Who are we? The people of Iowa will answer first | Editorial
“We all know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer is, who are we?”
With those few words at Valley Forge, Pa., as he launched his campaign for re-election, President Joe Biden succinctly defined what the 2024 election is all about.
It’s a question as old as the nation itself.
Benjamin Franklin, the eldest of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, had it in mind when he told a curious citizen that the convention had brought forth “a republic, Madam, if you can keep it.” As often as that has been quoted, it still must be said.
Franklin had urged a unanimous vote despite his misgivings with some parts of the Constitution.
It could only end in despotism, he said, “as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”
First answers from Iowa
On Monday in Iowa, the Republican caucuses will begin the process of deciding whether we are still capable of a republic.
Everyone will be watching to see how strongly Donald Trump runs and whether Gov. Ron DeSantis can still lay a claim to second place in the first heat of this long race for the Republican nomination, or whether Nikki Haley is the ascendant alternative to Trump. Chris Christie certainly made it better for Haley when he dropped out.
The big question is embodied in whether Trump wins with more than a majority, and if so, by how much. A recent poll — taken before Christie quit — had Trump sagging, at 52%, to 18% each for DeSantis and Haley.
Do we want to remain a representative democracy, with all the complex machinery that can be so frustrating at times, or do we crave the arbitrary rule of a despot?
A tyrant in waiting: Trump
As Floridians know, DeSantis has his own authoritarian streak. But Trump doesn’t bother to hide that he’s a tyrant in waiting.
He flaunts it, in fact, in his promise to turn the Justice Department into a weapon of revenge against his opponents, whom he has called “vermin,” and in his plan to strip thousands of government workers of civil service protections.
He has called for negating the Constitution — which he tried to do on Jan. 6, 2021 — if it would return him to power. He has warned of “bedlam in the country” — which would be a self-fulfilling prophecy — if the master of the mob loses again in November. Should he win, however, he would use the military to suppress civilian dissent, the way dictators do.
His niece Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote that he is a sociopath who cannot accept losing. The subtitle of her book calls him “the world’s most dangerous man.”
The Constitution doesn’t guarantee good presidents, but at their worst, none was as uncouth, arrogant, cruel and downright thuggish as Trump. None was so openly contemptuous of the Constitution so often. None was as willfully ignorant of the basic history that even ordinary citizens should know. None ever told more than 30,000 falsehoods or misstatements during four years in office. None ever faced 91 felony counts in four separate indictments.
None ever threatened to betray our allies by renouncing our treaties and abandoning Europe to a dictator’s aggression. None ever turned his political party into a personality cult. None ever demanded abject loyalty from all other officeholders. None was so reckless with classified documents. None summoned a mob to set aside a defeat he refused to accept, or much less claimed immunity for having done it.
They know, but don’t care
As Biden said, everyone knows. The problem is that so many of his would-be voters don’t seem to care. They swallowed his breathtaking lies and are open to more of them. They like that he’s a bully.
That gets to the question of who we are. Are we so disillusioned with democracy that we’re eager to give tyranny a chance? Are we so upset with each other as to want a leader who pretends to be heaven-sent but preaches the hatred of hell?
There are few easy solutions in such a complex society. But people of good faith do not stop seeking them. Instead of compromise, however, false leaders court conflict and thrive on it. Rather than appeal to the “better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln did, they evoke the worst of our instincts.
Yes, we have problems. The middle class is stagnating while the rich get even richer. People worry that their children won’t fare as well as they did. No one is exempt from the wild extremes created or worsened by climate change. No one likes to pay taxes, or the rising cost of owning or renting a home. No one is eager for the sacrifices that bringing down the deficit or saving the planet could entail.
But we can’t fix any of that under the rule of an authoritarian who cares only about himself, who craves power and detests compromise.
In that speech at Valley Forge, Biden said something that it would be inconceivable to hear from Trump.
“There’s nothing beyond our capacity if we act together and decently with one another. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing,” Biden said. “I mean it. We’re the only nation in the world that’s come out of every crisis stronger than we went into that crisis. And that was true yesterday. It is true today. And I guarantee you will be true tomorrow.”
To give decency a chance is to give democracy a chance. It’s your turn, Iowa.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.