Barbara Mezeske: The elephant is in the room

The August edition of The Huizenga Huddle, a newsletter from our Republican congressman, featured four items: the mounting national debt, help for Michigan farms, national security with regard to China, and the ribbon-cutting for a new Whirlpool facility in St. Joseph.

Here’s what was missing: With regard to debt, Huizenga did not mention that President Trump presided over the third largest increase in the national debt, relative to the size of the economy, of ANY American president. Only Abraham Lincoln, who had to pay for a civil war, and George W. Bush, who launched two foreign conflicts, saw greater proportional increases in national debt.

Neither does Huizenga mention that Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville has been stalling over 300 military promotions, including promotions at the chief of staff level, since February. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said on CNN that: “This is a national security issue. It’s a readiness issue… (A)ny member of the Senate Armed Services Committee knows that.”

How seriously should we take Huizenga’s viewpoints, if he doesn’t reckon with the actions of his own party members?

Beyond that, Huizenga makes no mention at all of the elephant in the room: Donald Trump and his four criminal indictments and one civil conviction of abuse and defamation (the E. Jean Carroll case). This elephant is the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and politicians like Bill Huizenga are keeping their heads down about whether a second Trump term would be good for the nation (or just for themselves).

Trump’s legal troubles are unprecedented: the accumulation of a lifetime of playing fast and loose with business, sexual, and political norms. Up until now, Trump has lawyered, blustered and delayed his way out of trouble. This time, it looks like he might have to pay the piper.

The Trump response to his legal woes is to counterattack. He cries “WITCH HUNT” on social media and labels his prosecutors “DERANGED!” He has posted personal information about officials, and proclaimed that “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” His followers take him at his word, as they have done since the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. One Trump loyalist in Utah recently died in a standoff with the FBI after threatening to kill New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg and President Biden.

Trump’s default move is to shift blame to others, be they his associates, officers of the court, or Joe Biden. In his own mind, he is never wrong, only a victim of his enemies.

Party enablers like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proclaim on Fox News: “We’ve never once indicted a former president, or a candidate, or a leading candidate for president, and this is Joe Biden and this is the Democrats weaponizing the justice system because they're afraid of the voters.”

Sorry, Ted. This is not the weaponization of justice, but the operation of it. Don’t suggest that an ordinary person who falsified his business records, kept and refused to return classified documents, tried to interfere with vote counting in numerous states, and attempted to overturn the 2020 election would not be prosecuted. The law is coming after the former president precisely because he is not above the law.

We can count on our fingers the number of Republican politicians who have called out Trump’s criminal law-breaking. The rest, like Cruz, who suggest that our state and federal justice systems are driven by politics, are saying that Trump is not accountable to the law by virtue of his candidacy for the Republican nomination.

Let’s pause here to note the hypocrisy of Trump’s threats to use the very same justice system to punish his enemies if he is elected, while at same time promising to pardon himself.

Then, ask this: What makes good leaders in business, in education, or in government?

Begin with good character. Leaders must model the behaviors we value both in our friends and in a modern democracy: honesty, humility, fairness, concern for the good of others, and strength in the face of challenge. Those who mock or belittle their opponents, or who aggrandize themselves by picking on the marginalized do not make good leaders.

Good judgment goes hand-in-hand with character. A political leader operates on a national and international stage. Pettiness and vindictiveness have no place in office. Those who would blackmail a foreign nation to get dirt on a political opponent have no place in leadership. A leader confronts problems like pandemics or climate change directly, and seeks solutions — not ones that are good for his political prospects, but ones that are good for the nation.

Most of all, leaders have a vision for the future: They aren’t elected to avenge past wrongs, real or perceived. The election of 2020 has been dissected, litigated, and examined under a microscope: Joe Biden won fair and square. Let’s move ahead.

We aren’t likely to find good character, judgment, or vision in Mr. Trump, or in any of the Republicans who, like Huizenga, remain silent about the biggest political story of our lives.

In the next round, up and down the ballot, we must find men and women who are more interested in serving the people than in serving themselves.

— Community Columnist Barbara Mezeske is a retired teacher and resident of Park Township. She can be reached at bamezeske@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Barbara Mezeske: The elephant is in the room