All his life, Donald Trump has managed to avoid responsibility for the damage he’s done to others: his racial discrimination in his housing (not to mention his neglect of that same housing), his stiffing of contractors, driving many of them into bankruptcy, his exploitation of undocumented immigrants, his misogynistic treatment of women, his ripping off students at “Trump University” and buyers of his steaks and wines, his cheating on taxes, bank frauds, money laundering.
Then there’s the damages he’s done specifically as president: an economy skewed toward the already wealthy that hurts the poor, the middle class, the farmers; his cozying up to dictators, particularly North Korea, Russia, Egypt, and the Philippines; the great harm done to the citizens of those countries and to our reputation around the world; his flagrant violations of the Emolument Clause and dunning taxpayers by everything from charging the Secret Service premium rates to stay at his hotels to forcing the Air Force to use his Scotland resort to charging 3 dollars to bring him a glass of water. Then there was his attempt to extort Ukraine into helping him win re-election; he tried something similar with China. And of course his disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic, much of which he did in an effort to make money off it as well as looking for an electoral advantage.
Trump’s response to all this is summed up in his infamous response to a reporter’s question in March: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
For the sake of the future of our country, we need to make him face the consequences of his actions and to be held responsible for them. This is necessary not just for a national catharsis, but also to show the next would-be irresponsible leader that we will not tolerate this sort of behavior. This needs to be a teaching moment.
