Trump Has Waged War on America. What Price Should He Pay?

jrothstein
4 min readOct 25, 2020

By Joe Rothstein

Donald Trump promised to “make America great again.” Instead, he has been waging war on America.

Refusing to obey the nation’s laws and undermining the law itself.

Unconstitutionally assuming powers not delegated to the presidency.

Promoting the incarceration of his domestic political rivals.

Using public resources for his personal financial gain.

Attacking the fundamental basis for our democracy — -our right to vote, our system of peaceful transition of power, his call for his followers to take up arms against political opponents, his attacks on the media as “enemies of the people” for merely exercising their First Amendment rights.

It’s likely that the majority of Americans will see Trump’s actions for what they are and vote him out of office November 3. But he has yet to agree to accept that judgement. It is no idle concern that thousands of his heavily armed supporters could be encouraged to try to thwart that result on election day or in the days after.

What price should Trump pay for this assault on America? Is election defeat sufficient?

Numerous civil and criminal actions are on pause, waiting to resume once Trump loses presidential immunity. But is even that sufficient?

No, it’s not. We’ve tried looking away from assaults on our democracy before and that has only resulted in more and more dangerous attacks. After Vietnam, Watergate. After Watergate Iraq. After Iraq, Trump.

There should have been an accounting for Vietnam. We know from the Defense Department’s own Pentagon…

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