Don’t let Trump drag America ‘back to before’

In the powerful revival of the musical “Ragtime” at the New York City Center theater, the female lead, played by Caissie Levy, stops the show with a song titled “Back to Before.” With words filled with emotion in each phrase, she sings of the pain of making progress in a deeply divided and bigoted turn-of-the-century America. As I absorbed the song, I could not help but think of Donald Trump and the corrupt message he has brought in the election.

Trump is, of course, a man with a criminal and moral record. He has four indictments charging some 91 felonies, 34 of which have resulted in guilty verdicts. He has boasted about groping women and been found liable for violating one. He has shared national security secrets with unauthorized individuals, tried to overturn an election, fraudulently misrepresented his net worth to his lenders and allegedly cheated on his taxes as well as all of his wives.

Nothing evinces Trump’s amorality as much as his chilling remark after being told that his own vice president was in danger of being lynched by a mob he had set loose on the Capitol: “So what?”

Americans have heard what Trump has said in his own words. He believes he has the authority to terminate “rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” Using the military, he’ll implement the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” He would give those who attacked the Capitol in the deadly Jan. 6 riot “pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.” He would tell Vladimir Putin’s Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that, in Trump’s view, don’t pull their weight.

He wouldn’t “give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate,” which virtually all schools have in place to prevent deadly childhood diseases such as diphtheria, measles and polio. He speaks about his political opponents and media critics as “the enemy from within” and believes they “should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.” He has suggested that retired four-star Army Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserves execution.

He has vowed to appoint a prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. He has said he will order the Justice Department “to investigate every radical district attorney and attorney general in America” and that the media “will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage,” because they are “the enemy of the people.”

He has used Nazi rhetoric in saying immigrants are “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has said some migrants are “not people.” He has vowed to deny federal aid to states controlled by Democrats. He has threatened to blow Iran “to smithereens.” He has announced he will unilaterally jettison the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. He has previewed his desire to “be a dictator” — but only for one day.

We may need many things in America, but one thing we don’t need is a dictator.

Americans have heard the warnings from Trump’s former aides, such as retired four-star Marine Gen. John Kelly, tapped by Trump to be both his White House chief of staff and secretary of Homeland Security. Kelly has said Trump meets the “definition of fascist” and “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.” Gen. Milley — the same Gen. Milley whom Trump wants to execute, formerly the nation’s top soldier — called Trump “fascist to the core.” Retired four-star Marine Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, whom Trump appointed secretary of Defense, said he makes “a mockery of our Constitution.”

Some partisans once argued that aides such as these would offer “guardrails” against Trump carrying out his malignant designs. This time, there would be no such guardrails from the sycophants and cultists around him, nor from a MAGA-dominated Congress (if elected with him). Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is so extreme he would take away our health care as he fantasizes about a “no ObamaCare” future.

And don’t count on the Supreme Court to hold the line against Trump either. The far-right justices seem to think everything he does in office is immune or presumptively immune from criminal prosecution. In short, they have held that Trump is effectively above the law. And, make no mistake about it, if he gets the chance, he will appoint more judges ideologically in tune with his deranged political vision.

Were it not for his MAGA base or the uneasy feeling that Vice President Kamala Harris is unknown and untested — a new kid on the block — Trump could be easily dismissed as more boring than dangerous. We have heard all of his nonsense before. He is a broken record, a Borscht Belt comedian where you know all the jokes, a liar who has cried wolf too many times, a smear without the bagel.

Trump is weird. He wants to be in our bedrooms. He wants control of women’s bodies. He stands ready, willing and able to turn us into an autocracy. He will ban or curtail abortion throughout the country — and maybe birth control and IVF fertilization as well. He will bring down the economy with a national sales tax on imported goods, which will likely start a trade war with an economically declining China and increase the cost of imported goods to the American consumer.

Is Trump a fascist wannabe? Robert Paxton, the foremost American academic expert on fascism, said, “It’s bubbling up from below in very worrisome ways, and that’s very much like the original fascisms,” Paxton said. “It’s the real thing. It really is.” In an online column appearing Jan. 11, 2021, Paxton had written that the invasion of the Capitol “removes my objection to the fascist label.” Trump’s “open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line,” he went on. “The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary.”

The American people should not want to go “back to before.” “Ragtime” portrays progressive battles won in the early years of the last century. Some might be excused for being fooled by Trump in 2016, but they must not be fooled again.

James D. Zirin, author and legal analyst, is a former federal prosecutor in New York’s Southern District. He is also the host of the public television talk show and podcast Conversations with Jim Zirin.