Turn, turn, turn

From The Washington Post: “From former presidents to religious leaders, everyone is turning on Trump.” Recall Lyndon Johnson’s lament: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” Trump* has lost even Pat Robertson. Though it’s not clear to me that Pat Robertson was ever all there — in possession of all marbles, that is.

The WP piece is already behind the times, as it’s missing James Mattis’s statement on recent events, which includes this stunning passage. The comparison is clear:

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us . . . was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis — confident that we are better than our politics.

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. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.