Opinion: The Donald Trump phenomenon is a humbling experience for our nation

The rise, decline and potential fall of Donald J. Trump is an embarrassment and shame for him and his followers, but even more important is why so many Americans were taken in by him. The Trump phenomenon is a humbling experience for our nation. We thought we were different from other nations. We saw the rise and fall of figures in Europe such as Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. More recently we saw the rise of Bolsonaro in Brazil and Victor Orban in Hungary. Of course, there is the great autocrat, Putin of Russia. Most Americans take comfort in the fact that some figures like these autocrats could never arise in America. However, now with the most recent indictments of Trump and his co-conspirators, America has learned we are not entirely different from other nations.

Our legal system may yet save us, but we are not there yet. It is not only Trump who led us down the primrose path toward autocracy, but he gathered co-conspirators from those who should have known our democratic system better than to follow Trump on his self-destructive path. The whole group, Trump and his 18 co-conspirators, have now been indicted. They plotted with him in his efforts to overturn a certified election, never done before in our history.

As a child of the South, I believe it is significant that many of the prosecutors seeking to hold Trump accountable are African American. I have often thought as a churchman that African Americans, who have been most harmed by lawlessness in America, were going to be prominent among those who save our nation by applying the laws. In addition to saving our nation, the decline of Trump may eventually save the Republican Party. Trump severely damaged his own party by dividing it between supporters and those who oppose him.

Trump at first seemed to be a unique personality that rose to the presidency, but I believe he is not as unique as we thought. If we look at the history of the world, we will see other persons like him that brought harm to nations. However, what the Trump phenomenon shows us is that America is not as unique or exceptional as we thought we were.

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Many autocratic leaders who have arisen in the world, the most recent mentioned above, were not identical but have a basic similarity. The similarity present in these leaders is their being able to use and exploit difficult circumstances in their nations. They presented themselves as leaders who alone could overcome the difficulties and bring their nation to a triumphant new day. Remember when Trump said “I alone can fix it” in 2016. Each of the nations had enough people to respond to the leader by giving him (few women leaders aim to be autocrats) a loyalty that results in the leader obtaining the powers of an autocrat. Our main conclusion is that Americans are not that different from the people of other nations, a humbling recognition.

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The rise, decline and potential fall of Donald Trump should cause our nation to strengthen the guardrails to our democracy. We can begin with education in democracy that begins in childhood. This education should cover the struggles the country has endured, one of the major ones being with racial slavery that was followed by a long period of racial discriminations. It should not be simply intellectual education, but it should include actual experience in democratic organizations. In that regard, more adults need experience in organizations and in what Charles Tilly in his book, "Democracy," calls “trust networks.” Both churches and civic organizations create these kinds of networks. We should also do what we can to expose false narratives through our free press. Mutual trust makes a democracy strong.

If America can survive the challenge to democracy by Trump and his co-conspirators with their followers, it will be an inspiration to the world that maintaining a democracy is important, but not a simple and easy matter. They would have seen democracy at work in stopping Trump in his ambitions. In some important respects, democracy goes against human nature, especially the desire for power. Yes, people want the freedoms of democracy, but now we know more clearly than ever that citizens of democracies must continually guard against those who seek to use falsehoods and violence to gain power. We must survive the current challenge to our democracy and the social progress we have made.

Rev. Robert L. Montgomery, Ph.D, lives in Black Mountain.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Donald Trump is an embarrassment and shame for his followers