It is not at all unusual that when I get up in the early morning before heading to school, I glance at editorials and op eds at the websites of two major newspapers, one in DC and one in NY. Today’s Washington Post has FOUR columns devoted to Donald Trump: Eugene Robinson’s Trump Refutes Trump, in which he catalogs the many contradictions the Republican’s presumptive nominee has made in his policy positions; Joe Scarborough’s Donald Trump returns to a stupid strategy, which makes clear how much of Trump’s approach is to “wing it” rather than prepare in detail; Dana Milbank’s The many ways Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump, in which he provides lists of major Republicans grouped into categories of how they avoiding flat out endorsing and supporting the gentleman in question; and Michael Gerson’s Trump’s victory is leading to lunacy in high places, which argues that “Those who support Trump, no matter how reluctantly, have crossed a moral boundary” which Gerson finds unacceptable.
Each of those four columns is probably worthy of attention, perhaps of a detailed post of its own, with appropriate selections in block quotes, perhaps with commentary about what I found of value and where I might disagree with the analysis. But none, not even the moral assertion by Gerson, were sufficient to motivate me to write such a piece. In fact, individually and collectively the four pieces depressed me, because while each illuminates part of the problem with our politics that the rise of Trump represents, none really provides me with a positive feeling.
So instead I turned to today’s New York Times, and there I found a piece by Roger Cohen that I think provides an answer to the Trump phenomenon.
Let me explain.
Eugene Robinson asks — and answers — a key question in his final two paragraphs:
How does a policy wonk such as Clinton run against a policy-phobe such as Trump? Trying to define him as insufficiently studious, overly capricious and fundamentally unserious would be like painting a caricature of a cartoon.
Maybe Clinton should focus more on delivering an inspirational message of her own. The job of refuting Trump is already being done — by Trump.
While clever, that had left me unsatisfied. Further, Robinson notes the three things on which Trump has NOT wavered including his opposition to allowing Muslims into the country, his dedication to his wall, and his stated desire to deport the 11 million or so undocumented aliens, and that were he to waver on these, many of his supporters
would feel betrayed if Trump suddenly dropped the whole xenophobia thing.
In his charge that opposition to Trump within the Republican party is on moral grounds, Gerson writes
For some Trump opponents, the justice of a political system is determined by its treatment of the vulnerable and weak. In the Catholic tradition, this is called “solidarity.” Whatever you call it, this commitment is inconsistent with a type of politics that beats up on the vulnerable and weak — say, undocumented workers, or Muslims — for political gain.
Perhaps, and yet too much of American populism past and present has included focusing the anger and frustration of a chunk of the populace on the very weak and certainly those who can be classified as “other” and therefore “not really American.”
By contrast, Cohen offers a positive response to that xenophobia demonstrated by what has just happened across the pond, and that is the election of the new mayor of London, who in their system has already assumed his new office. In Sadiq Khan vs. Donald Trump Cohen begins with an assertion with which I find myself in strong agreement:
The most important political event of recent weeks was not the emergence of Donald J. Trump as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party but the election Sadiq Khan, the Muslim son of a London bus driver, as mayor of London.
In the very next paragraph, Cohen writes
In his victory, a triumph over the slurs that tried to tie him to Islamist extremism, Khan stood up for openness against isolationism, integration against confrontation, opportunity for all against racism and misogyny. He was the anti-Trump.
Khan’s self-description, quoted by Cohen, is
“I’m a Londoner, I’m a European, I’m British, I’m English, I’m of Islamic faith, of Asian origin, of Pakistani heritage, a dad, a husband.”
and Cohen continues by noting
The world of the 21st century is going to be shaped by such elided, many-faceted identities and by the booming cities that celebrate diversity, not by some bullying, brash, bigoted, “America first” white dude who wants to build walls.
It will not be just the “booming cities” but much elsewhere, especially in this country.
I teach in Fairfax County Virginia. Our school is, outside of rush hour, perhaps a bit under 30 minutes from the national capital city of Washington DC. We are diverse, both in our staff, with at least one teacher wearing a hijab, and many students of all kinds of backgrounds: I can in one class see students whose family origins are from Saudi Arabia, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Puerto Rico, Nigeria, and Nepal. And that is just the girls.
When I drive through southwestern Virginia on my way to volunteer in a another free dental clinic as part of a health fair, I see the signs for various medical practices, and the majority of the names are of South Asian origin. Anyone who has read the work of Abraham Vergese knows that phenomenon is not confined to Virginia. My wife’s oncologist was born in Uruguay and still retains her accent.
Perhaps because two of my four grandparents were born in Eastern Europe, in today’s Poland, and one of the other two had a father born in Lithuania, I feel an affinity with those who were drawn to this nation over much of its history. Those of Eastern European Jewish background have some experience of discrimination and intolerance, although I suppose we could always change our names and our customs and lose our accents. Still, as my mother found out when she went to Cornell, just being named Livingston did not protect her from anti-Semitism once the sororities found out she was Jewish with an immigrant mother.
Cohen’s column is worth reading in its entirety. I am going to offer briefly without comment a few more snippets, then jump to the conclusion.
He notes that Trump’s policy would mean Khan could not enter this country, then writes that such a bar
would make America a foul mockery in the eyes of a world already aghast at the Republican candidate’s rise.
He write
han’s election is important because it gives the lie to the facile trope that Europe is being taken over by jihadi Islamists
because it demonstrates the millions of quiet success stories among Muslims who are not terrorists. Khan himself was born in public housing, and came to prominence as a human rights lawyer.
Noting that the most effective voices against terrorism of Islamic origin comes from Muslims, he quotes the words offered by Khan after Paris, noting
that Muslims had a “special role” to play in countering the terrorism, “not because we are more responsible than others, as some have wrongly claimed, but because we can be more effective at tackling extremism than anyone else.”
Khan has spoken out against the anti-Semitism among some in his own Labor Party, has reached out to the Jewish community. Here I do add that his Conservative opponent was named Zach Goldsmith, who was explicitly anti-Muslim in his rhetoric, which perhaps contributed to winning by
more than 1.3 million votes in the London election, a personal mandate unsurpassed by any politician in British history.
There is more, much more, of value in this cogent column by Cohen.
Allow me to demonstrate by offering his final two paragraphs:
Put together an egotist, a bully, immense power and a taste for gut-driven unpredictability and you have a dangerous brew that could put civilization at risk. Those small fingers would have access to the nuclear codes if Trump was elected.
In this context, Sadiq Khan’s victory is reassuring because he represents currents in the world — toward global identity and integration — that will prove stronger over time than the tribalism and nativism of Trump.
Surely we as Americans can demonstrate as much wisdom and moral courage as did the voters of London.
Surely we can accept and affirm the best among us regardless of their origins.
I still do not know how to title this post.
What I do know is that I had to write it.
Peace?