FDR MAY SOON HAVE A PARTNER - D.J.T.

By Edwin Cooney

Yeh, the above, even as I write it, feels blasphemous to me too, but today, January 30th, 2017, marks the 135th anniversary of FDR’s birth.  As such, it forces this observer to consider the past and the future in “Rooseveltian” terms.

Many have considered FDR the father of 20th century enlightened liberalism.  There is much evidence to support that categorization of the nation’s 32nd President.  However, there are other factors about his character and his administration that cast a doubt that FDR was an ideological liberal.

Of course, he was the perfect model for a 1930s liberal.  Like his fifth cousin Teddy Roosevelt, he was cheerful and unpredictable, possessing a charm and a deviousness that if applied wisely, which they were much of the time, were enchanting and politically effective.  He surrounded himself in his cabinet with social workers and progressive politicians.  There was Frances Perkins, the first women to be appointed to a president’s cabinet and an advocate of government regulation of business and of pro-labor legislation.  Then there were Henry Wallace and Harold Ickes, Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior respectively, who invariably favored government advocacy and monitoring of programs and projects.  As “liberal” as Perkins, Wallace, and Ickes were, FDR was their supervisor and leader.  Although he never ran away from the label “liberal,” he often reminded everyone that his real philosophy of government and administration was that when something was wrong, or went wrong, try something else whatever anyone called it.

It’s possible that President Trump’s early efforts to cut taxes, deregulate environmental and other restrictions on domestic industry activities and functions, repeal and replace ACA (otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare”), pull back from international trade agreements, re-arrange NATO, build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and realign with Russia will usher in a new era of expectations and actions equal to FDR’s New Deal!

Should our newly minted chief executive be successful, there could be a major realignment of political forces in this country so fundamental that the traditional political evaluation table which measures left verses right may become as obsolete as floor model radios and rotary telephones!

The truth may well be that, like FDR, DJT may ultimately be an era opener.  It may be a terrible era, but an era nonetheless.  That’s what has millions of Americans trembling in their canned political and social doctrines.  These two labels, largely children of the late industrial revolution, are, like their disciples, invariably mortal!

I’ve found myself reacting to President Trump’s executive orders, tweets, appointees, and temper tantrums very negatively.  However, I find that I’m almost equally tired of the complaints and prediction of failure on the part of DJT’s critics.  They’ve been assuring me since June of 2015 that Trump wouldn’t win political debates with his fellow Republicans, that he’d lose in the primaries, that he had no chance to win the GOP nomination, and that, even if he did all these, he would never be elected President of the United States Of America.  I, in turn, assured my readers and friends of the exact same things - and here I am adjusting to cope realistically with President Trump’s first ten days in office.  Now, as stubborn as I can be at times, after all one has to have confidence in one’s values and judgments, the reality appears to be that a sea change of some major kind has taken place in the American “Body Politic”!  Embarrassed and frightened Democrats may insist that DJT’s triumph is totally due to Hillary Clinton’s personality, political character flaws and miscalculations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, but I suspect that the Democratic Party malady runs deeper than that.  While that malady could be smoothed over should all the Trump administration’s calculations and plans go awry, one party’s blunders don’t alter the other party’s obtuseness!

As for a sea change, a sea change is a major social or economic shift in conditions that alters socio/political outcomes in democratic societies.  These sea changes sometimes take a generation to develop.  Sometimes they take place suddenly after such crises as Sputnik in 1957 when the Soviets beat us into space, or 9/11 which caused all of us to feel vulnerable in a way not even equaled by any of the crises we experienced during the “Cold War” with the Soviet Union.

It’s almost fitting that President Trump’s hundred days commence around the 135th birthdate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The two have little in common except their wealth and their native home state of New York.  FDR was more highly educated; DJT possesses much greater business experience and success.  DJT appears, especially on domestic issues, to be following rather than leading his party’s ideological leadership.  FDR, on the other hand, often encouraged his cabinet members to quarrel amongst themselves so that he could glean from their differences the proper strategy or solution to a problem.

FDR was supremely confident in his capacity to master the office he occupied at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.  DJT, on the other hand, appears at this point not really secure in his presidency.  Were he really secure, his electoral vote, the cheers he received on Inauguration Day, and the deference all about him on a daily basis would be sufficient reassurances of his presidential legitimacy.

In the final analysis, a new era requires decisive leadership that encompasses the equitable needs of the widest possible groups of constituents in the “Great Republic.”

Is President Donald John Trump capable of creating and satisfying a broad national constituency as was FDR?

As of this, the 11th day of President Trump’s administration, my guess is that he can’t and won’t come close to FDR’s success.  Unlike FDR, he’s never had to struggle and thus compromise with illness.  He lacks FDR’s temperament and class.  He lacks FDR’s sense of equity.  However, if he does succeed in the creation of a new era of peace, prosperity and security, the initials DJT will stand prominently beside those famous initials FDR!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

INAUGURATION - ITS PURPOSE, MEANING, AND SIGNIFICANCE

By Edwin Cooney

President Donald John Trump’s much anticipated inauguration and inaugural address has finally come and gone.  Whatever the president’s purpose or the public’s reaction to his speech may be appears to be almost trivial at least on the surface.

Presidential inaugurations occur at the outset of an administration and usually contain more rhetoric than substance.  Still, more than most realize, they do reflect the new or re-elected president’s sense of priorities and purposes.

Had I been a supporter of candidate Trump, I probably would have felt reinforced and perhaps reinvigorated by his sixteen minute inaugural address.  First, the new president scolded at least four former presidents, although they were sitting right behind him on the platform. He accused them of reaping the rewards of government or governing while the people bore the costs. From there, he proceeded to restate his supporters’  grievances, small and large, real and perceived.  What I’ve found fascinating about President Trump and the Republican Party throughout this campaign is how often they present their constituency as “victims” after so many campaigns during which they’ve criticized liberal politicians for the same thing.  So often, Republicans criticize Democrats for creating “nanny states” in response to the victimhood of their constituents.  

On some level, the new president’s opponents were hoping for acknowledgment as legitimate constituents deserving of the love and recognition of the new president for whom they possess considerable contempt!  “Please, please love me, Mr. President, even if I can never bring myself to respect you, let alone love you!”

As President Trump acknowledged yesterday, an inaugural marks the peaceful and orderly transfer of executive power.  Even more, it’s an opportunity to set a tone of understanding between the new administration and the people, as expressed during a presidential inauguration. Occasionally, the tone of a new administration can affect the substantial quality of its relationship with its people.

This was particularly true in 1861 as Abraham Lincoln carefully prepared his March 4th Inaugural Address.  Mr. Lincoln frequently consulted his perspective Secretary of State William Seward in order to forcefully, but nevertheless diplomatically, lay out his policy about slavery and its retention or expansion. He also felt he had to assure the South that it need not fear being assaulted by the government unless it first assailed the federal government.  Lincoln’s first inaugural address ultimately didn’t prevent the Civil War but it may well have delayed it.

FDR’s 1933 Inaugural Address enabled him to reassure the public that the government was willing to intervene and stabilize conditions throughout the country even in the face of the banking emergency, increasing unemployment, home foreclosures, and the crisis on farms and the great plains  Furthermore, FDR specifically outlined the strategy he would use to combat unemployment.

“Our greatest primary task,” FDR began, “is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the government itself treating that task as we would the emergency of a war, but at the same time through this employment accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize much needed resources…”  The president went on to relate how wise recruiting and employment could have a positive effect on everything from unemployment itself to land use which could improve agriculture and the usage of public lands for conservation, transportation and better use of public facilities.  FDR went on to assert that the problem of unemployment “…can never be helped…by merely talking about it.”

As Mr. Trump has done throughout the campaign, he provided the public with little if any specifics as to how problems he constantly enumerated could be solved.  It is this lack of enumeration that causes me to wonder how much he understands about public issues and the alternatives at hand to overcome either national or international issues.

“Today’s ceremony…has very special meaning because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington D.C. and giving it back to you - the people,” asserted America’s 45th President. “For too long a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have born the cost. Washington flourished but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered but the jobs left and factories closed. The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs and while they celebrated in our nation’s capital there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. That all changes right here and right now, because this moment is your moment, it belongs to you, it belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day! This is your celebration and this, The United States of America, is your country! What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people! January 20, 2017 will be remembered as the day when the people became the rulers of this nation again!”

Whether this seems credible to you or to me, it’s what our new leader appears to believe. For at least the next two years, he appears to have the political leverage to try and make his vision a reality.  If he pulls it off, he’ll accomplish what not even George Washington could accomplish.

Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, despite President Washington’s stern warning, begat political parties.  Political parties begat today’s contentiousness.  Today’s contentiousness, the product of the culture wars which have gone on since the mid 1970s, “begat” President Donald J. Trump!

For better and worse, the Trump presidency is our creation. The question is: what are we going to do with it or about it?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE MISSING ELEMENT

By Edwin Cooney

I trust that regular readers of these weekly musings would generally agree that I try, even when being critical, to be optimistic concerning our national future.  I’m still willing to be optimistic, but it’s becoming increasingly like climbing the greasy pole with soapy hands.

America has been grouchy, and even warlike, several times in its history.

In 1800, when Thomas Jefferson was seeking to take the presidency from John Adams' and Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists, there were warnings from the South that if Jefferson were to be unfairly denied there might be a second revolution.

In 1814, angry New England bankers and merchants hurt by the nearly 3 year old war with Britain gathered in Hartford, Connecticut to consider seceding from the Union.

In 1825, supporters of Andrew Jackson who had won both the popular and the electoral vote in the 1824 election were close to apoplectic when Jackson was denied victory in the House of Representatives.  Jackson’s 99 electoral votes to Adams’ 84 votes were greater, but Adams, Georgia’s William Crawford and House Speaker Henry Clay’s combined 152 electoral votes were greater than General Jackson’s.  Thus, on the floor of the House where members voted by state delegation, Speaker Clay arranged that his votes, three of Jackson’s eleven votes, and two of Crawford’s votes went to John Quincy Adams.  Thus there occurred what Jacksonians called “the corrupt bargain” that elected Adams and sent Speaker Clay to the secretaryship of State.  Adams was in fact President, but only in fact.  President Adams only managed to get one major program through Congress during his 1825-1829 term.  That bill was the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution.  Adams would be overwhelmingly defeated by Andrew Jackson for re-election in 1828.  Jackson would receive 178 electoral votes to Adams’ 83.

The 1876 election of Rutherford B. Hayes and the 1888 electoral vote winner and popular vote loser Benjamin Harrison made hardly a dent on the national mood but neither man was re-elected four years later.  That trend was finally broken when George W. Bush, the beneficiary of the 2000 Supreme Court election, was re-elected in 2004.

Great as he was, Harry Truman was largely vilified during his presidency.  Truman was accused of losing China to the communists, of being a defeatist in Korea, and of socialistic tendencies on such issues as civil rights and medical care.  The negative view of Harry Truman was salved by the election of Ike — who was trusted to protect us — and Jack Kennedy who led and charmed us.

The national mood is the sum and substance of our individual moods.  So long as we’re determined to be angry with one another, the future will be gloomy.

We are still allowing ourselves to be affected by the most destructive elements going back into the 1960s.  We’re still angry over all aspects of the civil rights movement, over the outrages of the Vietnam War, the temerities of Watergate, and the audacity of legalized abortion.  Finally, there’s the judicial complicity of the 2000 United States Supreme Court.  Ah, but there’s more.

Our newly elected president appears to exploit differences rather than seeking solutions to them.  There’s nothing new about this. FDR, as I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, at times preferred a political issue to the solution of a public question in anticipation of the next political campaign season. The problem is that increasingly political ideology has been used to create and sustain differences rather than merely to outline them.  “I’m patriotic and moral, my opponent is neither. Even worse, he or she is stupid and incompetent.”  Add suspicion of teachers, news-gatherers and scientists to the mix and our sense of national well-being may well be in for a long coma.

By bullying his way into the presidency, Mr. Trump, who will head the government in four days, may soon discover that he’s destroyed the expectation of credibility and respectability which are the key elements of successful administration.  How many times do you hear sports figures say of their managers and coaches: “I’d go through a wall for him.”  How many Americans do you suppose would “go through a wall” for President-elect Trump today?  According to a recent poll, only about 34 percent of the American people say that President-elect Trump has done well during the transition.  Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton had over 50 percent approval of their transition periods.

So, what’s the missing element in our body politic today?  It’s the urgency for national self respect.  We no longer respect each other enough to be truly free.  We prefer suspicion to benefit of the doubt, ideology to morality, and being right to being helpful.

Around noon this Friday, America in the minds of some will begin becoming “great again.”  In millions of other minds, including my own, America will completely slip over the brink of compromise, reasonability, and mutual respect into the caldron of “winner take all” and “survival of the fittest.”

January 20th, 2017 appears to be the equivalent of the April 12th, 1861 attack on Fort Sumpter, of Pearl Harbor Day in 1941, of November 22nd, 1963, and  9/11 all rolled into one overwhelming challenge.

Grim as it sounds, it’s important to remember that the outlook of neither the Civil War nor indeed the Second World War looked promising  at the outset.

One of the most constant threads in our social political history is that seldom do ideological alliances last.  As the late Arthur M. Schlesinger observed, that’s because they often have different “fish to fry.”  The true conservative libertarian and religious moralist are ultimate opponents.  Conservatives may favor dismantling “Obamacare,” but they have a long way to go to effectively replace it.

It’s essential that moderates and progressives not surrender their principles. However, as they seek to wean America back to a national expectation of rational discussion before national resolution, their righteous indignation must be tempered by an effort to build consensus.  An urgency for healthy consensus is the cornerstone of healthy self respect.

A nation determined to build a national consensus will surely fall in love with itself all over again.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

FROM THE NIXONIAN PERSPECTIVE

By Edwin Cooney

Yes, indeed, today would be Richard M. Nixon’s 104th birthday.  For those Americans who both loved and hated him, his significance is such that it’s possibly instructive to consider, as best we can, how he’d likely view President-elect Donald J. Trump as a player in international relations.  Hence the question of the week:  If you were Richard Nixon, what would be your assessment of Donald J. Trump’s outlook on the world? Nixon’s and Trump’s individual backgrounds and political similarities and differences are exceedingly sharp.  Richard Nixon was a politician more than he was anything else. Donald Trump is first and foremost a businessman.

Richard Nixon’s primary goal in life was, however he behaved or was viewed during his campaigns for the House, the Senate, the Vice Presidency, and ultimately for the Presidency, to create a “generation” of peace. President-elect Trump, insofar as this observer is aware, has never stated a lifetime goal.  As of this date, I’m convinced that Richard Nixon would consider a lack of a political goal a reckless oversight.  As a practical politician, however, he’d probably ignore Trump’s “oversight,” reserving his perception of Trump’s oversight as a significant political weapon until there’s a politically advantageous time to use it against him.

Richard Nixon had three international Communist adversaries: Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, and Ho Chi-minh.

From his memoirs and other writings, Nixon was genuinely fascinated especially by Khrushchev and Brezhnev.  Nixon found Khrushchev crude, braggadocios but politically very, very shrewd.  During a good portion of their first meeting in Moscow during July of 1959, Khrushchev and Vice President Nixon spent time debating whether cow manure, which Nixon said some forms of propaganda smelled like, or pig manure, which Khrushchev said American propaganda smelled like, was worse.  Nixon finally conceded that pig manure did smell worse than cow manure.  Brezhnev, on the other hand, Nixon found personally very affable. Brezhnev, according to Nixon, was like Lyndon Johnson, who was always touching and grabbing at you during negotiations.  Brezhnev, who always made references to the horror of World War II, was nevertheless very stubborn especially when it came to Middle East negotiations.

As for Ho Chi-minh, Ho died in September of 1969, about eight months into Nixon’s presidency, but from what Nixon has said about his efforts to negotiate with the North Vietnamese leader, Ho appears to simply have ignored Nixon.  Nixon’s international opponents were men of political doctrine at odds with free enterprise and of what they labeled as traditional American imperialism.

To President-elect Trump, the practical businessman, Putin’s international adventurism and domestic authoritarianism aren’t barriers to practical measures to defeat international terrorism.  After all, didn’t Churchill and Roosevelt save the devil Joseph Stalin from Hitler’s invasion of Soviet Russia in June of 1941?

Since the resignation of Richard Nixon in August of 1974 and the defeat of South Vietnam in April of 1975, the following trends have been predominating.

First, opposition to Soviet Communism, although still the primary objective of our foreign policy, has been tempered by the realization that America could no longer afford to be “the world’s policeman.”  Second, Americans have become increasingly skeptical about the value of the United Nations and other agencies of international peace.  Thus every president from Ford through Obama, and every unsuccessful presidential candidate from Ford in 1976 to Mitt Romney in 2012, has been reluctant to be too bellicose with regard to foreign policy pronouncements.

Presidents Carter and Obama have been anxious to respond to the American public’s determination not to put “boots on the ground” in so many troubled areas of the world.  Hence they appear to have made America vulnerable to the demands of states and entities, such as ISIL, Al-Qaeda and North Korea.

What fascinates me is how suddenly Putin’s Russia has become so favorable to Republicans who have, after all, been vocal opponents of totalitarianism since the days they accused Harry Truman of turning China over to the communists.

Perhaps President-elect Trump is right.  Putin isn’t a communist despite his service in the KGB.  Putin’s merely a gangster who’ll make a deal with anyone so long as they acknowledge his prerogatives and his right to apply them.

Somewhere there’s an explanation, even a legitimate one, for this American-Russian partnership.

Candidate and President Richard Nixon used to assert that the renunciation of communism would be the primary factor in the creation of American-Russian peace.

President-elect Trump appears to believe that principles and doctrines ultimately don’t matter.

As for former President Nixon, I suspect he really didn’t think principles and doctrines mattered either.  The difference between Nixon and Trump is that Nixon needed politics in order to prevail.

Eleven days before taking office, Donald Trump appears to believe that he’s totally above politics.

It’s my guess that our new president will soon discover, as did Richard Nixon, that politics always ultimately prevails.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT, TRUMP STYLE!

By Edwin Cooney

Dear President-Elect Donald J. Trump, Sir!

As the two-hundredth and twenty-eighth year of our federal republic opens, three realities are simultaneously true.

First, you have been fairly and legitimately elected the forty-fifth President of the United States of America.  Think of it: only 44 other men have attained the honor you’re about to achieve in ceremonial majesty and you’ve spent a major part of the last 21 months defaming and almost dehumanizing three of them!  Second, from what I’ve observed of you in recent years, you’re a stupid, deliberately insensitive, self-centered, intellectually narrow-minded man. Not only do you appear to be incapable of drawing distinctions between cause and effect concerning social and political realities, but you are unwilling to even consider doing so.  Third, however, by your legitimate acquisition of the presidency, you’ve earned the benefit of the doubt and the good wishes of your national constituency.  I assert this, not because you’re a good fellow, but due to the reality that the well-being of us all depends upon your success as President of the United States of America.  Although you campaigned like an eight-year-old playground bully, now it is time, even passed the time, for two important changes to occur.

First, it’s time for your political opponents to give you their respectful attention as you take on domestic and international matters of state.  Second, it’s time for you to start acting like a president worthy of every American’s benefit of the doubt.  It’s not for me to judge whether you can start acting in a statesmanlike way, but it is passed time for you to abandon the punkish adolescent public persona that appears to be ingrained in your psyche so that you might begin acting presidential.

Stepping off the lecture platform for a minute, I offer the following observations about you that Americans might grasp onto for a greater sense of emotional stability.  First, there is the almost inevitable ideological clash between you and the traditional conservative GOP.  Your unpredictability is like that of Andrew Jackson whose behavior had a Trump-like outrageousness to it.  Jackson didn’t become president because he had a lot of good ideas; he was elected president because he had been a victorious general during the War of 1812 and because he was a ruthless Indian fighter willing to protect and advance land speculators hungry for Indian lands in the southeast and even in the west.  What “King Andrew” wanted, “King Andrew” went after no matter who it pleased or displeased.  Even President Jackson’s quarrel with the second Bank of the United States turned out to be a personal squabble between Jackson and bank president Nicholas Biddle.  It wasn’t a principled or ideological quarrel at all. It was both personal and territorial.  You sir, I believe, are capable of becoming involved in that kind of a squabble.  There are advantages and dangers to this tendency.  Such independent latitude possesses its assets and its liabilities, but it’s not unprecedented.

Your unpredictability has an even greater precedent in the person of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  My favorite FDR  story has to do with an occasion in about 1935.  FDR sent one of his top advisors to Capitol Hill to persuade a congressional committee to pass a piece of legislation vital to the interests of the New Deal.  After the advisor, Tommy “The Cork” Corcoran left, Roosevelt continued discussing this piece of legislation further with other advisors.  Suddenly, “the boss” had a change of mind about the whole matter.  Shortly after, “The Cork” returned to the White House and told FDR, ‘Boss, I got it.  I got the whole thing for you.”  “Tommy Tommy!” said the president, “After you left, I decided that I needed the issue that proposal addressed more than I need the solution it provides.  I’ve decided that the issue, not the principle or the accomplishment, is what really matters.”  FDR often admitted that he often didn’t let his right hand know what his left hand was doing.  I see a little of that in you, Mr. President-Elect.  Again, like a physician’s most powerful drugs, this strategy can be deadly, more often than not.

Mr. Trump, you’ve attained your gallant office not by demonstrating understanding, but rather by stirring the hot coals of anger and division.  You didn’t start the inferno, but you’ve had a lot to do with its increasing intensity.  Seldom during the campaign did you offer a solution because it was the issue that served you best.  FDR’s practice of that strategy was much, much milder while yours was blatantly injurious to at least our short term national security.

Politics is indeed a contentious game and you’re far from the first to indulge in its petty aspects.  However, you’ve promised a lot of angry, frustrated Americans that you’ll feed their demand for “red meat.”  If Hillary Clinton isn’t indicted, if “the swamp” of Wall Streeters isn’t drained, if conflicts of interest in government aren’t adequately addressed, if climate issues aren’t taken into account, if nuclear proliferation is the cornerstone of your foreign policy, then you’ll be answerable for all the effects these matters will have on the national psyche.  That you inherited  these problems from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will not save you from the legitimate wrath of a spurned public!

As the calendar and the clock count off the final days of the Obama administration, there’s time for you to revel in the fact that you have yet to make a strategic misjudgment, a single personnel  or policy error, but these realities are on the way.  You may be a business genius, but you’ll soon be out of the realm of business where your orders prevail and where you are the lone decider as to who is rewarded and punished.  You’ve reached the presidency slashing and thrashing.  Now, it’s your turn to be verbally slashed and thrashed.  Your political advisors and many of your supporters anxious to justify their judgment of you will come to your defense and continue to hold Obama and perhaps both Clintons responsible for all less than successful events after January 20th.  Had you campaigned rather than bludgeoned your way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, your legion of support might be a political firewall.

Those of us left in your political wake, forced as we are to taste ‘Trump dust,” have at least the satisfaction of knowing that we can count over 3 million more votes than can you.  That’s not a bad base to begin from when one anticipates 2020.

Yes, indeed, you’ve won.  You’re the next President of the United States.

How much of a man you are is yet to be seen. If there’s more to you than we recollect from the recent presidential campaign, then all of us are the beneficiaries. If not, then you’re more of a jerk than anyone you trashed (Hillary Clinton included) in order to prevail.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY