Robert Reich: Has Trump no decency?
Story highlights
- Robert Reich: Trump's tweets on union boss, Boeing, show unwillingness to take criticism; this poses danger to democracy
- Reich: Democracy requires freedom to criticize those in power without fear of retribution. Fascists, dictators traffic in such fear
Robert Reich served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. He is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of "Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few." A version of this piece appeared on his website. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN)On
the evening of December 7, minutes after a local Indiana union leader,
Chuck Jones, criticized Trump on CNN for falsely claiming that he had
kept 1,100 Carrier jobs in the United States, Trump tweeted, "Chuck
Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible
job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!"
Since that tweet went out, some news organizations have reported that Jones has received death threats.
A few days before, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg was quoted in the Chicago Tribune
gently chiding Trump for being against trade. Muilenburg noted that
trade is essential to the US economy, as reflected in the "large and
growing percentage of our business" coming from international sales,
including commercial jet orders from China.
Moments
later, Trump tweeted: "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One
for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4
billion. Cancel order!"
Later he added, "We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money."
Boeing
shares immediately took a hit. As it turns out, Boeing does not even
have a $4 billion order to make Air Force One planes.
Trump
doesn't take kindly to anyone criticizing him -- not journalists (whom
he refers to as "dishonest," "disgusting" and "scum" when they take him
on), not corporate executives, not entertainers who satirize him, not
local labor leaders, no one.
The
President-elect's tendency to go after people who criticize him by
sending false and provocative statements to his 17 million twitter
followers not only imperils those people and their organizations, it
also poses a clear and present danger to our democracy.
Democracy
depends on the freedom to criticize those in power without fear of
retribution. Presidents and President-elects throughout history have
refrained from publicly condemning individual citizens for criticizing
them. That occurs in two-bit dictatorships intent on stamping out
dissent.
No President or
President-elect has ever before bypassed the media and spoken directly
to large numbers of his followers to disparage individual citizens who
criticize him. That occurred in the fascist rallies of the 1930s.
America came closest to this in the 1950s when Sen. Joseph McCarthy
wrecked the lives of thousands of American citizens whom he arbitrarily
and carelessly claimed were communists.
McCarthy's
reign of terror ended when a single man asked him publicly, during the
televised hearings McCarthy was conducting, "Have you no decency, sir?"
In that moment, Americans began to see McCarthy for the tyrant he was.
McCarthy's assistant was Roy Cohn, an attorney who perfected the art of
character assassination. Roy Cohn was also one of Donald Trump's mentors.
Trump's
capricious use of power to denigrate and even endanger his critics must
end. He is not yet our President. When he becomes so, and has far
greater power, our freedom and our democracy could be gravely
jeopardized.
We must join together to condemn these acts. We must ask: Has Trump no decency?
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