...."
A heartfelt column. Thank you Roger Cohen. So now do we weep for what we have already lost or do we encourage the leadership of Senator Mark Warner who made an impassioned speech on Wednesday about the precariousness of our cherished democracy. Where is the energy and leadership from the rest of the Democratic Party? They should be expressing their outrage every day.
As Roger says, "This is not America. It must be fought for and won back."
3
Like other, many days of this administration I used to read the news with horror and felt it couldn't get any worse. Now I've accepted that every day Trump's in office it will get worse.
To fight off the despair I try & imagine what can be done at this time and the most obvious thing to me is the reform of the DNC, reform of the Electoral College, and a new law mandating that a president release his or her tax returns.
1
The enthusiam for regaining our lost Amercia is laudable but unrealistic. I have seen few signs of a sustained and meaningful opposition. It's great to see mass demonstrations in the streets. Where are they now? It's great to organize and turn out voters, but I guarantee that the forces of voter suppression are plotting because the GOP cannot win honestly. Our Democracy has been disintergrating for decades as our corporations have worked the system to enslave our politicians and the worker. It will take a revolution to turn this fetid country around. We have not hit rock bottom yet although it certainly feels like it.
4
Brilliant column, but I fear it could well be democracy's farewell address.
4
The only remaining question is how to most appropriately honor our glorious president Donald Trump at Mount Rushmore. Should the bust of Donald Trump be added or should the four existing busts first be destroyed and then the biggest bust ever sculpted for our current leader?
Let’s consider. George Washington is known for his honesty. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were strong supporters of separation of church and state. And, Jefferson for education, science, and international diplomacy. Abraham Lincoln for racial equality. Theodore Roosevelt led checks and balances for big business, national parks, and the environment. None of these values matter in the new great again America.
Thus, the only answer is to clear Mount Rushmore and build the biggest, best bust ever for our big deal making Donald Trump. It should become a requirement for all Americans to make an annual pilgrimage to the new, much greater Mount Rushmore and, like Mike Pence, sing praises to our beloved Donald Trump.
1
Thanks for the eloquent and much needed pep talk!
1
America will return. The Trump era has served one good purpose: to reveal how easily some (not all) of our political "leaders" sacrifice integrity to venality and hypocrisy. But this time WILL pass, and we must resist and prepare. And not forget. In the meantime, we must do what we can to help the most vulnerable victims.
An important column. Thanks.
1
A little perspective, folks. If Trump had taken power in a 15-year-old experiment in democracy, rather than one over two centuries old that had already fought through a civil war; if his red-capped cheerleaders were a paramilitary wing of his political party, rather than dupes who think that Trump could actually respect anybody who wears a baseball cap off the golf course; then his country would surely be doomed. But there are enough of us with faith in the real America and contempt for the plutocrats and bigots that we may yet prevail, as Mr. Cohen so beautifully suggests that we can.
2
Wonderful column. Makes you realize that character is forged in the depths of adversity and built choice by choice. It has ever been such and continues to be true in ancient and modern times.
What is going on now in our country is that the good works by good people are being sponged away by knaves and fools with weak character. Americans must dig deep and demand to be represented by those that share our values and not those that are bought and paid for by the highest bidder.
1
The day Trump was elected was the beginning of the end of the United States of America. It will take more than four years to destroy this country, but the end is near, for sure.
1
Well, this is America, and if voting and protest marches aren't enough to turn things around, then there is one other avenue: boycott en masse the businesses that have traditionally and consistently supported Republicans and trump. Lack of sales, downturns in stock prices, and huge job losses that can be attributed to consumers refusing to patronize certain businesses are just one other way to address disgust with this administration.
3
Wonderful effort, Mr. Cohen. Over and over I am saying, "If only."
1
Thank you Roger. This was needed as I often wonder what serious people with influence and power like former presidents,congressmen and governors are thinking and doing about this national global nightmare!! It can't be possible that a minion almost failed real estate developer with no experience is capable of controlling and destroying our present and future!
1
A beautifully written, thoughtful call to determined action. There is no principle that cannot be perverted by evil — see the storied abuse of many of the world’s great religions. Only direct fellow-feeling between human beings can endow principles with meaning, to paraphrase George Eliot. I hope everyone draws resolve from this excellent piece.
2
get over it
over 60 million people wanted this
democrats had a far left candidate and another very flawed candidate ...
such choices in a nation of over 300 million people....
democracy at work
63 million didn’t.
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May a thousand poxes befall you and your family...May you be shunned by right-thinking people may you get ill without insurance
Beautifully said and it expresses my heart, thank you. I am on the razor's edge between despair and hope, hanging on barely. What gives me hope: columns like this and all the readers' comments, <40% approval (the despair is that so many approve), the free press, still (the despair is the attacks and conceivable risk of losing or marginalizing out of relevance our free press), Bob Mueller - go Bob, go Bob! (the despair is the GOP / Admin growing attempts to undermine the investigations), Clinton won by a large margin and all the non-voters rue the day, Black women - Black women proud, fierce, who wiped Rob Moore's eye, more power to Black women, (the despair is the rise of the white supremacist movement), the fundamental decency of Americans (the despair is Fox News, Brietbart and the poison they consistently hear), CNN, MSNBC who are talking truth to power, the #metoo movement that came out the filth of this Admin and time, and much more. I don't know if we slide into some grotesque parody of what we once were, all Empires do fall and none too gracefully (except Britain), but.
I watch in horror the illness that has overtaken the Republicans in Congress. I am sickened and wring my hands in despair by their fear of Donald Trump, and their priority of self-survival. I hang my head in shame at their depravity, and I weep for America's unwitting victims who are being kicked to the ground by the greed and heartlessness of the Republicans, as they spit on the souls of their constituents.
This is not the America I grew up in. This is not the America of the past 227 years. Since January 20, 2017 America has rapidly deteriorated into an unrecognizable distortion of what our nation's founders envisioned and created. In less than a year, Donald Trump and the Republican party have laid waste to the respect and admiration given to America by the majority of other countries. Instead we are now looked down on, mocked and defied not only by our enemies, but by many of our friends.
Our country is on the path to turmoil, and the Democrats in Congress appear bewildered and without a strategy to prevent this. They stand on the sidelines and watch as the Republicans whisk us into a future unimaginable less than two years ago. The ultimate cost to the American people of their weakness, and the strength of the Republicans remains to be seen, but it is certain to be a price most of us can ill afford, yet will be forced to pay.
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