Robert Reich: No Democrat Should Go Near Trump’s Inauguration, Even Former Presidents.…

In a nor­mal elec­tion, a pres­i­den­tial inau­gu­ra­tion would be a cel­e­bra­tion of our democ­ra­cy whether your side won or lost, and an exam­ple of the country’s bedrock faith in the peace­ful tran­si­tion of pow­er. It should be amply clear by now that the elec­tion of 2016 was no nor­mal election.

As a result, for­mer labor sec­re­tary Robert Reich thinks a Democratic boy­cott of Trump’s swear­ing in is entire­ly appro­pri­ate. And that includes for­mer pres­i­dents. On Wednesday, Reich wrote a Facebook post argu­ing that any­one who attends the Jan. 20 event — unless they are protest­ing — is giv­ing tac­it sup­port to a man who broke all demo­c­ra­t­ic norms dur­ing the cam­paign and con­tin­ues to show zero remorse for doing so, in short, a “dan­ger­ous demagogue.”

The post was appar­ent­ly prompt­ed by a call the Berkeley pro­fes­sor received from a politi­cian he respects about attend­ing. Maybe it was one of the Clintons, giv­en the some­what shock­ing rev­e­la­tion on Tuesday that the Clintons were invit­ed, as were oth­er for­mer pres­i­dents and their wives, and would attend.

Here is Reich’s post in its entirety:

I got a call this morn­ing from a politi­cian I respect who told me he was attend­ing Trump’s inau­gu­ra­tion not because he backs Trump but because he believes in pro­mot­ing uni­ty over par­ti­san­ship and sup­port­ing a peace­ful tran­si­tion of power.

I told him that’s why politi­cians of both par­ties nor­mal­ly attend an inau­gu­ra­tion. But the issue here has noth­ing to do with par­ti­san­ship or a nor­mal tran­si­tion of pow­er. It’s not mat­ter of Democrat ver­sus Republican, or left ver­sus right.

The issue here is how for­mer pres­i­dents and oth­er politi­cians should respond to some­one who has shown him­self to be a dan­ger­ous demagogue.

Donald Trump became pres­i­dent by lying, demean­ing women, den­i­grat­ing racial and eth­nic minori­ties, deny­ing intel­li­gence reports of for­eign inter­ven­tion in our elec­tion, excus­ing vio­lence against oppo­nents, and under­min­ing the free­dom and inde­pen­dence of the press. And since being elect­ed he’s held ral­lies and issued tweets in which he’s con­tin­ued to tell big lies, retal­i­ate against crit­ics, call oppo­nents “ene­mies,” avoid press con­fer­ences and dis­miss con­flicts of finan­cial interest.

I told him that, in my view, attend­ing Trump’s inau­gu­ra­tion gives tac­it sup­port and approval to some­one who pos­es a clear and present dan­ger to our democracy.

What do you think? Read more here : http://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​0​1​/​0​5​/​r​o​b​e​r​t​-​r​e​i​c​h​-​n​o​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​t​-​s​h​o​u​l​d​-​g​o​-​n​e​a​r​-​t​r​u​m​p​s​-​i​n​a​u​g​u​r​a​t​i​o​n​-​e​v​e​n​-​f​o​r​m​e​r​-​p​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​s​_​p​a​r​t​n​er/