The Honorary Boy Scout President...

U.S. President, from Detroit Free Press via Michael Moore

   When things aren't going his way for one reason or another, President Forty-Five tends to go out on the hustings to get some love. True to form, amidst the healthcare fight, the president went to West Virginia to speak to the Boy Scout Jamboree, of which as the sitting U.S. President, he is honorary president.

    To a reasonably informed adult, even a supporter of the President, the speech was odd. The man was, after all, speaking to kids ranging from 12 to 18, and the speech--despite the president's initial protestation that he didn't want to talk politics--was largely a political speech that once again extolled Forty-Five's view of his own successes and both slammed his former opponent and criticized his predecessor.

     Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of this president, and I found the clips of his speech more troubling than usual, though I couldn't quite define why.  As the kids erupted in cheers, a thought flittered through my head: I'd never understood the Hitler's popular appeal, since I don't speak German and his speeches always sounded uninspiring, almost monotonous, though emphatically expressed. As Forty-Five's conversational ramblings elicited both cheers (for his win, apparently) and boos for President Obama (cleverly cast as failing to attend a jamboree) from the kids, film I'd seen of Hitler youth gatherings flashed through memory.

     Now I don't mean to cast aspersions on the Scouts (or on the kids that were stuffed into uniform in Hitler's Germany, for that matter).  Some of them no doubt questioned what they were hearing, and good for them; but what is certain is that they're kids, and at this event, they were with their peers in a big crowd, in the moment.

      Dr. Gene Beresin, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, picked up on this and did a piece for Boston's NPR station, WBUR. His observations resonated with me as I tried to get clear on why I was troubled by the clips: "[...] Trump's speech smacked of indoctrination. It had the potential to capture the developmentally normal aspirations of young boys and teenagers to idealize a 'successful hero,' and band together for his mission of winning, of defying adversity," said Beresin. "But then it subverted those natural aspirations," he went on, by giving the kids models that described a black and white, rather than a nuanced shades of grey, world, a model that applauded devaluation and denigration of people with whom one disagrees rather than developing the ability to listen and converse about differences. It promoted distrust of values that support our freedoms, like the free press; and it glorified individual winning, seen as attaining social status and wealth, rather than cooperative efforts aimed at the greater good. It  suggested that success came from "being feared and revered, not loved and respected." 

      But this is just one speech, right?  Boy Scouts of America did, for the record, apologize for injection of politics into the speech--though the terms of the apology were so tepid as to be almost meaningless. (A boy scout who attended from Evanston, Illinois was far more explicit  about the inappropriate tenor of the speech in the context of the Boy Scout mission than were his leaders!) So this is only a minor moment, a single pellet from a BB gun, let's say. 

      Except... any review of news directly related  to the administration just that one week more closely resembled a full load of buckshot, with pellets scattering across the political landscape. There were hits on what little remains of Congressional dignity and independence, on the institutions of a free press and electoral integrity, some punctures of the rule of law, and at least one frontal attack on voting rights. Not to mention an ongoing, insidious shredding of the Union, as the president and his surrogates continued to stir up their base against the so-called "elites" and "cosmopolitans" and others who question the president's assertions and conduct. 

      Jasper Davidoff, 17, the scout who protested the speech to the leadership of the Boy Scouts, wrote, "I believe that ... (Trump's) rhetoric told the young people looking to become better citizens that Scouting is a space for divisiveness and disrespect. I believe that many of the young people in attendance will interpret from [the] presentation that they should use Scouting to aggressively attack those they disagree with." This, he affirmed, is in direct opposition to the Scout Oath and Law.

      It's also directly contrary to making America great. We have a president who is intent on exploiting the divisions in our united states to the benefit of his own interests. We as citizens would do well to recall Abraham Lincoln's then prophetic words in 1858, when national division over slavery had stressed the bonds of union almost to the breaking point. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he said. Two years later, the country split asunder. The wounds from that conflict still haunt us.

     A president who intentionally exacerbates the differences that divide us does the nation a disservice. It is to be hoped that our Congress and our courts rein him in, before he inflicts irreparable harm.