To Watch the Loss of Your Nation’s Honor is Embarrassing and Painful.

by Rod Williams, May 2, 2025 - President Trump is taking America to a place we may have never been before, or so it seems. Maybe Andrew Jackson was as bad, or worse, but we don't know yet because Trump's still has three more years and nine months do whatever it is he is going to do. It appears that we are heading toward a sheading of the Constitution and the norms that have preserved our democracy. It feels to me like we are going down the path of Argentina, or Orban's Hungary or any other number of countries that traded prosperity and democracy for autocracy and authoritarianism. 

The hardcore MAGA are of course happy with the direction we are headed and celebrate the cruelty, chaos, indecency, and the strong man rule unrestrained by concepts like the co-equal branches of government and the rule of law.  To those of us who have not joined the Trump cult, we are alarmed as we daily watch our democracy slip away. 

Both liberals and traditional conservatives are appalled and alarmed by Trump's rise to power, the violation of norms and constitutional restraints. While both liberals and traditional conservatives are appalled at what is happening, I think the conservatives feel something the liberals do not. The traditional conservatives feel betrayed.

A lot of liberals, I think, view Trump as a culmination of something they have been opposing all of their lives. When you always viewed Republicans as evil, then Trump is just eviller. Recently, I shared a Facebook meme that said something to the effect, "I did not know I would be spending my advanced years fighting fascism." Admittedly, "fascism," is an ill-defined term and I am not sure it actually applies. "Fascism" has become a meaningless pejorative. Maybe I should not have shared the meme. Nevertheless, I think the concept of the meme reflects what many of us feel. What we are experiencing is much different than anything experienced before in our lifetime. If it is not fascism, it is something close to it. A close acquaintance of mine replied to my sharing of the meme by saying something like, "I have been fighting fascism my whole life." 

When you also thought Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and ever Republican ever nominated was also evil or "fascist," then Trump is just more of the same but more so. When you revered Ronald Reagan and worked to elect people like George Bush and John McCain and Mitt Romney, and worked to advance a conservative ideology, Donald Trump feels like a betrayal of everything you ever believe in.

Thankfully there are still some faithful conservatives, people like George Will and Bill Crystal and David Brooks and the people who work for some of the conservative journals and think tanks who are remaining true to their conservative principle. Unfortunately, there are far too few of them.  Many people who still think of themselves as conservative have either embraced Trumpism or are too timid to oppose it. 

David Brooks writing in the most recent issue of The Atlantic expresses what I feel more than anything I have read. Below is an excerpt.

David Brooks

Charles de Gaulle began his war memoirs with this sentence: “All my life I have had a certain idea about France.” Well, all my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world. From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Americans fought for freedom and human dignity and against tyranny; we promoted democracy, funded the Marshall Plan, and saved millions of people across Africa from HIV and AIDS. When we caused harm—Vietnam, Iraq—it was because of our overconfidence and naivete, not evil intentions.

Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely—toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.

To read the full article, follow this link.  

Top Stories