This is Not America!

Trump's time in office has already shown us how far we can fall from the true greatness of America.

a small crowd of mourners praying before an American flag

I’ve been fortunate to live as long as I have. I’ve heard and read and considered many different points of view, many alternative theories about society and the future. Contrary to what you may hear about universities, they have, in large part, encouraged disagreement. Why? I’m tempted to say because no one could contain it except for brief moments. It’s coded in our DNA, it’s how evolution made us “the fittest.”

I also think, though, it was because it is the best way we’ve found to live in a world with equal measure of threat and hope.

I do not remember a time like today. The extent of scholarly agreement is unlike anything I’ve experienced in the past. I don’t mean there are not “crack-pots.” Even brilliant minds can “fly off the handle.” I’m referring to people who held, and still do hold, principled and well-researched alternative opinions that we have perhaps carelessly called “right” and “left.”

What do I mean by well-researched? Beliefs that are locked into carefully observed experience and soundly constructed logic.

Yesterday they debated each other. Today, they are saying the same thing.

Take the conservative columnist David Brooks in his opinion column in the NYT (4/11/25):

I’ve covered a lot of policies over the decades, some of which I supported and some of which I opposed. But I have never seen a policy as stupid as this one. It is based on false assumptions. It rests on no coherent argument in its favor. It relies on no empirical evidence. It has almost no experts on its side — from left, right or center. It is jumble-headedness exemplified. Trump himself personifies stupidity’s essential feature — self-satisfaction, an inability to recognize the flaws in your thinking. And of course when the approach led to absolutely predictable mayhem, Trump, lacking any coherent plan, backtracked, flip-flopped, responding impulsively to the pressures of the moment as his team struggled to keep up.

Producing something this stupid is not the work of a day; it is the achievement of a lifetime — relying on decades of incuriosity, decades of not cracking a book, decades of being impervious to evidence.

I can’t write as well as Brooks. I wish I could. So let me just say I agree. You ask me why. All I can say, is that I’ve spent more than 80 years reading, watching, talking, experiencing life. My present evaluation of the President and his Presidency is the best I can do. Yes, I will be the first to say it is not the best that can be done. I’m not asking anyone to change their view in order to “think like I do.” I am suggesting that each of you pay as much attention as you can to what so many people who deserve our respect—for the breadth and the depth of their knowledge—are saying.

I think that this is a once in a lifetime moment. We don’t have yet the judgment of history to rely upon. The future may judge us harshly and unfairly for not having their perspective. I know it is dangerous to raise alarms. Many have been carried away on the currents of the moment.

And, yes, it would be safer to wait. Safer for one’s own reputation, but not safer for the country.

I honestly don’t know how successful we will be in stopping what is happening. Much may be beyond repair. I personally believe we must try and I still have faith in the basic institutions of the country and in the honor of many of the men and women who are in a position to successfully oppose the President.

And, yes, I believe that we will recover, and life across the oceans of this world will continue. But the cost will be high. So much will be lost. So many will die needlessly. So many will suffer and wish for death.

I never thought I would be repeating the lines given to the Roman Commander Lucious Silva, played by Peter O’Toole, in the 1980s TV series, Masada. Removed from command of a Roman army trying to end a Jewish rebellion whose remaining forces were entrenched on the high rock of Masada, he hears the screams of anguish as the new Commander uses a catapult to slam captives high against the rock in order to force a surrender.

He is with his mistress who he plans to take back to Rome and to whom he has been explaining the nobility of its civilization. Listening to the screams she responds that she hears the truth of Rome.

O’Toole cries “That is not Rome,” buckles on his sword and runs from his tent to take back command of the Roman Legion.

Today, I want to say and be heard, perhaps without the warriors’ spirit of Silva, silently with head bowed, “This is not America.”