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