Resistance
I received a message from a former student yesterday. He is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from me: a Trump supporter and a pro-life advocate. He’s a man who sees protestors as property destroyers. He believes that folks like me never gave Donald Trump a “chance”. We were the “Resistance” from the beginning, from Muslims bans to Russia, Charlottesville to Ukraine, and finally to COVID.
My student carefully (and respectfully, I think) pointed out the hypocrisy he sees in Joe Biden asking for unity. And he quietly mocked Sunday’s essay about “taking back” the flag, Our Flag. We don’t agree, but I’m glad that after four years he’s still reading some of my essays. I hope he reads this one. And, he’s not wrong.
We did “Resist” from the beginning. My first essay on “Trump World” was published on February 10th, 2017, less than a month after the inauguration. We questioned the legitimacy of the 2016 election. And we rejected the actions of the President from the very, very beginning. I’ve got over nine hundred essays to prove it.
Legitimacy
This wasn’t the first time I saw a Presidency as illegitimate. In the last couple of weeks there’s been a lot of talk about the election of 2000. It was between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore (with just enough of a smattering of the Green Party’s Ralph Nader to alter the outcome). The results were so close, that it came down to an incredibly thin slice of voters in Florida.
In any mass of numbers, there is always some statistical “margin of error”. The Electoral College vote came down to Florida’s twenty-five. Out of almost six million votes cast there, the difference between Bush and Gore was less than six hundred. It was such a small margin, that it almost fell in that “margin of error”. If you re-counted the votes, over and over again, you might get a different outcome each time: a flip of a coin.
A Republican “riot” stopped the re-count in heavily Democratic Miami-Dade County. The Governor of Florida, George Bush’s brother Jeb, refused to recuse himself from the process. The entire Florida system seemed rigged for the Republicans, and when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of stopping the count at the moment when it was in Bush’s favor, that sealed the feeling. The Court voted five to four, the five Republican appointees against the four Democratic appointees.
Earning the Presidency
So many didn’t see George Bush’s Presidency as legitimate. Folks have “spotty” memories: few remember the “resistance” to Bush that lasted from January 20th 2001, until September 11th. But we all remember what happened then.
George Bush earned his legitimacy as President in the days and weeks after 9-11. He rose to the challenge from his first speech from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. In those first dark hours after the attack Bush made it clear:
“Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended. The full resources of the federal government are working to assist local authorities, to save lives, and to help the victims of these attacks. Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.”
He went on to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command where he met with the National Security Council and then determined to return to the White House against their advice. We literally watched as Air Force One and the fighter escorts flew home. They were the only planes in the sky.
In the next weeks he spoke at Ground Zero: “I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” But he also spoke at a mosque, making it clear that the United States was waging war against Al Qaeda, not all Muslims.
Legitimacy
After 9-11, America accepted George W. Bush as the legitimate President. And while many continued to oppose his policies, particularly the CIA’s secret torture campaign and the war in Iraq, Bush won a second term in office. He earned his Presidency.
Trump never won the opposition over, not even to the point of being a “loyal opposition”. Even in a crisis more extreme than 9-11, the COVID crisis, the President never “rose to the moment” as George Bush did. Instead, we now know, he whispered to a reporter that he knew “how bad” COVID was, but wouldn’t tell the American people.
So my old student is right. Donald Trump was resisted from the very beginning, and until the “bitter” end. But Donald Trump also never “rose to the moment” when he could win over the resistance, and bring the American people together.
It’s up to Joe Biden now. It’s clear he’s made it his priority to “reunite” America. That’s a daunting task: there’s pressure from the left to move their agenda. They claim credit for winning Georgia and the “Blue Wall” states. There’s pressure from the “right”, the Never-Trump Lincoln Republicans, who claim the same credit, seeing the Biden suburban support in part as their contribution. And there’s pressure from the “Resistance”, who want nothing more than to see the Trump family in prison.
I don’t expect my friend to “fall in line” beneath the flag. And I certainly don’t expect all Americans to support all of Biden’s agenda. But it’s not about giving Biden “a chance”. It’s up to Biden to prove his legitimacy and win a “loyal opposition”.
Biden must earn his place.
