For Good or for Ill, the White House teaches by Example
For good or for ill, the President of the United States teaches the whole world an example.
At the constitutional convention, presiding President George Washington exhorted: “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest may repair.” President Washington’s generalship of the continental army made him a hero. His spotless character made him a legend. Among other things, George Washington scorned an offer of kingship.
When informed that Washington intended to resign his military commission, British King George III exclaimed: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
President Washington’s integrity and selflessness suppressed partisan differences that are the bane of self-government. He was twice elected by unanimous vote to the presidency. He served a second term with extreme reluctance. He was held in such political awe that he set a de facto two-term limit on the presidency until President Franklin Roosevelt captured a third term to avoid changing horses in midstream after World War II erupted.
That departure from the Washington two-term standard precipitated the 22nd Amendment constitutionalising Washington’s example.
President Donald Trump has boasted that he has soared past George Washington to occupy the summit of presidential greatness. The ambition is wonderful. But hasn’t Mr. Trump shortchanged his own laudable ambitions by exhibiting chronic cardinal defects in character that shocks or alienates even his most ardent supporters?
He has disparaged Christian charity by proclaiming hatred or revenge against any opponent contrary to Charlie Kirk’s grieving wife. Saint Paul also had a different view: “So faith, hope, love, abide, but the greatest of these is love.”
Mr. Trump dehumanised Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Somalians as “garbage”. He has demonised all Mexican immigrants as rapists or drug traffickers. He has denounced five United States Senators as traitors deserving the death penalty for correctly observing that military law requires disobedience to “clearly illegal” orders, echoing the words of Trump’s own Attorney General Pam Bondi in court filings. He has assailed federal judges who have ruled against him as radical terrorists, remarks that have spiked threats to their lives.
Mr. Trump responded to the tragic murders of Rob Reiner and his wife with callousness and vileness unbefitting the White House. He maintained with no evidence that Reiner’s death was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through…a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME”.
When asked to reconsider, Trump sneered: “I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned.”
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These examples of unpresidential behaviour are not isolated. They are worrisome because they are common. They tend to normalise juvenile, violent behaviour throughout the culture with profound influence on youth. President Trump’s seemingly incorrigible malevolence towards anyone who parts company with his ambitions has alienated his most loyal advocates and threatens his presidential legacy.
Republican Members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, and Mike Lowler deplored Mr. Trump’s turning Mr. Reiner’s murder into a political football. Republicans with less backbone have remained silently dismayed but have eschewed defending President Trump repugnant words when mourning and compassion are called for.
The President of the United States (POTUS) is the model not only for the nation but for the world. It saddles the occupant of the White House with a duty to rise to the occasion to satisfy the demands of morality or decency.
To paraphrase President Harry Truman, if you cannot discharge the duty, stay out of the White House. Mr. Trump can and should do better for his own political life and Judgment Day.
Does he need an adult in the living room as soon as possible to restrain his worst instincts?
* Armstrong Williams is the manager and Sole Owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.