HE’S THE MAN ON TOP, LIKE IT OR NOT

By Edwin Cooney

I didn’t and don't like it at all, but Donald John (I often refer to him as "Donnie Johnny”) Trump occasionally is unpredictable enough to be interesting. The bottom line is that he's real and must be taken seriously! Mr. Trump finally won America's popular vote by a percentage-and-a-half, but the heart of the problem is his permanent anger with the land and the people he insists he loves.

Just a word about my personal perspective. Much of my life since my late teens has been learning about the lives of the men who have served as president of the United States. I'm not as knowledgeable as Jon Meacham or Michael Beschloss, but over the years, presidents have become real people to me. I have favorites like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, TR, Calvin Coolidge, FDR, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. My least favorites are Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Grover Cleveland, and Woodrow Wilson. My mind has occasionally  shifted regarding Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and Harry Truman. In order to reach reasonable conclusions about these presidents, it requires one to objectively learn about these men and measure the socio/political environments from which they came.

 Back in 1979, I heard British Prime Minister James Callaghan announce in almost a cheery voice that Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher had toppled his government by one vote bringing a nationwide election that would sweep “Sunny Jim” from the prime ministership forever. Donald Trump has given two inaugural addresses, both of which show nothing but contempt for most of his predecessors — certainly including the four living presidents who honored him by attending his second inaugural last Monday, January 20th, 2025.

These men, according to him, have appointed crooks to the Justice Department, taxed Mr. and Mrs. America in support of socialistic or “woke” causes, allowed foreign criminals to thrive here in America and, worst of all, have encouraged the slaughter of police officers in the name of civil rights.

The most blatant irony is that right after expressing what FDR used to call "crocodile tears" about the shooting of police, he proceeded to pardon some 1,600 people who defied the law on January 6th, 2021. In other words, shoot a police officer on behalf of George Floyd and you're a crook worthy of prison or even capital punishment, but do that on behalf of President Donald Trump, you're a proud patriot.

A personal friend of mine says he's “cautiously optimistic” about the path President #47 is taking, but he's not sure I'm making an effort toward optimism about President Trump. This gentleman is really and truly a fine Christian. Just as I would, he'd come down like a brick if his son deliberately insulted people due to their religious beliefs or even gender identification, but he requires nothing but standard tax cuts from his newly inaugurated Republican president.

In the late 1960s and well into the 1970s, people named Angela Davis, George Jackson, Stokely Carmichael, and Huey Newton claimed their personal patriotism every time they were accused of breaking the law. Sometimes they weren't guilty of breaking any law, but were merely guilty of protesting as a black American.

Last Inauguration Day, I heard a president straight out of the 19th Century. I heard Andrew Jackson justifying The Trail of Tears along which the Cherokee Indians were driven into Oklahoma. I heard James K. Polk out of Manifest Destiny going to war with Mexico, thereby bringing about the Civil War. I heard Grover Cleveland being thirsty for Hawaii, Teddy Roosevelt stealing the most important part of Panama, and I heard the United Fruit Company making its claims to lands in Central and South America. Beyond that, I heard an appetite hungering and thirsting for Canada, Greenland and, of course, Panama.

Let's be clear!  President Trump is right about a lot of things and those things have been presented to the public more dramatically and effectively than have the cases and causes raised by his opposition. However, there's a huge difference between recognizing a problem and the capacity to solve any problem. Sometimes what constitutes a problem is a solution to someone else's need. Donald Trump's insistence that there are only two genders, male and female, only belittles other people's feelings.

Identifying something that angers or threatens you is a different problem for someone else. The practicality that faces a family seeking to emigrate to the United States is a life-saving venture. Our immigration rules are legitimate for the purpose of controlling or managing our domestic affairs, but it's equally true that people don't walk hundreds of miles across one or two countries just because they feel like taking a hike. If we send troops to another country's border, to them that's a threat as much as it is self defense for us.

These days we are entrenched in conflict for both good and bad reasons. For example, President Trump comes across as sympathetic to hurricanes in North Carolina but blames the governor of “liberal California” due to the wildfires in the Golden State.

My biggest overall problem that stultifies my effort to be optimistic about President Trump is my lack of confidence in his ability to effectively comprehend other people's legitimate needs if they aren't sympathetic to Donald Trump's own social, political or spiritual agenda.

Last week's inaugural was a proclamation more than it was an understanding communication!

There are 1,461 days in most presidential terms and as of today there are 1,456 days remaining.

Mr. Trump, act like a president rather than like a king  and America will treat you the way it ought!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY    

JIMMY'S WAYS

By Edwin Cooney

As we prepare to celebrate Donald Trump's second inauguration, America is pausing to honor a former president whose ways of wondering, thinking, and worshiping vastly differed from that of President-elect Trump.

Fifty years ago as James Earl Carter began his most unlikely quest for the presidency, he introduced himself to you and me as "Jimmy" rather than as “James” as in Madison, Monroe, Polk,  Buchanan, and Garfield. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Jimmy's political commitment was his personal integrity as his bond of public trust — thus promising never to lie to the American people.

A “born-again Christian," Jimmy generally avoided proselytizing his religion thus allowing his behavior as a Christian — rather than his reputation as such — to demonstrate what he was all about.

The fact of the matter was that he was offering his services to the public as a politician rather than as a saintly figure, which is actually quite ironic.

Although Jimmy was successful enough to outdo other politicians for the presidency, his ultimate failure was as a politician. Having been elected as an outsider, he needed to be a successful insider to get his agenda through Congress. His clash with Teddy Kennedy and the liberal element of the party ultimately cost him the November election of 1980. On the very night of his defeat, he conceded to Ronald Reagan sufficiently early to defeat a number of would-be Democratic Party congressmen and women which almost caused him to be literally read out of his party. The convention that nominated Walter Mondale pointedly ignored Jimmy Carter in 1984.

As for Jimmy Carter's ways of thinking and working, consider the following. The Panama Canal Treaty in September 1977 solidified and strengthened Central American peace that resulted in the Arias Peace and Unity Agreement in 1987. The Camp David Accords and the Israeli Egyptian Peace Treaty of 1978 and 1979 still prevail in the most contentious part of the world.

During his inaugural address, Jimmy Carter made it clear that how nations handled human rights would primarily affect our relationship with them. Former President Nixon insisted that holding the Soviets to human rights expectations was both pointless and naive. However, the Carter Doctrine issued following the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979 warned Russia that further territorial expansion into the Persian Gulf would result in a possible military response and ultimately stultified Soviet advancement throughout Western Asia. His recognition of Communist China while insuring the security and safety of Taiwan upheld America's commitment to the maintenance of international freedom.

To his ultimate detriment, Carter’s commitment to free the American hostages was far more personal than it was political. (Note that with the exception of FDR, Harry Truman, and perhaps Mr. Reagan, no president had a greater positive effect on American foreign affairs than President Carter.)

As for domestic Carter achievements, on January 21st, 1977, President Carter pardoned all Vietnam War draft evaders. That commitment was originally a political risk! It was a decision he announced during a campaign appearance before the annual American Legion Convention which was held in Seattle in September 1976. Candidate Carter declared that in order to put the divisiveness of the Vietnam conflict behind us, he would pardon American draft evaders upon becoming president. His declaration was booed by his audience, a response which must have discouraged many of his political supporters.

 In 1977, Carter deregulated cargo-carrying airlines. In 1978, he deregulated commercial airlines and the sale of natural gas. In 1980, he deregulated the trucking industry. That was followed up by the president's deregulation of "Ma Bell.”

In 1977, President Carter outlawed the dumping of raw sewage into the ocean. The following year he signed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Finally, following the 1980 election, Mr. Carter signed the Alaska Land Control Act, setting aside some 140 million acres of land for national parks and the establishment of wilderness areas.

In 1977, President Carter signed a measure making food stamps free to everyone who qualified to receive them. In 1978, he signed the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act sponsored by Hubert Humphrey, Democrat from Minnesota, and Augustus F. Hawkins, Democrat of California, setting a goal of 4 percent unemployment by 1983 and requiring the president to issue public reports on employment, unemployment, inflation, and production. In addition, the development of energy-saving and climate-improving strategies were put into practice by Carter, demonstrated by the installation of solar panels in the White House.

Jimmy and Rosalynn held opposite positions on capital punishment. While visiting inmates in state prison, Rosalynn met and was impressed by Mary Prince who'd been wrongly convicted of murder. The Carters were sufficiently impressed with her to make her their daughter Amy's caretaker. They ultimately brought her to the White House where she became part of the Carter family. Mary Prince would be officially pardoned by the State of Georgia. Like Thomas Jefferson before him, Carter believed that capital punishment could only be applicable when it could be perfectly utilized.

What's fascinating to contemplate is how Jimmy Carter's dedication to person-to-person care only began to matter following his 1980 defeat for re-election.

During the first months of his forced retirement, Jimmy was genuinely at sea as to what to do with the rest of his life. In March 1982, he awakened suddenly in the night thus startling Rosalynn who feared that he might be ill. However, what had awakened the 57-year-old former President was the sudden realization of what he should do with the years ahead.

The Carter Center would be established so that Mr. Carter could use the reputation of his former office on behalf of political and social needs, not only for his former constituency but also for people all over the world. Henceforth, he would study the effects of diseases of which most Americans had never heard. He joined businessman Millard Fuller's Habitat For Humanity to built homes for the poor. He monitored contested elections and encouraged peaceful competition everywhere.

During his 1977 Inaugural, he made it clear that the establishment and strengthening of human rights regardless of whom it disturbed would be the main goal of his public service.

Only Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt approach Jimmy Carter's passion for people.

Scholars may perhaps continue to separate the significance of his presidency versus his post presidency, but this observer insists that like love and marriage, “you can't have one without the other!”

Today, Americans of differing political persuasions have come to appreciate and love "Jimmy Carter's ways” just as they ought. From this day onward, his deeds as President of the United States will have finally caught up with his reputation as an outstanding humanitarian who just happened to become President of the United States of America.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY