The Wall Street Journal has a collection of columnists who aren’t giving up on Donald Trump.
They don’t necessarily think he’s a nice guy. Convincing Americans he’s not really the person they’ve seen him to be over the past few years would be asking a bit much. Instead they work around the whole character issue. Don’t pay attention to Trump the man, look at his policies! Sure he’s only gotten weirder as the pandemic got worse and the election closer, but would you rather have Nancy Pelosi? What difference does it make how many COVID deaths there have been; remember how good the economy used to be?
One recent columnist summarized the general position. Columnists don’t write the headlines (something I wish readers would get through their skulls) but in this case the heading caught the gist: “ Is disapproval of a president’s personality sufficient reason to transfer power to the Democrats ?”
If honesty, integrity and basic human decency are immaterial in a leader, what’s important?
Good question. The writer (surprise!) didn’t think so, but the answer, absolutely, is yes. Very much yes. If honesty, integrity and basic human decency are immaterial in a leader, what’s important? Tax cuts and deregulation? Some culture that makes.
On the same day the column appeared, other publications were reporting that the parents of 545 of the migrant children separated from their families by Trump’s border policies still couldn’t be found, despite extensive efforts. Adherents to the Trump doctrine might conclude the missing parents are evidence of callous neglect shown by immigrants towards their children. Of course that’s always a possibility, but it seems odd that parents so uncaring would risk bringing their children along in the first place. If your only interest is sneaking illegally into the U.S. for your own well-being, why not just leave behind the kids with some willing relative?
Whichever version you prefer, the case remains that such a heart-rending reality wouldn’t have happened without the administration’s zero-tolerance policy of separating children from their parents and locking up the terrified kids in steel-ringed cages while laying criminal charges against the adults. Laura Bush, wife of the former president, compared the detention centres to internment camps used to hold Japanese-Americans during World War II. She’s not wrong.
The question that’s raised is this: when a president is willing to treat innocent children like refuse, is it merely another policy, or evidence of a character too debased to be entrusted with such serious power? Policies reflect the character of an administration, and the personality of a leader. Trump’s many unsettling actions as president reflect the man himself. You can’t separate the two. His behaviour cannot be forgiven on the basis that unemployment was quite low before the pandemic hit.
While dismissing Trump’s personal flaws as irrelevant, we’re told that the man he is facing on Nov. 3 is an empty shell who will be manipulated by the radical left wing of his party. Voters are asked whether Joe Biden should be elected just because he’s not Donald Trump. Shouldn’t a potential president have something to offer besides the public’s dislike of his opponent?
It would be an excellent point, if Trump’s narrow victory in 2016 hadn’t resulted to a considerable degree from public dislike of Hillary Clinton. Clinton polled almost three million more votes than Trump, and almost certainly would have won if so many unenthused Democrats hadn’t stayed home on election night, believing she’d win anyway. If distaste for Hillary Clinton was enough to elect Trump, why shouldn’t Biden similarly benefit from disgust with Donald Trump?
Nothing is more important in people holding great power than public trust
It’s bizarre to suggest character and personality shouldn’t measure in our evaluation of a person’s suitability for high office. Apart from acting as a measure of a candidate’s essential decency, character is where you’ll discover their ability to contain their darker impulses, such as a willingness to attack an opponent’s family rather than their ideas. Trump’s forces have recently concentrated their fire on Hunter Biden, who is running for nothing. Presidential families have a long history of embarrassing relatives: Donald Nixon, Billy Carter, Roger Clinton … Ronald Reagan extolled family values while heading a notably dysfunctional clan of his own. Trump’s allies have sought to vilify Biden by linking him to the foreign antics of his son, a move hampered by their inability to find any. Meanwhile, one of the few unquestioned achievements of the Trump White House has been finding occupations for his sons, daughter and their various spouses. As a bastion of nepotism , Trump Inc. has few rivals.
So yes, the character of the candidate is integral to assessing their status as presidential material. One of George W. Bush’s attractions as a candidate was his pledge to end the sleaze of the Clinton years. Biden is running on a similar promise to return a degree of respectability to an institution that badly needs it. There’s no guarantee he’ll succeed; the damage done to American prestige over the past four years won’t likely be quickly reversed, and the divisions opened since 2016 aren’t the sort to be narrowed by simple good intentions or soothing words. And despite his intentions, Biden is a man showing signs of being well past his prime years. But the process has to start somewhere.
This election isn’t about just getting rid of Donald Trump but all the ugliness and chaos of his record. Nothing is more important in people holding great power than public trust, and trustworthy leaders don’t actively work to undermine elections as Trump has. Putting children in cages should never be a core part of policy. Bragging about groping women is not an example to be set for the young. Reportedly mocking veterans who risked their lives for their country as “losers” and “suckers” is not a sign of strong leadership. And a president who treats the office itself with casual disregard can’t be deemed a credit to the people who gave it to him. Tax cuts are nice, but decency and civility in its leaders are essential to any country that wants to consider itself civilized.
• Twitter: KellyMcParland
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
