President Trump has been charged with many derelictions, but one that stands out as the unkindest cut of all is the statement by retired Gen. James Mattis in late May. “I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” said the former secretary of defense. “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”
...The statement was inaccurate on its face because it was during Mattis’s lifetime when President Nixon said he was speaking on behalf of something called the “Silent Majority” of Americans — a statement clearly meant to divide one group of Americans from others. Mattis was also alive when President Obama said that working-class Americans “cling to guns and religion” in order to cope with change, and when Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “deplorables.” These were clear attempts to divide the country and benefit politically from doing so.
Certainly, President Trump has used his position and his Twitter account to denounce individuals and media outlets. These are painful to see — one would hope that a president would have a thicker skin — but attacking one’s critics is not an effort to divide the country. At worst, it is a futile attempt by Trump to defend his own reputation against what he believes are unwarranted attacks.
Yet the country is divided today, possibly more than ever, and the question indirectly raised by Gen. Mattis is whether this is Mr. Trump’s fault.
...has Gen. Mattis forgotten the Russia-collusion charge, which for almost three years prompted many formerly respected people like the director of the FBI (James Comey), the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee (Adam Schiff), and a former director of the CIA (John Brennan) to say on national television that President Trump was an agent of a foreign power, a traitor to the country, and engaged in obstruction of justice?
...Only a few months after these charges were cleared, the Democratic House began an effort to impeach the president. Again, the country — including both the House and Senate — was sharply divided, but President Trump did not bring this on. Eventually, a sharply divided House voted for impeachment and an equally divided Senate voted to acquit him of the charges.
So where has President Trump divided the country? To be sure, his policies have been controversial, and he has pursued them more aggressively than any other president in memory..... But are controversial policies really what Gen. Mattis meant by dividing the country?
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Originally Posted by Chris
