What is America going to do about its Trump problem in 2019?

Carol Anderson

Removing Donald Trump is essential but, to fully address the work that needs to be done, his appointees must also step down

It’s gut-check time. With each guilty plea, each indictment, each tweet, it becomes evident that Donald Trump is not the legitimate president of the United States. He was hoisted into the White House by at least one foreign power to whom he and his regime are now beholden. Trump’s domestic and international policies, such as an ill-conceived tariff war with China, unplanned troop withdrawals from Syria, and US abdication from key international treaties, reflect a White House that has been captured and is implementing the chaos policies that Vladimir Putin wanted.

The big question for 2019, however, is “What are Americans going to do about it?”

Impeachment will not be sufficient. Nor will a deal where Trump simply resigns and hands over the reins to Vice-President Mike Pence, who was handpicked by now-convicted felon Paul Manafort (guilty of conspiracy against the United States), and, who, as head of the transition team, overlooked the numerous warnings about Michael Flynn as a national security risk.

The problem, frankly, isn’t simply Donald Trump. He has been aided by a coterie of enablers, who have exploited the fissures, flaws, norms and loopholes in American democracy that allowed the unscrupulous to prosper at the expense of the people and the nation itself.

Removing Trump, while essential, will not fully address the work that needs to be done. Instead, it is going to take an effort akin to Hercules cleaning out the Augean stables to repair, rebuild and strengthen America.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/08/what-is-america-going-to-do-about-its-trump-problem-in-2019

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Also, the regime’s cruel policies must also be jettisoned and replaced by those that embed dignity, the rule of law, and democracy into the operating code of the United States. There are proposals for immigration reform, a Green New Deal, restoring the Voting Rights Act, non-partisan redistricting commissions, nationwide automatic voter registration, increasing the minimum wage, eliminating dark money from campaigns, protecting the special counsel’s investigation, electoral college reform, and restoring ethics as foundational for public service.

This, of course, looks like a herculean task. But it’s gut-check time. Whether the nation decides in 2019 that this work is too hard and simply accepts the fate of stagnating in years of political and economic filth or whether it embraces the challenge and takes the mighty rivers of democracy and justice to clean out the stables will ultimately determine the future of the United States.

Carol Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and the author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide and One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy. She is also a Guardian US columnist.