It's Mueller time but don't forget: Trump has undermined the very idea of America - Robert Reich

[DonViejo]

Partisan fury over the special counsel’s report may obscure the ways the president has damaged our democracy

Sun 24 Mar 2019 01.00 EDT Last modified on Sun 24 Mar 2019 01.09 EDT

We may never know for sure whether Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to obtain Russia’s help in the 2016 election, in return for, say, Trump’s help in weakening Nato and not interfering against Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Trump and his propaganda machine at Fox News have so aggressively undermined the legitimacy of Robert Mueller’s inquiry – repeatedly conjuring a “witch hunt” and maintaining a drumbeat of “no collusion” – that Mueller’s report, whatever it shows, will almost surely be overwhelmed by a fog of alt-interpretation and epistemological confusion. What’s “collusion?” What’s illegal? What’s unethical? Has Trump been vindicated or not?

The real danger is that as attention inevitably turns to the 2020 campaign, controversy over the Mueller report will obscure the far more basic issues of Trump’s competence and character.

An American president is not just the chief executive of the United States, and the office he (eventually she) holds is not just a bully pulpit to advance policy ideas. He is also a moral leader, and the office is a moral pulpit invested with meaning about the common good.

As George Washington’s biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, explained, the first president believed he had been entrusted with something of immense intrinsic worth, and that his duty was to uphold it for its own sake and over the long term. He led by moral example.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/24/robert-mueller-report-donald-trump

[BSdetect]

1. Democracy is a complex juggling of multiple concepts and requires a dedicated juggler.

That we are missing for now.

[lordsummerisle]

2. Just read this

excellent briefing of this administration.

[MyOwnPeace]

3. There can be

NO moral leadership by someone completely devoid of morals.