Tales of Quarantine Day #27
I am old enough to remember the days of Watergate. I really had no understanding, at the time, of what it was about, but some of my earliest childhood memories consist of sitting next to my parents while Walter Cronkite updated us on the latest Cabinet firings and Congressional Hearings. Our family lore includes a tale of me, at the age of 5, weeping in front of the television while I watched President Gerald Ford’s swearing in ceremony. When my mother asked me why I was crying, I told her, “I am so glad that we don’t have that bad man in the White House anymore, Mommy.” I knew nothing about the attempts at election meddling and obstruction of justice that Richard Nixon had committed, but I was old enough to understand that lying was wrong, and that having a leader who lies to the people was a danger to our nation.
I think those early experiences set me up for a lifetime of skepticism when it comes to people in positions of authority. I have always sought to look behind the curtain to see who is really pulling the levers of power. As the child of a foreign service officer, I had the opportunity to travel to parts of the world where people live in severe poverty, with minimal infrastructure and ongoing war. As most American who have traveled in the third world will tell you, one’s perspective on the US changes after seeing how differently others live. You return home with a renewed appreciation for our many blessings as a rich and powerful democracy with extraordinary resources. You also see, more clearly, some of the cracks and faults that lie in our imperfect system. It changes ones view on the concept of American Exceptionalism.
I am not a cynic. I have always cringed when people tell me they don’t vote because “all politicians are the same, anyway” or that our government is essentially corrupt and that the needs of the people are lost in the legislative process, no matter who is in charge. In fact, I feel an enormous patriotic pride in the freedoms we hold dear and the system our founders created. I am often overwhelmed with the brilliance of our checks and balances. I proudly take my children with me to the voting booth to show them that “We the People” hold the power. I watched countless hours of the impeachment hearings that took place this winter and even in the midst of my fury and frustration, I was moved by the solemnity of the process. There is a part of me that is still looking with the eyes of that five-year-old who wants to believe that all will be well, as long as our leaders are honest.
But in recent days, I feel a worsening cynicism creeping in. Throughout our history, terrible things have happened to our people and often those things have been made worse through missteps on the part of our leaders. This is not the first disaster that has occurred, for which we were not prepared. This is not the first time that misjudgments from the White House have placed American’s lives in danger. Our current president is not the first to obfuscate the truth and fail to take responsibility for the grave consequences to our nation’s credibility.
On the other hand, never before, in my knowledge of history, has a leader chosen to stand by while people were suffering and spend his time belittling and bullying anyone who dares question his authority. Never before have we been in the hands of a pathologic narcissist who delights in humiliating anyone who does not bow to his will. Never before have we seen someone whose primary focus appears to be his own self-aggrandizement, bragging about TV ratings while failing to express compassion for those who are sick and dying and in mourning. These are the behaviors of an irredeemable human being.
A number of years after he left office, Richard Nixon participated in an extraordinary series of interviews with the journalist David Frost. The interviews were, at times, contentious, with the former president pushing back on tough questions, in an effort to preserve his presidential legacy. But late in the interview process, after some extraordinary questioning, the former leader of the free world conceded that he had indeed committed acts of wrong doing.
“I let the American people down” he said. “And I’ll have to carry the burden the rest of my life.”
That powerful moment, in which America watched a disgraced man take some responsibility for his actions, actually softened, slightly, the world’s view of him. And years later, when he died, he was afforded all the pomp and ceremony that any former president is given during his funeral
It is hard to imagine Donald Trump ever expressing such regrets for his complete and utter failure to protect us now. It is harder still to imagine him apologizing for the uncountable acts of cruelty we see him commit toward the citizens of his own country every day. We have a long battle ahead of us as a nation. The wounds we are enduring are deep and healing process will take years. The man, in whom many of our citizens put their trust to keep us safe, is deepening those wounds each day and ensuring that our road to recovery will be that much harder.
· This post first appeared as part of a series and can be found on my blog The Glass Bell at https://rebeccafullerdotblog.wordpress.com/