THE RACIST AND EXISTENTIAL THREAT THAT IS TRUMP

President Trump at recent Social Media Summit (photo: CNN.com)

I preface this post with President Donald Trump's own words on Twitter Sunday morning, July 14 (which he or his staffers have recently taken down from the @realDonaldTrump account):

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......

...and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

Before dealing with the most obvious issue, let's consider the continued Birther mentality of our current President. Because these are women of color, Trump wants to plant the assumption into non-critical thinkers' and supporters' heads that this automatically disqualifies them from being genuine American citizens. Three of the four freshman Democratic Congresswomen under consideration were born in the United States, and the fourth,  Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. The tweets just fall apart under the scrutiny of logic.

However, logic has nothing to do with these tweets and everything to do with racist tropes. It is the old "go back where you came from" whenever a white person encounters someone considered The Other. They are inferior in Trump's eyes due to race even more than their political stances.

The existential threat posed by these tweets--as well as from many other Trump actions, such as challenging Supreme Court rulings that don't go his way and refusing any subpoena authority from Congress--is that they challenge the foundations of our form of government. These women are duly elected Representatives of the citizens of their districts. They have a right to their positions and to express them. If their constituents vote them out for those stances in two years, so be it. This is the American republic on which we stand.

But along with the regular dog whistling of racism, Trump is trying to negate contributions from another branch of government that doesn't bow to his attempted authoritarian-style administration.

This is where you come in, citizen. If our Congress does not move to impeach President Trump for his misconduct in office or highly suspicious attempts at obstruction during the FBI and Mueller investigations, or handling of the Departments of Justice and Treasury as his personal lawyers and accountants, we have the right and responsibility to vote this man out in 2020. Even though he may not respect this result and the peaceful transfer of power may end (depending on the reaction of his supporters), we have to maintain our form of government, which until recently was the best form of government humanly available.

I close with the words of John from the New Testament, which some Christians have seemed to forget with their recent vehement defenses of Trump's promotion of division and fear. "There is no fear in love, for perfect love casteth out all fear. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (I John 4:18, KJV). Let's unify to support the diversity and form of government that makes our country distinctive and great, and cast the current fear monger out.