Politics
Donald Trump is the Symptom, Not the Disease. What Does this Mean?
Simply removing Donald Trump from office does not fix the problem.
People have been saying this for years. Donald Trump is the symptom, not the disease. They say this as a response when people talk about the need to get him out of the White House for things to return to “normal.”
What do they mean?
When you get sick, is it better to treat the cough caused by the illness, or treat the underlying illness so the cough disappears? Well, it should be obvious you treat the underlying illness.
This saying means Trump is not a one-off politician who broke the system and immediately after his removal things will be good again. Trump is a cough, a pretty bad one. And the system produced him.
The system is set-up for someone like him to come along and become president. Once he’s gone, it’s only a matter of time before another version of him comes along. We see a new version of the flu every winter. The system needs to be changed. The system is the disease.
Yes, Trump is a shit person. But there are a lot of shit people in politics. We’ve overlooked so many that it’s been a gradual move towards someone as openly terrible and inept as Trump.
Those who focus on Trump being the center of all evil need to clarify what they mean. Is it the blatant sexism and xenophobia that they think is unique to him? Because it’s not. Is it the obvious corruption in terms of the D.C. Trump Hotel and using tax-payer funds at the Trump owned Mar-a-Lago? Well he’s not the only corrupt politician.
He’s just incredibly bad at hiding it. Mainly, because he doesn’t need to. But partially because he’s just not bright (read as: stupid).
The country is divided into Democrats and Republicans. We cheer for our team and call the other losers. The other side is always worse than ours, which is why we need to support our team at all costs.
We’ve set up a system for us to justify the wrongdoing of anyone on our team, because the other side is worse. We need to start calling balls and strikes. This is wrong, that is right. No more lowering the bar and grading on a curve.
If you look across the country, you’ll see politicians just like Trump.
Steve King is a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he’s been since 2003. King has a long list of racist and white supremacist beliefs that oftentimes go further than what Trump has said publicly.
Earlier this year we even learned of four U.S. Senators selling stocks prior to learning about the future economic impacts of COVID-19. Members of both the Republican and Democratic parties did this. This isn’t new. Years ago there were reports done on members of Congress owning stocks related to committees they were part of, thus giving them prior knowledge of new laws or regulations that would help or hurt certain businesses.
We made it okay for corruption to be overlooked. Removing Trump from office does not fix this. Electing a Democrat does not fix it. There is work to be done once Trump is gone.
The bottom line is that our current system, both socially and politically, is set up for people like Trump. We need to look beyond him if we actually want to make lasting change. We need to focus on the disease (political system) instead of just the symptom (Trump).
If we don’t, there will be a Trump 2.0.
