I think President Trump is serving our country exceptionally well right now. But this form of service is not something he will ever boast about, nor will it ever be mentioned in a presidential tweet or serve as fodder for his reelection campaign. It will never be trotted out by the likes of Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity on Fox News.
Trump is many abhorrent things, but he is not the root cause of the Covid-19 epidemic, or systemic racism, or voter suppression, or any of the other crises we currently face. It is popular right now to label him a “symptom” as opposed to a cause. But this is a passive description that misses an important point: he is an active amplifier of underlying ills that have plagued us for centuries. To overtly re-purpose a phrase from 1 Corinthians 13, we’ve been “seeing through a glass darkly” but now “face to face.” Trump is anything but subtle, and perhaps that is a good thing. The face he presents to the world exposes our worst characteristics and shines a bright light on our deepest failings.
But the necessary first step in solving any problem is recognizing and acknowledging its existence. Trump has been, and continues to be, highly successful in helping us do this. His skill in this one area has brought us to the “inflection point” that was referenced several times last night in the hope-filled first installment of the virtual Democratic Convention. And now that we’re here, we can move to the next steps: flesh out effective and healing policies, elect a competent and decent president, and take action.
Historian Joanne Freeman, in her article in The Atlantic this morning, put it so well in her closing sentence: “In short,” she wrote, “there’s no escape from the urgency of now. We owe it to ourselves and to the future to recognize the meaning of this moment, and to choose our actions wisely and well.”