The Shame and Disgrace Will Linger
On Saturday, President Trump spread a conspiracy theory accusing the Clintons of murdering Jeffrey Epstein.
Staff writer at The Atlantic
August 10, 1969: SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.—President Nixon accused his
predecessor Lyndon Baines Johnson of complicity in the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy. Speaking with reporters on the first day of a 10-day
stay at his Pacific Ocean vacation home ….
Of course, that never happened.
Obviously. How could it, how dare it? But had
it happened, such an accusation—by a president, against a former
president—would have convulsed the United States and the world. Today,
President Trump accused his predecessor, Bill Clinton—or possibly his 2016
campaign opponent, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—of
complicity in the death of the accused sex-trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.
Many seem to have responded with a
startled shrug. What do you expect? It’s just Trump letting off
steam on Twitter.
Reactions to actions by Trump are
always filtered through the prism of the ever-more-widely accepted view—within
his administration, within Congress, within the United States and around the
world—that the 45th president is a reckless buffoon, a conspiratorial racist
moron, whose weird comments should be disregarded by sensible people.
By now, Trump’s party in Congress, the
members of his Cabinet, and even his White House entourage all tacitly agree
that Trump’s occupancy of the office held by Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and
Eisenhower must be a bizarre cosmic joke, not to be taken seriously. CNN’s Jake
Tapper on August 2 quoted a “senior national security
official” as saying: "Everyone at this point ignores what the president
says and just does their job. The American people should take some measure of
confidence in that.”
So even though Trump just retweeted the
comedian Terrence K. Williams accusing the Clinton family of murder, the people
who work for Trump may ignore that, too. They know that the president punches
the retweet button like an addled retiree playing the slots through a fog of
painkillers means nothing. The days of “taking Trump seriously, not literally”
have long-since passed. By this point, Trump is taken neither seriously nor
literally. His words are as worthless as Trump Organization IOUs.
But cosmic joke or no cosmic joke,
Donald Trump is the president of the United States. You may not like it. I
don’t like it. Mike Pompeo doesn’t like it. Mitch McConnell doesn’t like it.
Kevin McCarthy doesn’t like it. But it’s still a fact, and each succeeding
outrage makes it no less a fact. Grinning and flashing a thumbs-up over an
orphaned baby? Yes, still president. Tweeting that a third-tier
dictator has threatened him with more missile tests unless he halts military
exercises with a U.S. ally——and that he has surrendered to that blackmail? Shamefully,
still president. Accusing a former U.S. president of murder? It’s incredible,
it’s appalling, it’s humiliating … but, yes, he is the president all the same.
Trump’s circle probably expects the
world to sputter for a while and then be distracted by some new despicable
statement or act. That is how it has gone for nearly three years, and that is
how it is likely still to go. Trump is steering the U.S. and the world into a
trade war and perhaps a financial crisis and recession along with it. He is
wrecking the structure of U.S. alliances in Asia and his rhetoric is inciting
shooting rampages against minorities. Compared to that, mere slurs and insults
perhaps weigh lighter in the crushing dumpster-load of Trump’s output of
unfitness for the office he holds.
But it shouldn’t be forgotten, either,
in the onrush of events. The certainty that Trump will descend ever deeper into
sub-basements of “new lows” after this new low should not numb us to its
newness and lowness.
Neither the practical impediments to impeachment and the Twenty-Fifth
Amendment process, nor the foibles and failings of the candidates running to
replace him, efface the fact that this presidency shames and disgraces the
office every minute of every hour of every day. And even when it ends, however
it ends, the shame will stain it still.
