Two nights before the second inauguration of Donald Trump, my wife, parents, and uncle celebrated my grandmother’s birthday at an Italian restaurant near Chicago. At some point between my first and second vodka tonic, my MAGA-adherent uncle leaned close to my ear to ask, “If in two years, inflation is down, the economy is strong, and crime is down, will you admit you were wrong about Trump?”
My initial response was to explain that inflation, for most items, is way down, crime rates have declined for three years, and by all indicators, the economy is strong. Ignoring my cursory review of the factual record, my uncle plowed ahead, “Yeah, but if all that happens, and the border is secure, would you admit that he is a good president?”
“No,” I said, “Because our definitions of ‘good’ are radically different.”
We got off the topic without any invective. My grandmother’s birthday dinner remained pleasant. But the conversation with my uncle, like most familial debates over politics these days, was unproductive. It felt pedantic to note that economic and crime rates do not necessarily reflect presidential performance. It also felt like a waste of breath because my uncle and I spoke different political and philosophical languages. Like two monolingual men attempting a simultaneous conversation in Mandarin and Spanish (a MAGA horror film), we could not have a meaningful exchange. My uncle tried to pin me on specific numerical metrics of presidential success. He was apparently unwilling to consider that my contempt for Trump has little to do with the efficacy of his policy agenda. There is nothing the man could do, other than abdicate, that would lead me to respect him.
Giving my uncle the benefit of the doubt that he supports Trump only because he believes that populist nationalism is beneficial to American institutions and people still leaves us at a state of static broadcasting. I think Trump’s leadership will fail, as it did during his first term. Even if it triumphs, according to my uncle’s metrics, the Trump presidency demands a thorough undressing, shorn of policy debates over birthright citizenship or Pete Hegseth. What remains when the orange-skinned emperor is naked? It is a question of values.
To applaud Trump and MAGA, one must reject, or at least ignore, values that have regulated American politics and dictated ethical behavior. They are the values of democracy, especially the peaceful transfer of power, the rule of law, acknowledgment of ideological adversaries as legitimate, fidelity to the truth, and the unwavering disapproval of violence as a tool of politics.
Some principles supersede executive orders and policy directives. If we reduce leadership to clinical criteria of economic performance or border expansion, we have to conclude that Vladimir Putin is a great president of Russia. He delivered on his promise to enlarge the Russian middle class and expand Russian borders and influence. Of course, we would then have all of our work in political science, cultural studies, and ethical inquiry ahead of us.
Any exploration of ethics must include virtue. Even the mechanistic consequentialism of John Stuart Mill—a most beneficial to most people’s calculus—forbids conflating two or three metrics with presidential success. Trump’s assault on democratic institutions, public health, and environmental safeguards will include the suffering, and in some cases, deaths, of many people.
Immanuel Kant, operating out of a different school of thought than Mill, said, “Live your life as though your every act were to become universal law.” The Bible asks, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Ernest Hemingway said, “Tell the truth and to hell with everyone.”
Hemingway advised F. Scott Fitzgerald against “making silly compromises.” There are compromises that I consider not only silly but dangerous. Even if the price of the precious eggs drops to 1 cent per carton, and Trump throws them into audiences like he hurled paper towels at Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico, I will hold steadfast to higher principles.
As John Adams famously wrote, “We are a nation of laws, not men.” The reverent admirers of Trump treat him as a king with special legal and moral exceptions. Congressman Andy Ogles has proposed a Constitutional amendment to allow Trump, but not Obama, to run for a third term. A Monmouth University poll shows that most Trump supporters wouldn’t object if Trump violated the Constitution to persecute his political enemies. Trump himself has said he favors “suspending” the country’s foundational legal document. After only a week in office, he signed an executive order attempting to nullify the 14th Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship. A judge has ruled it a violation of the Constitution, as will others. Trump has also pledged to ignore the TikTok ban he once favored despite it receiving congressional passage and Supreme Court approval.
The United States, in its best moments, has offered haven and hospitality to those escaping poverty and persecution. No matter how one feels about border security or the ideal number of immigrants, their humanity is not subject to debate. They have rights mandated by international and U.S. law. Separating families, rounding up immigrants, and placing them in camps and detention centers, while comparing them to snakes and monsters and alleging that they are murderers and rapists who eat family pets, degrades our country, and pollutes the humanity of anyone who would support it.
Similarly, transgender men and women are human beings worthy of the legal protections, economic opportunities, and social acceptance that cisgender people take for granted.
Transgender Americans are routinely the target of hate crimes. Trump, by pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists, even those who beat and maimed police officers, has encouraged political violence. This dangerous act coincides with his removal of security details from former aides turned political foes, such as Anthony Fauci and John Bolton. It is his promotion of political violence after many previous iterations, from dismissing the plot to murder Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer as “maybe not a problem” to instructing the Proud Boys, a thuggish hate group known to assault liberal protestors, to “stand by” that adds serious weight to the charge of fascism.
Regardless of the cost of the items in my shopping cart, I can’t accept the endangerment of immigrants, transgendered men and women, and anyone else Trump chooses, because they are political adversaries or the latest targets of reactionary media, to put in harm’s way. I also cannot approve of the abandonment of Ukraine and the weakening of international alliances that have helped the world avoid global conflict for 80 years. Appointing an unqualified television host with a history of alcohol abuse and credible accusations of sexual harassment to run the Department of Defense only makes matters worse.
Another disqualifying appointment is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to Health and Human Services. Gasoline can run out of the local pumps with the ease and cost of water, and I’ll remain outraged that an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, who appears to use steroids and claims that a worm ate part of his brain, will dictate public health protocol for the next four years. Kennedy has also faced accusations of sexual assault. The Trump administration’s indifference toward the mistreatment of women, coupled with the Republican Party’s eradication of women’s reproductive rights, signals a brutality that moral citizens should reject.
Trump’s violations of basic decency combine to form an attack on the United States. In nine years, Donald Trump has managed to coarsen our culture, making cruelty and belittlement of everyone, from women to people with disabilities, a perverse form of entertainment for his followers. He has also marketed deranged conspiracy theories, helping to undermine faith and trust in public service and institutions, all while placing liberal democracy in the crosshairs. Some of the moguls who surround him—Elon Musk, Marc Andreeson, and Peter Thiel—have expressed support for a techno-monarchy, arguing that democracy is too messy and inefficient for the modern world.
Liberal democracy not only enabled the U.S. and the West to enjoy unprecedented success and stability for 80 years. It allowed our society to rally around freedom, equality, and peaceful conflict resolution. It even enabled oppressed and neglected groups of people to organize to correct its most vicious failures. The Civil Rights movement, the labor movement, the feminist movement, and the gay rights movement are among the most inspiring examples of how liberal democracy succeeds while bolstering values essential to establishing and maintaining a healthy and happy civilization.
In 2020, Biden narrowly prevailed over Trump by building a message around an appeal for the “soul of the nation.” Due to inflation and due to the biases that many voters hold against a woman of color, the same message from Kamala Harris did not resonate with equal force. However, the outcome of a close election doesn’t repeal values or rewrite the truth.
There is a concerted effort to dismantle any discussion of values in American life. “Virtue signaling” and “woke” are two juvenile insults that reactionaries levy against anyone who attempts to articulate a principle of empathy, compassion, or anything beyond coldhearted self-interest and might makes right calculations.
The day after Trump’s inauguration last week, Bishop Marian Edgar Budde put the larger question of values in perspective during her sermon at the Washington National Cathedral. With the president and vice president in the front row, she asked that they show mercy for gay and transgender children, and immigrants and their sons and daughters. Trump and Vance showed signs of disgust, while their supporters denounced Budde, predictably as, “woke.” Congressman Mike Collins of Georgia said Budde should be “added to the deportation list.”
If a commander in chief is too fragile, too much of a snowflake to absorb an uncomfortable moment in a public forum, and if a minister requesting kindness to children is cause for discomfort, even contempt, then what we have is a values crisis that transcends policy. The ensuing fight will go far beyond the price of eggs.
Now, I’d like another vodka tonic.
