The man who notoriously said in his first campaign for president that he could murder someone on Fifth Avenue without losing a vote is now effectively murdering Americans on the streets of our cities and murdering Venezuelans and Cubans in Caracas and the Caribbean Sea, and doesn’t have to face voters in another presidential election.
He is unconstrained in every other way as well: not subject to congressional oversight because supine Republicans are in control. Not subject to judicial oversight because the Supreme Court has given him a pass. Not subject to international law because the U.N. charter has no teeth.
“The only thing that can stop me,” he told reporters for The New York Times, “is my own morality. My own mind.” He was responding to a question about his power to attack other nations but his answer is as relevant to what he believes to be his power inside the United States.
He now seems intent on using armed agents of ICE, border security, and homeland security to frighten, harass, intimidate, or even murder likely Democratic and independent voters in November’s midterm elections.
Everyone gives wide berth to an unconstrained madman capable of wreaking havoc, fearing his havoc will harm them as well. Hence, Trump’s power to silence and extort — the news media, universities, law firms, museums and libraries and art institutions, Wall Street, giant corporations, and foreign nations.
But an unconstrained madman who reveals how dangerous he is also encourages the forces of sanity and restraint to rise up against him. Visibility matters. The more Trump’s violence is out in the open, the larger the resistance to him, both here and abroad.
I’m nauseously optimistic because Trump and his thugs are brazenly revealing how unconstrained their violence and treachery have become. Peaceful anti-ICE protests are spreading across the country. America’s traditional allies are joining together against Trump.
This past week, Trump’s assistant for nativist bigotry, Stephen Miller, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
Rubbish. If it were just strength, force, and power, America and the world would be engulfed in continuous warfare and no one would ever be safe.
We will strive for a nation and a world governed by laws, rules and norms that constrain the powerful, including Trump and his thugs.
We will stop Trump not with violence but with our steadfast dedication to democracy, the rule of law, and social justice. We will stop him with our determination that our children and grandchildren will not live under a dictatorship. We will stop him with our power, our courage, and our resolve.
We will not succumb to despair or doom. We will not become paralyzed with fear. We will not abandon our principles or abdicate our power.
We will win this, but winning is not enough. From the rubble Trump and his thugs are making of our laws and values, we will also rebuild.
We will build an America whose strength comes not from its bombs and bullets but from its moral authority. An America whose greatness comes not from the value of its stock market or the wealth of its billionaires but from laws and values that serve us all.
My friends, we will win and we will rebuild. We have no choice.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.