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Steve Demaio of Easton is a retired state employee, where he worked as an advocate for people with intellectual disabilities or mental illness.
It used to be that American presidents tried to move people by using “the bully pulpit.” Think of Franklin Roosevelt and his fireside chats, or even Jimmy Carter in his sweater.
But what we have now is a bully in the pulpit. This was amply proven as President Donald Trump (and Vice President JD Vance) berated the Ukrainian president, essentially threatening and trying to extort him.
And it’s not only Friday’s events. Who does Trump admire but other bullies, most notably Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who, unfathomably, he is currently supporting. Birds of a feather, it would appear.
Trump is doing the same thing domestically as in foreign affairs, trying to coerce and rule by fear, and that is the biggest problem, because Congress is failing to stand up to him. The worst way to deal with a bully is to say nothing, do nothing. And that failure produces the type of behavior we are seeing from Trump and his minions.
Is the United States turning into a republic of fear? I think we are. I keep waiting to hear someone quote FDR that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Or to hear someone emulate Edward R. Murrow when dealing with Joseph McCarthy: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. … We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason,” Murrow said in his attack on McCarthy, which came a few months before the lawyer Joseph Welch uttered his “Have you no sense of decency?” line during the Army-McCarthy hearings.
But what I see most is the fear, the secrets and lies. All the people who will only speak anonymously because of “fear of retaliation.” And what I am reminded of most is East Germany. Will the FBI become the American STASI?
The sooner we stand up to the bullies, the smaller the chance that will happen, but we must remember that it could. And how easily it could.
I think we all know what can happen when good men and women, out of fear, or complacency, do nothing.
