This Way Treason Lies, The Indefensible Malpractice of a Failed Leader

The Nation is on the precipice of a traumatic period, one more fraught with danger and unknown outcome than any since the second world war. We are faced with two demons, each related to the other, but each competing for our focus. The first is the Covid-19 pandemic that held — and still may hold — the capacity to take millions of lives; the second, a collapsed economy caused by a necessary reaction to our belated response to that first threat. Having given the pandemic our undivided attention, we have so far contained the loss of life to the tens of thousands… but the cost of that prioritization has been the collapse of a previously sound economy, and the disenfranchisement of tens of millions of our citizens.

The navigation of this treacherous period will be among the most difficult challenges of our lives. The virus remains omnipresent; having likely affected well less than 1% of the population, we remain a fertile target for continued and expanded outbreaks. The collapse of the economy has dislodged upwards of 22 million workers with unprecedented suddenness, leading to an increasing inability of millions to maintain their solvency and for whole industries to fail en masse. The details underpinning both of these calamities are horrific and pervasive, with the potential for traumatic damage from either or both.

The Capacity of a Leader

This is a moment that measures the character and capacity of a leader. The complexity of the challenges requires a bringing together of every human asset, of every potential strength from each corner of our country. Solutions demand creative contributions from the sciences, from finance, from strategic planning and from communication, a collaboration of the entirety of America to address a common threat. It is a time for leadership to rise, and to orchestrate an armistice from the afflictions of division.

it is this very moment that has revealed the smallness of President Trump, and his undeniable inability to rise and lead. He has, irrevocably, demonstrated that he lacks the capacity to occupy the office that he was elected to, and the nation is in dire trouble because of his inadequacy.

We can enumerate dozens, if not hundreds of individual failings that lead to this conclusion; let’s use one, a seemingly petty one that could easily have traumatic consequences.

On Wednesday afternoon, after a number of internecine squabbles and contradictory pronouncements, President Trump stood at a White House podium and revealed a plan for the next phase of the battle. Only 16 pages, it laid out a phased and measured program for the reopening of some commercial elements, and the gradual softening of confinement protocols. The guide followed closely the most recent suggestions of the scientific, health, and medical communities, and combined with a pronouncement that the Governors of the States would have the ultimate say in its execution, finally provided the country with a picture of what the immediate future might represent.

Simultaneously, in several state capitals, some relatively minor protests were gaining the attention of the media. The protestors were clad in Trump campaign gear and claimed to be representing an ideology in synch with the President. They demanded as Trump had himself in slightly earlier incarnations, an immediate end to the mediation programs that we’re serving to combat the Covid-19 disease, and a full restoration of all businesses and personal freedoms. Loud and visual despite their small size, these protests managed to become the focus of the evening news, and a source of distraction to the local governments.

The juxtaposition of these protests who claimed to march under Trump’s banner, and their demand for redress that specifically countered the President’s own just presented program, seemed an easy invitation to clarify and unify. The press dutifully asked the President for his response to the protesters, and then waited for the obvious answer: Trump would mollify the angry elements by pointing to the actions being promoted by his administration, assure them that he heard their frustration and that he would continue to work to provide the best possible outcome and promise to bring more money to bear in addressing their needs. In so doing, he would join the protestors with the rest of the country, inviting them to support and take part in the solution.

Trump chose another path. He rejected the obvious, and remarked merely that the protestors “apparently liked and supported me” before shifting to another topic. No reaching out, no unifying statement, simply a moment of gratitude that they carried his name onto the evening reports. This was shameful, but not yet treasonous… that would come the next day.

The following day, Trump used Twitter to inflame the situation, writing that his supporters should “LIBERATE VIRGINIA” '“LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA” three of several states that had seen protests the prior day. This specific phrasing, mirroring the language of the protestors who were demanding that Trump’s own program be abandoned, had the expected result of energizing the movement and confirming the support of their titular leader. When asked about the tweets later in the day, Trump muttered that the restrictions enforced (again, as dictated in his own program) were “too hard”, and diverted the conversation to Virginia’s recent legislation regarding gun control, stating (inaccurately) that Virginia was seeking to deprive the protesters of their 2nd amendment rights, another inflammatory statement designed to energize the assaults on the State Capital.

The United States Incentivized a group of Protesters

It is critical in understanding the context in which the President of the United States intentionally incentivized a group of protesters to elevate their protests. We have, as mentioned earlier, millions of people who have lost their jobs, are struggling to feed their families, and are distrustful of their government’s promises to make them somewhat whole. We have tens of thousands of businesses attempting to participate in stimulus programs designed to maintain their payrolls, but unable to access the promised funds before they ran out. We have seen thousands of people lined up for hours waiting for food banks to provide them with groceries, people who never had held out their hands before, and who were self-sufficient scant weeks ago… while they wait for charity, they are watching large corporations exploit loopholes in the small business programs to retract hundreds of millions of those precious funds.

The recipe for riots, for anarchy and chaos, could not be clearer, and the circumstances are likely to get far worse before they improve. It is in this environment that our President decided to throw a few matches into the gasoline, and to do his best to start and fan partisan fires.

The risks of violence, rioting, and conflict are great. A massive slice of our population has been put into untenable positions, and we live in such aggressively partisan times that perceived enemies are everywhere. The President’s determination to intentionally motivate division rather than unification, to incite rather than to calm and assure, was political malpractice of the highest order. That he deliberately acted to provoke those most volatile actors into conflict was a strike against our nation; there is no better definition of Treason than the use of high office against the common good. That this is a frequent practice for this President merely confirms intent and premeditation; the court of our public opinion must find him guilty, and press our representatives to find ways of controlling the damage that he can cause until he can be removed in November… the well-being of our nation, and untold lives and treasure, may well depend on that restraint.