COMMENTARY - AN EXTRAORDINARY INTERVIEW

You've got to see Lies, Politics and Democracy: Mona Charen, an interview on Frontline PBS in October of 2022.  It's on YouTube.  Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13dPT9Cr6u4&ab_channel=FRONTLINEPBS%7COfficial

Mona Charen is a political conservative.  She served in the Raegan White House.  She is an outspoken, award-winning columnist, journalist, radio and TV panelist and political commentator.  She has written a number of bestselling books on political and foreign policy issues. 

Interesting that the interview tracks on what we have often discussed in our Trump Week talk show, on the Rule of Law in the New Abnormal, It's Time for Responsible Change, and on our American Issues shows, and validates many comments made on these shows.

The interview resonates on many points and issues we have raised and discussed in our talk shows on Trump and his machinations and effects on the country, and should serve as a warning, an alarm, about allowing him or his acolytes hold high office in America.

Charen is a highly articulate, candid and well-informed commentator who cuts right to the chase and tells you in no uncertain terms what has happened as to allow Trump to become president and to corrupt the the government and the country.  

In this no-holds barred interview, she connects so many dots that haven't been connected.  We haven't yet figured out exactly how Trump could grow his power, and how he could unhinge so many people against their better judgment. She helps us do that.

We learn how and why Trump increasingly corrupted so many public officials; how and why he got so much coverage of his lies in the media; and how and why he damaged our relations with our long-standing allies and sucked up to brutal autocrats.

Scariest of all, she covers how and why Trump brazenly undermined our democracy and the liberal world order, how profound that damage has been and the very likely possibility that we may not be able to repair it in the years to come.

Her comments in the interview were thoughtful, well-founded and straight-forward.  They were based on her experience in government and in observing and commenting on government, making her conclusions all the more authoritative and persuasive.

It seems clear from the discussion that the country is vulnerable and our democracy is fragile, and there are loopholes and flaws in our constitution and system of laws and protections that unprincipled people like Trump can take advantage of and use against us.

Suffice it to say that it's important so us to understand how Trump turned the Republican Party inside out, how right thinking officials and others had multiple inflection points at which they could have stood up to him and stopped him, but they squandered those opportunities.

Charen, an astute political observer, identifies a number of those inflection points.  She helps us understand why the people around Trump become complicit, right down to the insurrection and the incredible non-reaction of the Senate in the second impeachment.

She points out how Trump also frequently shot himself in the foot, and that were it not for his gaffs he might have won in 2020 and for that matter in 2024.  It's actually quite terrifying to listen to her recount these possibilities.

She also points out that had Trump been impeached and removed in the first impeachment, the country would have been spared from the indignities and agonies that have followed, and the threat that he or his acolytes might still be elected to high office.

She makes it clear that the Republican party, and especially Mitch McConnell, should be blamed and shamed for supporting Trump in 2016, for enabling him during his presidency, and for failing to take any action to control him when they had so many chances to do so.

She points out that McDonnell's view was that it was the responsibility of the Democrats to get rid of Trump, even though the Republicans were in a better position to do that.  She points out that the Republicans have never accepted responsibility for what has happened, even now.

Beyond that, Charen says the Republican party has blackened its name forever, and given what Trump has done, and the damage he has done to the country and the confidence of the people in government, the Republican party should not be supported again.

She says Trump and his acolytes, for their own purposes, intentionally undermined the trust of the public in our elections.  She explains that if the public does not have confidence in the elections, that inevitably invites decisions by violence and thus the end of democracy.

She says Trump has bequeathed to us a democracy that is damaged and "wobbly," and that it will be a great challenge to restore public confidence in our democratic system.  She did not mince her words on this, or anything else.

In short, you really have to watch this extraordinary interview with Mona Charen for yourself.  You really have to hear her views of what has happened and what is likely to happen now.  You may never hear it analyzed and expressed so well and clearly.