"Lock him up!": Opposition to Donald Trump must be strategic - an apologist's point of view is ineffective

Let's face it.  The spoof on Trump was staged to be a "made for TV moment".  But, it backfired!  At the end of the third inning, Trump stood and waved to the crowd, and the ballpark video screens carried a salute to U.S. service members that drew cheers throughout the stadium. But, when the video on the Jumbotron cut to Trump and his entourage — which included a number of GOP lawmakers — and the loudspeakers announced the Trumps, cheers abruptly turned into a torrent of boos and heckling from what sounded like a majority of the crowd. Chants of "Lock him up!" broke out in some sections, including one below where the president was sitting.

Baseball fans booed Trump at the World Series game!

This apologist's essay by John Krull* is not strategic or effective.  

His argument just won't work!

Americans can't ignore Donald Trump's disregard for American values and the wrecking ball he has been to our national pride.  Sure, it's nice to know that John Krull agrees about the Trump impeachment proceedings. Moreover, Americans agree with Krull abut wanting to respect the office of the President of the United States. Nevertheless, the current person who claims the position must go and Krull's apologist argument is ineffective in reaching that goal. 

Donald Trump must face an impeachment trial. 

Echo opinion published in the The Goshen News- an Indiana newspaper.

KRULL-  When the announcer at the World Series game between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals introduced the president of the United States, the crowd booed. The people gathered for the peak event of the nation’s pastime booed for a long time.

They chanted, “Lock him up!”https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/455874-lock-her-up-chant-breaks-out-at-trump-rally
They chanted, “Impeach him!”

There are those out there, I suppose, who will argue that this is just a case of rough-and-tumble justice, of turnabout being fair play.

(Maine Writer- I am so pleased for Hillary Clinton to hear the crowds and to see how the evil Donald Trump responded!)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-booed-world-series-lock-him-up-chant-break-out-during-game-5-washington-nationals-stadium-pa/
Donald Trump, after all, is the man who gloried in inciting crowds to chant “Lock her up!” at his rallies, even after he’d defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and he had taken up residence in the Oval Office. He also is the man who takes glee in degrading or demeaning anyone who has the audacity to disagree with or question him by foisting dismissive and insulting nicknames on them.

The thinking goes that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

I can see the appeal of this “he-did-it-so-I-can-too” kind of thinking. Anyone who has ever been 3 years old has thought that way. Most of us grow out of it.

Or maybe just some of us.

Don’t count me as part of the crew that thinks it’s OK to boo the president.  (Maine Writer - AlthoughI appreciate this point of view, it is also a weak apologist's argument....IMO!)

It’s not that I have any great affection or sympathy for Donald Trump.

I support his impeachment because it’s a step in the process of determining whether he has broken our nation’s laws and violated his oath of office. The trial in the U.S. Senate, where his party has a comfortable majority, can settle the questions of “due process” the president and his followers raise with regularity and with little basis in fact, law or history.

Because his party does have the majority in the Senate, Trump will have all the advocates and defenders he needs to see that his rights and prerogatives are preserved.

So, if I support impeachment, why does the booing of the president at the World Series bother me?

Because it’s crass. (HELLO? Donald Trump himself is crass!)

"Hollywood Access transcipt excerpt:  Trump- "I moved on her actually. You know she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married. And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’ I took her out furniture– I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything.  I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."

Moreover, Krull goes on to docment the obvious.  Booing Trump shows disrespect to the office. (Yet, Donald Trump violates his oath of office!)

Worse, it’s disrespectful to the nation itself. (To the contrary, the opportunity to excercise free speech is a tribute to the nation itself.)

And it’s one more sign that Donald Trump is “winning.”

He’s dragging more and more of the country — more and more of our fellow citizens — down to his level.

This is wrong for at least two reasons.

The most practical of those reasons is also the least important. Donald Trump wants to degrade our national dialogue because he operates better in the muck than anyone else does. In a contest of moral and ethical limbo, no one will beat him because the few people who are willing to go as low as he is are nowhere near as skilled at invective as he is.

In a race through the sewer, he always will win.

But there’s another, larger reason.

This just shouldn’t be who we are.

Years ago, when I was executive director of what is now the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, people — members, volunteers — sometimes would argue with me that we should fight fire with fire. The fact that folks on the other side deliberately would mischaracterize or even lie about what our positions were or question our love of country and family would enrage many in our camp. They said we should be just as nasty in return. (Maine Writer- An apologist point of view rarely makes progress.)

The other side’s tactics angered me, too.

But I counseled then — and I still believe today — that we shouldn’t let the lowest common denominator set the standard for conduct. The principles we were defending were designed to liberate the human spirit. If we stood for anything, it was that people should be free to discover the best in themselves.

Not the worst.

It wasn’t a victory, I said, for us to become the mirror image of that which we oppose.

But that’s what we’re letting Donald Trump do to our country.

To us.

The presidency is more than the person who occupies the office.

We need to remember that. (Maine Writer- In all due respect, Donald Trump did not become POS with a majority vote. He is even violating the very Constitutional system that got him into the Oval Office, in the first place.)

Maine Writer - Although it's laudatory to want to rise up to the challenge of going high when Trump goes low, the reality show failed celeb who is polluting the Oval Office goes so low, that it's really not too difficult to go higher than his low. But, we cannot let Trump get away with gutter politics. Apoligist arguments are useless.

*John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.