11/12/20
President Donald Trump vowed to make America respected around the world. For years, starting long before he ran for president with the slogan "Make America Great Again," he complained, "the world is laughing at us." Now, in the ugly, waning days of his presidency, nobody's laughing. Trump took a country that was, according to Pew Research, mostly admired, and turned it into an object of pity and alarm. The US faces grave, simultaneous crises; one an exploding pandemic, the other an attack on the country's democracy by a sitting president. It's hardly a scene that inspires awe. The effort of incoming President-elect Joe Biden and his administration -- and of the American people -- to undo the damage Trump caused and push back against his most recent outrages will go a long way in determining whether the US can regain the global stature Trump squandered. The world is watching with astonishment as are countries who would normally look to the United States for leadership and protection. The pandemic itself is not Trump's fault, but his refusal to acknowledge the magnitude and urgency of the problem and respond accordingly, and his incessant lies that undercut the public health effort, are arguably the primary reason why this country, which was in a position to tackle the pandemic at least as effectively as any other, never managed to end the first wave before the second one.
As if the pandemic weren't enough of a national emergency, and America's abject failure to deal with it enough of a national embarrassment, Trump has gone to war against America's democracy before the eyes of an astonished world. Trump has taken the globe's iconic democracy, the one whose declaration of independence was brandished and studied by democracy activists the world over, and sullied its political system by groundlessly attacking legitimate election results. On a personal note, I share not only the alarm but the profound sadness at seeing the United States in this position. The erosion of democratic institutions caused by Trump and by every one of his Republican and right-wing media accomplices is weakening the United States. Restoring it, first by defeating his assault on US democracy, will be a key job for the next administration. I never thought I'd see that happen in the United States. To be fair, not everyone admired the United States, a flawed country that failed at living up to its ideals, especially when it comes to equality and justice. But it's hard to remember a time when the US was the object of pity, as it is now, the center of the global pandemic, its most fundamental institution, democracy, under attack from none other than the president.
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