Powell: 'This is what democracy looks like'? God help us!

By CHRIS POWELL

Participants at last Saturday's "No Kings" rally at the state Capitol chanted smugly, "This is what democracy looks like." Many were dressed in Halloween costumes.

Among the participants wearing more normal attire, state Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, a physician, posed for a photograph as he held a sign with images of food from McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken and the legend, "Cholesterol, do your job" -- an attempt to be funny with a wish for the death of President Trump.

These days Anwar is what democracy looks like too.

There was a time when publicly appealing for the death of one's political adversaries was considered beyond bad manners -- disgraceful and anti-democratic -- and, for people in politics, dangerously provocative, and there was a time when medical practitioners might have considered it a betrayal of their profession and its pledge to do no harm. Governor Lamont mildly scolded Anwar but most other Connecticut Democrats probably agree with him that Trump should be killed.

Does Anwar ascertain the politics of patients before treating them? They might want to ask.

Of course there are millions of people who would not lament Trump's demise. That's no moral failing. But there are still manners and the obligation of people in public life to uphold standards, and such jokes about a man who has survived two assassination attempts can only damage what's left of civility in politics.

Long before the latest "No Kings" rallies everyone knew that many people detest Trump. Despite all the shouting, bellowing, hatefulness, and hysteria, the rallies weren't necessary to remind the country of that; they were necessary only to keep the political opposition riled up and thinking it was doing something useful.

But the rallies failed to grasp the prerequisite for doing something useful -- to realize that Trump is also what democracy looks like, with all his megalomania, recklessness, corruption, incompetence, contradiction, vulgarity, and sneering.

Trump's qualities were not suddenly discovered in the last election campaign. They had been on display during his first term as president. Why in the last election did the country bring those qualities back into office?

It's probably because the last election was the most "lesser of two evils" election in living memory. The choice was between Trump and, on the other hand, open borders, unprecedented illegal immigration, soaring inflation, worsening poverty, racial preferences, political correctness, censorship, exaltation of abortion, and men in women's sports, bathrooms, and prisons.

Remarkably, all that stuff remains the platform of most people who attended the "No Kings" rallies. It's as if they don't know that while they will be able to run against Trump's record in the next presidential election, Trump himself won't be on the ballot again, since he is ineligible for a third term. Nor do they seem to know that Trump's departure from the ballot may improve the chances of all candidates who oppose the platform of his adversaries.

With luck in the next election one of the major parties will suspect or at least hope that the country is tired of the shouting, bellowing, hatefulness, and hysteria and might be susceptible to something new -- a presidential candidate committed to calm elucidation and debate that move people back toward civility, a candidate with the virtues of the celestial star in the old Robert Frost poem.

It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

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CORRECTION: This column recently asserted that Connecticut's Investment Advisory Council was established 25 years ago in response to a scandal in the state treasurer's office. Thanks to former state Sen. James H. McLaughlin for advising that the council actually was established in 1973 and was only strengthened by legislation in 2000 following the treasurer scandal.

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. His other columns are here. (CPowell@cox.net)