Trump’s bullying philosophy

There are those of us who didn’t understand, at the time, when Trump boasted of groping women, he was stating his governing philosophy: “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”

If we once took comfort in the fact that we weren’t the objects of his assaults, today that is no longer true. He has turned his groping gaze on us all.

We need not count the many ways he has assailed us — mentally, physically and fiscally.

Every day brings new traumas: deaths and taxes. And he will continue it because “they let you do it.” Or, as he recently said, his only restraint is “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,”

Heaven help us, because laws, treaties, agreements, promises or constitutional rights have no meaning for him. As his adviser, Stephen Miller, put it, “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else … But we live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”

If this is morality, it is that of a school-yard bully. Or of a groper who takes advantage of his status. Might makes right. If “they let you do it” it’s their fault.

Yet, as much as Trump revels in his unchecked power, there are signs of hope. No, it’s not in the Republican Congress, which has offered little restraint. It’s in the Judiciary, which forced him to remove the military from our cities.

Let us celebrate those lonely judges who stand in the path of the bully, often in the face of personal threats. They are the heroes, the guardians of our democracy. They show that, when you stand up to the bully, he backs down. Let us hope some day we will have a Congress that does so as well.

Curt Johnson

Williamsburg