It was nearly five years ago that I made a mistake for which I must ask forgiveness. In early December of 2015, I wrote and published in one of those liberal California digital magazines called the L.A. Progressive an article entitled “Donald Trump: Anti-Prophet and Blessing.”
In this article, I said that Trump was an anti-prophet because, unlike the Old Testament prophets who chided rulers and people when they strayed from the path of ethical righteousness, Trump’s message was the opposite. “His job,” I wrote, “is to encourage us be our worst (unethical) rather than our best selves.” I called Trump “a demagogue who appeals to the prejudice of the masses” as well as “to the dark side of our character.”
But that is not what I want to apologize for.
In that article I also said that Trump’s candidacy was a blessing because it would remind Democrats that they had been ignoring the very real and legitimate anger of many poor and middle-class Americans who felt they had been ignored by politicians. Looking back, I shudder at calling Trump a blessing, even though I was using the word sarcastically.
But this is also not what I want to apologize for.
I was also sure when I wrote that article and I believed and wrote in agreement with Republican columnist David Brooks that “Trump’s shocking, even hateful, evaluation of the motives of anyone who opposes him, as well as his narcissism and unworkable and embarrassing domestic and foreign policy plans” were a danger to America.
And I don’t want to apologize for that statement either. I think it was correct.
However, I also believed in those days that the Republicans would not allow him to secure their party’s nomination because they feared Trump’s selection would “cost them the presidency in 2016.” I also suggested that Democrats would take seriously in 2016 the real fears that were leading many American’s to support Trump and would not only oppose Trump but “at the same time provide his supporters with an emotionally satisfying and ethical alternative solution to the problems he is addressing.”
That is why I now want to apologize. I naively misjudged both Republicans and Democrats when writing in 2015. For that I am sorry. The Republicans not only nominated Trump in 2016 but have also supported his bizarre and dangerous behavior for four long years. Meanwhile Democrats didn’t understand the fears or anger of the Trump supporters and ran with Hillary Clinton and her dismissal of “the deplorables.”
Our political leaders in both parties were not as wise as I hoped they would be—and so I must ask forgiveness for being a poor political prognosticator.
However, we now have a chance to correct our mistake, or to at least not make the same mistake again. It will be difficult to correct the damage done to our personal and political health during Trump’s term. It will take urgent action to subdue the Coronavirus and then restore our economic health as a nation as we also attack our domestic problems of racism and political division.
It also will take some time to restore the trust that our current president has lost with our many friends throughout the world (and many of his fellow Americans) by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, befriending authoritarian rulers, and saying nasty things about Muslims, women, Europeans, Africans, immigrants, and many government officials in general, not to overlook the leaders and members of the United States military.
But we do have an opportunity to give democracy a chance once again. Perhaps we all need to apologize to each other and to the rest of the world, for the missed opportunities of the past four years.
It is not yet too late to restore our country and our image and integrity as a nation. But if we don’t take this election very seriously, we may not get another chance to save our democracy and our planet.