Has Trump’s GOP Committed Midterm Suicide Yet?

By Donald A. Collins | 15 September 2021
Church and State

Donald Trump speaks to New York firefighters on 9/11. (Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

The 2022 midterms could be a sign of progress if the evil ineptitude of the Trump years sees his influence and his ilk dismissed by thinking Americans from both parties.

As the nation marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11, three of the 4 US Presidents who presided over that tragedy and whose bi-partisan strategies in dealing with it were so tragically flawed must have some feelings of guilt for how badly our nation have behaved since Eisenhower’s 1961 warning to “beware the Industrial Military Industrial Complex”. Most grievous was thinking we could kill Osama bin Laden by invading Afghanistan—driven initially by a bipartisan agreement amidst intense post 9/11 hysteria. Then Iraq!!! Then 20 years more.

However, the Trump years sharpened dismay for his major iniquities I list here:

  1. Trying to dissuade with false information the use of vaccines and masks.
  2. Attacking Roe v Wade with harsh Texas law with a packed Supreme Court waiting to rule on probably lesser but still dangerous restrictions.
  3. Implementing voting rights laws in multiple GOP States which lessen minority voting.
  4. Claiming 11/3/20 election fraud and promoting an insurrection of domestic terrorists at our Capitol.
  5. Dismissing the injuries of the Capitol police and other law officers.
  6. Failing to recognize his actions were an assault on our democracy.

The one among the missing at these 9/11 site visits was Donald Trump, who correctly, if ineptly, set the timetable for our withdrawal from Afghanistan, likely as a political trap for his successor since his only acts of governance in office were to benefit his self-image and to help his re-election.

His absence (with Bush, Obama and Biden as they marked 9/11) was symbolically and mathematically apt: His 25 percent core supporters represent the folks who have given up on our democracy and don’t want to get vaccinated or wear masks to prove that Trump was telling them the truth when he shouted “Make America Great Again”.

Trump perpetrated perhaps the greatest danger for democracy, as he gave the rich a huge tax cut which exacerbated the already dangerous wealth gap between the rich and poor in our country.

I guess his feathering own nest by filling his DC hotel with government events should be forgotten as minor in light of the above.

The mishandling of the COVID crisis was partly obscured by the heroic drug companies development of vaccines, which even so appeared too late to help re-elect this flawed President.

Where was The Donald on 9/11/21? He was meeting with first responders in NYC to announce he might run again for President in 2/24. You can read about that self-promotion effort here.

While there were many articles about 3 Presidents and other dignitaries visiting the sites of the attacks, I was especially interested to hear George W. Bush speak about the occasion and the history. You can read the Washington Post article here.

In this speech, Bush obviously attacked Trump and his behavior as follows:

On the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that changed his presidency, former president George W. Bush on Saturday warned there is growing evidence that domestic terrorism could pose as much of a threat to the United States as terrorism originating from abroad, and he urged Americans to confront “violence that gathers within.”

Without naming it, Bush seemed to condemn the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a pro-Trump mob overran the complex in a violent siege that resulted in the deaths of five people. Bush compared those “violent extremists at home” to the terrorists who had hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed them in New York City, Arlington, and Shanksville, Pa., killing nearly 3,000 people.

“There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,” Bush said in a speech at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols — they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.”

I for one had hoped that more prominent Republicans might at last take Trump to task. Glad Bush did, as the Post article continues,

Bush, a Republican who was president when the 9/11 attacks happened, continually invoked “the nation I know” in his remarks Saturday, an echo of his previous rejection of the rhetoric of former president Donald Trump. Bush spoke of the difficulty of describing “the mix of feelings” everyone experienced on that clear September day 20 years ago.

“There was horror at the scale of destruction and awe at the bravery and kindness that rose to meet it,” Bush said. “There was shock at the audacity — audacity of evil — and gratitude for the heroism and decency that opposed it. In the sacrifice of the first responders, in the mutual aid of strangers, in the solidarity of grief and grace, the actions of an enemy revealed the spirit of a people. And we were proud of our wounded nation.”

As President Biden and Vice President Harris also did in remarks for the 20th anniversary of the attacks, Bush called on the nation to once again hold fast to its best qualities and shared strengths, to come together as many Americans felt the country had in the days after 9/11. Left unspoken — but alluded to plenty of times Saturday — was that the nation felt as divided as ever, and that Trump was continuing to stoke those divisions.

We can hope more prominent Republicans will echo that last sentiment in coming months. Recall Trump didn’t show for Biden’s inauguration either.

To repeat my earlier points, no GOP governance only resistance, no attempts to foster national unity, no guilt at disastrous decisions for the racism of our voting laws, the attack on Roe, and the post-election election fraud claims before and after the Capitol insurrection would seem enough to confirm a GOP midterm electoral suicide.

Biden keeps governing while GOP leaders keep sniping—including about his vaccine mandates and mask wearing advice! In fact, Florida Governor DeSantis threatens heavy fines for local governments that impose vaccine mandates. You can read that sad story here.

Will any of Biden’s attempts at bi-partisan laws for infrastructure or human needs get enacted? If so that would be a powerful further reason to vote for Democrats.

For the continuing health of a balanced 2 party democracy, we can only hope ASAP for some new Republican leadership. However, even after the abominable record Trump and his cronies continue to make, we can’t yet be at all certain of a GOP electoral suicide for the 2022 midterms.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013, Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive? and We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?.

Biden joined by Obama to observe 9/11 moment of silence

George W. Bush on 20th anniversary of September 11th: Full speech

Ron DeSantis FIRES BACK at Biden over COVID-19 vaccine mandates

Be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here