By BRIAN HOWEY, guest columnist
Growing up, my parents and my teachers in Michigan City and Peru taught me about our great presidents. The first one, George Washington, would never tell a lie. Perhaps the greatest, Abraham Lincoln, urged his war torn nation to bind up its wounds with “malice toward none and charity toward all.”
There was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who reassured a shaken nation during the Great Depression and the rise of fascism that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And there was John F. Kennedy, who told us to “ask not” what our country could do for you; “ask what you can do for your country.”
If I were to choose a soundtrack for this, it would be the classic Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song: “Teach Your Children.” As our nation recoiled in assassination, race riots and war in 1970, they told us that we “must have a code, which you can live by.” As a parent of successful sons and a daughter, I conveyed their father’s hell, fed them my dreams, urged them to seek the truth, and I constantly expressed my love for them.
Last Wednesday, two former American presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton; a former presidential nominee; a former vice president; a former attorney general; two members of Congress; an Oscar-winning actor; and a cable TV network were to receive pipe bombs, except they were intercepted by the Secret Service. In the case of Robert DeNiro, an attentive employee intercepted a packed addressed to the actor.
Historian Jon Meacham compared this assault on American leaders as unseen since the horrific night of April 14, 1865, when John Wilkes Booth and his henchmen assassinated President Lincoln and unsuccessfully attempted to rub out the secretary of state and vice president. It was an attempt to decapitate the American government.
How did President Trump react to these events last Wednesday?
In the months, weeks and months prior to this domestic terrorism, our president applauded the assault of a journalist by a Montana candidate and current member of Congress. “Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my guy,” our president said.
As a presidential candidate in February 2016, Trump said at Cedar Rapids, “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell… I promise you I will pay for the legal fees.”
And there was that protester being escorted by security from a Las Vegas rally. “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you,” he said.
In Sioux City in January 2016, candidate Trump famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s like incredible.”
Yes, incredible. Really.
In Wisconsin on the night of these bomb discoveries, Trump said at a rally, reading from a teleprompter: “My highest duty, as you know, as President, is to keep America safe. That’s what we talk about. That’s what we do. The federal government is conducting an aggressive investigation, and we will find those responsible and we will bring them to justice. Hopefully very quickly. Any acts or threats of political violence are an attack on our democracy, itself.”
Yes, Mr. President, any threat of political violence. From anyone. Even you.
Then our president ad-libbed: “Those engaged in the political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective. By the way, do you see how nice I’m behaving today? Have you ever seen this?”
No, Mr. President, such calls for what the Constitution’s preamble promises, to “insure domestic tranquility” and “promote the general welfare” have been rare since you declared your candidacy, and eventually took the oath of office to defend that very Constitution.
At rallies in Elkhart and Evansville this year, I watched Hoosiers standing behind President Trump react to his vitriol and lies like they were a studio audience. Because this is really the “President Trump Reality Show.” It’s live, on TV, and he spins up fiction and stirs fear and loathing. He demeans women and his political opponents, and these audiences respond, “Lock her up!”
I wonder about these folks: How did they teach their children? Did they teach them it’s OK to lie, to threaten and assault? And for those “leaders” who join our president on stage, who accept his platitudes and endorsements, is this OK? We don’t expect our governor, senators, congressmen and women, commissioners and mayors to lie and foment violence. If they did, Hoosiers would vote them out of office.
Yes, I know many of you voted for Donald J. Trump to shake things up, tell it like it is, and drain the swamp. What is emerging in the era of Trump is a new American coarseness, a sense of intolerance, and fear, where it’s OK to harangue our leaders in restaurants. With it, inevitably, comes violence as his supporters take their cues and lash out at their shared enemies. This violence now comes on both the extreme right and left.
Are these the new lessons for our children? And the next generation of Hoosier and American leaders? Is this the new excusable conduct? What are you going to teach your children on this coming Election Day? And the one two years hence?
Brian A. Howey of Nashville is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at howeypolitics.com. Find him on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
