U.S. President Donald Trump: Inner Cities are “An Invasion from Within”. 2nd President, John Adams: “A Republic Without Virtue Cannot Survive.”

The other day, this writer had conversations with two friends, one was with a learned American who argued that the methods of Donald Trump closely follow those seen over the centuries with monarchs in England, where power was closely held and administered, enemies were eliminated, and not much could be done to bring about significant change.

The other conversation was with a worldly-wise Canadian who happens to see Trump as a very bright leader whose hold on power and delivery of an agenda for the USA and the rest of the world must, in some way, be admired.

This writer’s view of the American President is that he presents a danger to the world, and in past blog columns has likened Trump to dictators throughout history, even Adolf Hitler.

The two conversations left me frustrated. Should leaders such as Hitler or Joseph Stalin be praised simply because they were intelligent?

Should leaders and politicians not be judged on a normative basis, that is, do they work for the common good and leave the world in a better place? The answer for Hitler and Stalin is a definite “no”.

By 1936, there were an estimated five million prisoners in Stalin’s forced labour camps in the Soviet Union. Estimates of the deaths in the Gulag ranged from 1.2 million to 1.7 million.

In his effort to “purify” Nazi Germany, Hitler was responsible for the deaths of six million Jews in the Holocaust. With his unprecedented military might, Hitler went on to defeat many of his neighbours, killing many millions. Total deaths in World War Two, 1939-45, totalled 70-85 million people.

At this point, Donald Trump is not in the frightening league of Hitler and Stalin.

During that speech he referred, yet again, to Canada as the 51st State, and commentators this week on CBC Television, expressed concern that Trump’s arguments about trouble-maker US cities could also be applied along the border with Canada.

All this from Trump should raise new concerns among American and Canadians.

With Trump’s finger on the nuclear button, we need to have fears about peace in the world, despite his promise to end such wars as the Russia-Ukraine conflict within days of becoming president for the second time, or his much vaunted current peace plan amid the carnage in Gaza, the place which he had previously promoted as a second Mediterranean Riviera.

Following this writer’s conversations with two friends about Trump, his values and the inevitability of his power, we should be mindful of the argument of John Adams, the second president of the United States (1797-1801). He was very well qualified to be President, having been Vice President to the first President, George Washington.
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As recounted in an impressive biography by David McCullough, President Adams believed that the survival of the American republic depended on something more than military might or commercial control. 

He warned that public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue, and public virtue is “the only foundation of republics.” Adams feared that if citizens value wealth over character and restraint, “liberty itself would wither.”

Notably, the second U.S. president distinguished between “subjects” and “citizens”. Subjects were ruled. Citizens participated. We have every reason to doubt that Trump will be making such noble distinctions during the remainder of his second presidency.

But there are dangerous signals coming out of the Trump administration. Firstly, he has shown that he has scant respect for the Free Press, usually viewed as a backbone of a free society. He has said that reporters who cover his administration negatively “have broken the law.” He has stated that broadcasters should potentially lose their licenses over negative coverage of him.

Trump raised the ire of journalists and a few Republicans including Texas Senator Ted Cruz for his attacks on the Free Press and his calls for the ABC television network to fire late night comedian and political commentator Jimmy Kimmel. 

The backlash to Kimmel’s firing prompted a telling commentary by Kimmel as follows: “If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country. It’s as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple just like dominoes. One by one, they’ll go down.”

By then, Trump had begun, on the pretence of high crime rates, disturbing deployments of the U.S. National Guard to American cities, beginning with Los Angeles, over the objections of California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom and Washington, DC, despite the opposition of Mayor Muriel Bowser. 

Trump received a very frosty reception from the City of Chicago when he threated a similar tactic for that city. He is now threatening the Northwestern city of Portland.

This week, the U.S. President called in American military generals from across the globe for a pep talk, one which was greeted with only polite applause. During a long and rambling speech, the president recounted a conversation with his Defense Secretary, now newly-called the Secretary of War: “I told Pete (Hegseth), we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” 

Hegseth, who reached no higher rank in the American military than platoon officer, said the US military isn’t ready to fight in the way it needs to be. He said he’s tired of seeing “fat generals” parading around the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, Trump, the Commander-in-Chief, who received five deferments to avoid military service during the Viet Nam war, identified a new mission for the generals and admirals in view of “an invasion from within.” American inner cities are “a big part of war now,” Trump said