Linda, Chavez, syndicated columnist

Having just returned from a three-week trip to Asia, I feel as if I’ve landed in the middle of a dystopian nightmare. Some maniac is mailing pipe bombs to President Donald Trump’s enemies list: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, George Soros, John Brennan, Eric Holder and Robert De Niro.

In the past few weeks, the stock market, which the president touts as proof that he is good for the economy, has seen almost all of its gains from 2018 wiped out. And the president is deploying 800 more troops to the Mexican border (joining the 1,600 National Guard members already in border sectors), claiming a “National Emergency,” as a caravan of families, still about 1,000 miles away, treks on foot across Mexico seeking asylum from the violence in their home countries and better lives for their kids. It’s enough to make me wonder whether we’ve all lost our minds.

Americans, who have never had to deal with deep ideological divides in our history, have always been mostly centrist on policy issues. We believe in capitalism and the free market, but we’ve ensured a safety net for those who fall through the cracks, hoping it will be temporary until they get back on their feet.

We register as Republicans or Democrats or independents, but we’ve never before made those identifications paramount in how we regard and treat one another. Now, thanks in large part to what has happened at both ends of the ideological spectrum, partisans loathe and mistrust one another.

Most of us believe in American exceptionalism — that ours is a country different from others in its origins and aspirations, one built around a common commitment to principles — but we’ve rarely had leaders whose disdain for other nations and their people led them to want to erect walls, close borders and fuel suspicion that all other nations are out to get us, rip us off and send us the dregs of their own societies. But our current president hopes to do all this and more.

In 1984, my former boss Ronald Reagan ran his re-election campaign on the theme “Morning in America.” As we head into this midterm election, it feels more like “10 to Midnight,” the crime/horror cult film.

In times of difficulty, we expect our president to be a reassuring figure who sees it as his mission to hold the country together, not tear it apart. But Donald Trump is unable to fulfill that role. When he sees a fire, his impulse is not to put it out but to pour gasoline on it and then figure out whom he can blame. It’s the Democrats, Mexicans, Hondurans, Chinese and media who are at fault for all our problems, even ones he’s manufactured.

How do parents teach their kids not to bully or name-call when the president of the United States is the bully and name-caller in chief? How do you preach nondiscrimination when the president engages in dog whistles meant to stir racial resentment? How do you expect children not to lie when the president can barely open his mouth without uttering falsehoods?

I am fed up with it. Lots of Americans are. The president is damaging the moral fiber of this country. Republicans in the White House and in control of both houses of Congress have produced a healthy economy and stellar judges, but policy doesn’t trump (and the pun is intentional) moral rot.

Conservatives once understood this — or claimed to — but many of the loudest voices on virtue remain either silent or complicit in the face of the threat posed by this president. If conservatives don’t start applying the brakes, we will have only ourselves to blame for the backlash against our ideas that will ensue.

Editor’s note: Linda Chavez is chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center. To find out more about Linda Chavez, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.