Making America Great Again? Trump Fails His Own Test

We of course are familiar with the Trump slogan and the red MAGA caps.  Trump certainly claims that he has.  But has anyone in print or otherwise bothered to systematically ask the question, “Has Trump made America great again?”  Not to my knowledge.  And so that is what this post will assess.

In doing so, I am not going to get into the philosophical discussion about what made America great or whether it was no longer great, as Trump claims, under Obama.  That’s another article.  This is just taking the phrase at its most simple, straight-forward Trumpian meaning.

Has America become stronger militarily?  Have we become stronger economically?  Have we become more respected among the world’s nations?  Have we become stronger geopolitically.  Has the average American citizen become better off financially, more secure?  Is the average American citizen closer to obtaining the Rights due him under the Constitution?  Is the average American citizen more physically secure now?

These are all stated components of Trump’s goal of making America great again.  Sadly, both for the country and for his followers, just the opposite has occurred in almost every area.  Trump has failed his own test.

Weaker Militarily:  While Trump has increased the Defense Department budget, military strength is only partly a numbers game.  It has more to do with effectively being able to deploy troops as needed and defeating the enemy.  While troops have been deployed effectively, though no better than before, our record of defeating the enemy has actually gotten worse.  Whether in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, or Iran, our position vis a vis the enemy has either weakened under Trump or stayed pretty much the same.  Trump’s bluster aside, we are not stronger militarily.

Weaker Economically:  Even before the pandemic we were not stronger economically.  The stock market may have been going gang-busters, but the economy was growing at a slow pace and the average American had not felt much of an improvement.  Yes, unemployment was down, but most of the new jobs created were lower paying than the ones that were lost.  And of course because of Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus, his total lack of leadership, the American economy is now, despite the once-again soaring stock market, in a very weakened state.

Certainly on the world scene, we were even before the pandemic not stronger economically;  China is the big bully, and while Trump stood up to China, America lost more than it gained in the trade wars.  Since the pandemic, we are way behind other countries in economic recovery. 

Less Respected:  America has probably never been so little respected among the world’s nations as under Trump.  He is a laughing stock to most of the world, and by association, so is the country.  We are not even respected by our allies.  Trump’s failed response to the pandemic has made matters worse; the greatest nation in the world with its great health system and capacity is at it’s knees, the virus is winning.  It’s probably safe to say that we aren’t even feared by anyone, except in the sense that Trump is so unpredictable that he capable of doing almost anything if his ire is aroused.

Weaker Geopolitically:  Our strength and respect in the world militarily, economically, and politically is has made America strong geopolitically.  Under Trump, there can be no question that America is less strong geopolitically.  In addition to the factors already discussed above, Trump’s “America First” perspective has resulted in a shrinking of our presence and impact around the world, which has in turn made us weaker geopolitically.  We are no longer either in actuality or perception the leader of the “free” world.

Average American Weaker Financially:  Trump in his Inaugural address talked of the forgotten men and women who suffered greater economic inequality.  Yet as mentioned before, despite the lower unemployment rate before the pandemic hit, the average American was not stronger financially, was not more secure financially.  The huge increase in wealth resulting from the stock market boom and the bulk of benefit from Trump’s tax cuts went to the top layer of American society.  And now the pandemic has resulted in a huge downturn in the economy and with it the financial status of millions of unemployed American workers.

Average American’s Physical Security Not Improved:  Trump made a major issue out of what he saw as the crumbling physical security of the average American from crime, especially in our cities, and the threat to our physical security from illegal immigrants.  Again in his Inaugural address, he said that “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”  

While he has sent more money to the police, our security is pretty much as it was before Trump.  While Trump has enacted draconian measures against illegal and other immigrants, that has not improved our physical security.   The reason why nothing has really changed is that Trump does not understand and so has not addressed the real factors that continue to make crime a major issue in the inner city.

Average American Not Benefiting More From His Rights:  Despite all the fuss about the 2nd Amendment Right to bear arms and the Right to Life, and in general talking about Rights in connection with the pandemic, we are further from our basic Rights now than previously.  The most essential element of our Constitutional rights is to be free from government intrusion, except when necessary to protect the greater good.  

But under Trump, an even greater percentage of our citizenry and many in the halls of government seem to have no concept of the greater good, of the American social contract.  It’s all about me, my rights.  And they’re angry about it.  There is a lack of understanding that no right, even the 1st Amendment, is absolute; the exercise of one’s Right can never damage the greater good and in certain cases cannot negatively impact another’s Rights.  And with regard to the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness noted in the Declaration of Independence, we are far from protecting that Right, certainly for people of color and the poor.

So even judged on Trump’s own terms, how he would define what would make America great again, he has failed miserably.  Worse, he has taken a large portion of Americans and Republican politicians down his dark path and so damaged, perhaps irretrievably, our democracy.  Ironically, in his Inaugural, he spoke of “ignorance stifled dreams.”  Truly, ignorance has never had a higher place of honor in our country than at the present moment.

The Universality of Spiritual Truth

I have been a practicing Buddhist for 25+ years.  During that time, my practice has deepened, I am one with the true Buddha nature inside me (well, almost), and I share my faith and knowledge with others through my Buddhist blog, www.thepracticalbuddhist.com, and through the several books I have written.

It has been reaffirming for my faith to learn that the mystical traditions of all three Abrahamic faiths and great religious thinkers all basically teach the same thing as Buddhism: that suffering is universal and that we suffer because we have fallen away, out of touch, with the divinity that is within each of us; consumed instead with the ways of the world and the lessons it has taught us.  And that is is our responsibility, and possibility, to reconnect with that divinity and thus end our suffering.

Most recently, I found that reaffirmation in reading an article in The New Yorker, about Søren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish anti-establishment Christian thinker.  The article notes that he said that everyone is in despair and that if someone thinks they are not, they are lying to themselves.  Interestingly, in a recent video of mine, “The Mind - Suffering Connection,” I begin by noting that many viewers will say that they don’t suffer.  After asking them some questions, I say, “You may be in denial, but you suffer.”

Kierkegaard says that only by acknowledging our suffering can we begin to understand that suffering is “defiance of God,” or in modern theology, defiance of the divinity that is within each of us.  And that we can be freed from that despair or suffering only by giving ourselves over entirely to God.  The Zen monks who taught me put the same point this way, “by surrendering your ego-mind to your true Buddha nature,” or in the language of 12-step, “by turning your will and your life over to the care of your true Buddha nature/higher power.”

He wrote, as the monks taught, that the responsibility of choice - to believe or not believe, to act or not act - is always individual.  This is beyond difficult: to overcome our training, our life experience.  But it is possible and the responsibility is ours to do so.

He also said that life can only be understood backward, but it has to be lived forward.  In Buddhism, we learn that we do what we do because of our learned experience: the emotions, judgments, cravings, and attachments that form our ego-mind.  This is the past that for most people not only explains their current lives but controls their future.  Only if one frees oneself from the past, from the intervention of the ego-mind, can one move forward in a way which is one’s best interest, free of the burden of the past.

The last point I will make in this comparison is that Kierkegaard says that as one begins the spiritual path it is complex and then becomes more and more simple.  That is the experience I have found in my Buddhist practice.  As the practice deepens, as my connection with my true Buddha nature deepens, life becomes more simple because I am not pulled this way and that by the past, by my ego-mind.  Instead, I know that life is just the way it is. There is no obsession with future; only the present moment is real.  And I know I will be safe regardless what life throws my way because I have returned home, and will always return home, to my true Buddha nature.

And so how sad, how proof-positive of the fallen nature of man (including the men of organized religion) that instead of focusing on these universal truths and the fact that all religions at their core teach the same thing … and that we thus are all one … man and organized religion has used religion as a divisive instrument, a way to control their followers and gain and maintain power by creating an us v them world view.  How opposite of true spirituality is this!  How perverse and dark.  Our religious leaders are an obstacle to our spiritual growth, not the light they should be.