Why is Trump Worth it?

What makes Donald Trump worth it? This isn’t a rhetorical question, not really. It’s something I’ve genuinely struggled to comprehend over the last four years. Why do people ignore every reprehensible and grotesque act he commits? What makes him so worthy of the sort of blind support and faith that is usually reserved for religious figures? Why do people tether their souls to Donald Trump?

The first thing to bear in mind is that Donald Trumps problems aren’t policy-based. If it were, you wouldn’t see an outpouring of support from Republicans for his opponent this election. People would still disparage him at every turn, the same way people disparaged Obama, Bush, Clinton, the other Bush, you know, politics. The problems with Donald Trump are entirely based on his behavior and reckless abandon for rules and norms.

Rules and norms are important in government. They are especially important in a democracy. A monarchy may claim it’s power from god and use fear of the divine to keep the people from rising. In a democracy power comes from the people and the people know it. The only reason democracy works is that people believe the system works and it works fairly and equally for all. And if they don’t believe that, they must believe that working within the system is the best way to fix it, otherwise they’ll decide it’s time for a new system. Rules and norms serve the important function of maintaining trust in the system.

The office of the president has incredible powers (much of which was accrued after the nation’s founding and often acquiesced by a legislative branch more interested in the appearance of power than the responsibility of making actual decisions) and the rules and norms in place are intended to curtail the abuse of those powers. When Donald Trump breaks rules and norms he isn’t just breaking from tradition, he opens the possibility of future abuses of power that may undermine our democracy, if they haven’t already.

Pictured: A guy who didn't try to destroy democracy


I’ll talk about specific examples in greater detail later, but the most egregious and recent instance is his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. When John Adams lost to Thomas Jefferson, in 1800 there were serious concerns he would refuse to accept the results and the republic would fail right then and there. Adams didn’t refuse, he accepted the results and power was peacefully transferred then and for every other election for 212 years. Now, we have a president suggesting he won’t accept the result if it’s not in his favor. Of course, the reason he won’t accept them is based on his own unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. Fabricating a reason to reject election results, and then outright refusing to accept the results no matter the outcome isn’t how the process works in a functioning democracy. It’s how it works in authoritarian states where leaders get 99% of the vote.  

By questioning an election and refusing to commit to a transfer of power, Donald Trump is sowing the seeds to undermine faith in the elective process. The sitting President of the United States is actively undermining public trust in our democracy for personal gain. It is the duty of the American people to defend their democracy and deliver an overwhelming referendum that the president must be better than this.

Unfortunately, at least 40% of the people still support Trump. Even though he presents a clear and present danger to the republic, they still support him, blindly even. They bend over backwards to defend him and excuse his behavior as if it’s a cute quirk of personality and not the behavior of a despot in training. Why do so many people not only stand by as a man drives the nation to the brink, but actually help him step on the accelerator?

It’s quite frankly mind-boggling. I cannot understand what could possibly drive people to continue to blindly follow a man with a disposition unfit to manage a 7-Eleven let alone the country, or at least I couldn’t understand it. Then I realized a handy little Venn diagram actually explains every Trump supporter quite well…

Part 2 coming.

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