A Finale

By GENE NICHOL

It’s been a brutally long, and brutally short, presidential campaign. The most important to our national destiny since 1860. I’m not sure I can bear much more. I’m ready to vote. In fact, I already have.

But, I’ll concede, a good deal of clarity has come in these last closing days. A good deal of undeniability. Who would have thought it possible?

Bob Woodward has reported that Gen. Mark A Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Donald Trump, explained his former boss is “fascist to the core.” Milley knows Trump and he knows American history. That led him to conclude that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump is.” No one.

Milley’s words echoed The Atlantic’s earlier reports that Trump had wanted the military to attack protesters near the White House in 2020. “Beat the f—- out of them,” Trump told Milley. “Just shoot them.” Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper had to talk Trump out of opening fire on American citizens.

Almost contemporaneously, Trump told Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo that he wasn’t much concerned with outside agitators or terrorists. The “bigger problem is the enemy within.” We have “some very bad people … some sick people, radical left lunatics,” Trump said. “It should be very easily handled by, if possible, the national guard, or if necessary, by the military.” He later used Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi as examples.

The New York Times explained that “never before has a presidential nominee openly suggested turning the military on Americans simply because they oppose his candidacy.” Even Mark Robinson hasn’t said that. Trump doubled down by adding that Jan. 6th was “a day of love.” Had enough?

One more. Oct. 12 in Coachella, California, Trump interrupted his speech to say that a heckler would “get the hell knocked out of her” when she went back home to her mother and father.

Much has been made of Trump’s supposedly hyper-masculinized version of politics. I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma playing football and working on ranches and construction crews. There was a lot machismo in the air. I hope I’ve gotten over it.

Even so, I don’t remember any of those guys talking about wanting to “knock the hell” out of women or hoping someone else would do it for them. And if they had said such things, I don’t think folks would have clapped for them. We’ve come some distance. And it’s not on a road we’d easily explain to our kids. Or anyone else.

“And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him.

“And he opened his mouth, and taught them saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5-9).

Amen.

Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law and in 2015 started the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund after the UNC Board of Governors closed the state-funded Poverty Center for publishing articles critical of the governor and General Assembly.

From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2024

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