President Trump protests that he has been dealt a major injustice, which is, according to him and his followers, certainly not deserved, nor is it of his own doing.
The President resembles a rebellious adolescent. His loyalists resemble the parents of the rebellious adolescent. They persist in the notion that their child’s constant setbacks and misfortunes are due to the failures and antagonisms of those around him. Surely the favored son is in no way responsible for his plight.
For this President and his loyalists, it is, and has always been, someone else’s fault.
It is true that the President’s allies remain unrelentingly, and even unreasonably, loyal. It is also true that the President’s foes will unswervingly persist in their opposition of him.
But what happened to the middle-of-the-road Trump supporters of 2016? Clearly, independents and moderate voters shifted away from their support of the President in such volumes as to impact the outcome of the 2020 election.
How should we account for this seismic shift?
If the President and his followers would carefully crack the door of objectivity enough to allow a slice of revelatory daylight to shine through, they would be compelled to at least cautiously admit that the buck stops only with President Donald J. Trump.
The media is not to blame. The Pandemic is not to blame. The Supreme Court is not to blame. The Democratic Governors are not to blame. Nor are any others cited on the laundry list of supposed saboteurs to blame.
Rather, if the President had simply taken the high road, a road with which he seems utterly unfamiliar, the outcome of the 2020 election might have been quite different for him.
Consider this.
If the economy were as bullish under his leadership as the President alleges, then why not raise this banner high?
If the quality of life has been so improved under his leadership for African Americans, Hispanics, and Women, among others, then why not shout it from the rooftops?
If foreign economic policy and global relationships have been such a shining light of success under his leadership, then why not spotlight these successes?
In other words, if, over the past four years, this country has been experiencing the initiation of the coming fulfillment of the Trump Kingdom, then why not flaunt it with the regality that it deserves?
Instead, and true to form, in his campaign for re-election, the President opted for his well-worn path of ad hominem attacks upon anyone that dared to oppose him in even the slightest way. His malicious vitriol unfortunately has appealed to the lowest common denominator and baser impulses of the electorate’s nature.
Eddy F. Carder, Ph.D., J.D.
And herein lies the importance of the moderate-voter shift. In his bullyish tactics, President Trump alienated those supporters who were otherwise hanging by a thread. The moderates of 2016 who desired a raging economy, unity for all citizens, and the elevation of the USA in global contexts could no longer stomach the inexcusable behavior of the Adolescent-in-Chief of the 2020 election.
Mr. President, you may throw all the temper tantrums you wish. Seclude yourself from the realities of the external world and terminate all the personnel and staffers you want to.
But remember the words of President Harry S. Truman.
Mr. Trump, the buck stops with you.
Eddy F. Carder, Ph.D., J.D., teaches constitutional law and philosophy in Prairie View A&M University’s Marvin D. and June Samuel Brailsford College of Arts and Sciences.