WHAT AM I MISSING?

By Edwin Cooney

As I sit down to write this column every week, I’m usually energized by a message or a story I wish to convey to the reader for his or her knowledge or enlightenment.  This week, I’m uncomfortably flummoxed and I’m seeking your help.  

A few days ago, I got a response to last week’s column from a reader encouraging me not to be a globalist but to be a nationalist.  He went on to say that America is in deep trouble and the only way America can hope to recover is by electing Donald Trump our next president.  Well, I can accept that as a working hypothesis, but then he went on to urge me to read a recent book entitled “The Angry White Male” by Wayne Allyn Root.

My response to (I’ll call him) Mr. O’s suggestion to read such a book is that it is offensive.  I still feel that way!  However, I’m not entirely sure my response is healthy.  In my responding email to Mr. O, I suggested that whites, blacks, Hispanics (just to name three groups) all suffer from such scourges as unemployment, underemployment, and outrageous threats to their persons. Why should I read about the plight of “angry white males”?  I find such a suggestion to be extremely racist.  I suggested to him in my response that we ought to be concerned about everyone’s pain. In his response he agreed, but put off a defense of his suggestion for another time.

All of us look at the world from our own beings and circumstances.  We are “us ” and the rest of the world are “they.” However, most of us are taught as a part of our spiritual or religious orientation some version of the Golden Rule.  We obey that golden rule as long as we don’t endanger our social, economic or political advancement and well being.

For the first time since 1968 when former Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace ran for president on the American Independent Party ticket, white men apparently believe that at last they have a candidate of their “very own.”  (Note: in 1992, when (Henry) Ross Perot ran as the Independent Party candidate, he made it clear to the American voter “If you’re a racist, I don’t want you or your vote.”)  With all that the white American male has accomplished and been handsomely rewarded for achieving, it seems to me to be absurdly painful and shameful that he paints himself as a victim now that minorities are finally likewise accomplishing and being rewarded.  I’m sure it’s especially galling that an American of African descent has twice been elected President of the United States.  It’s my guess that historic event is the real rub!

Black militancy is unfortunately far more understandable than this new white militancy.  Of course, too often it is just as racist as what I’ll call “Trump militancy,” but at least it has an historical context!  All militancy, whatever its justification, is usually counterproductive and should be avoided.  Unfortunately, racial animosity in our history goes back to the 1830s and for reasons both understandable and regrettable has poisoned our national serenity.  Thus, it seems to me, that in 2016 we ought to be seeking the root of our dilemmas rather than the justification for our anger, as well as the root of the ills that affect all of us.

“Angry white males” labeled as a social or political category of citizens is racism pure and simple!  That, however,  doesn’t mean that an angry white voter is even close to being a racist.  After all, there’s a lot to be worried and thus angry about in the two-hundred and fortieth year of our American age!

If someone separates himself from you because of your ethnic or racial heritage , he does so because of who you are rather than anything you’ve done or believe.  No matter who you are, you are as pure as the most innocent baby there ever was and ought to be assumed as such unless you start judging others.  Then, of course, you deserve the animosity of everyone — angry white men included!

So, what am I missing?  Should I read the book?  I think not as I have no interest in becoming an “angry white male!”  I may be an angry parent, citizen, and I am a male, but I don’t have to be angry to be a a “true red, white, and blue” American citizen!  As for Mr. O.’s admonition that I should be a nationalist rather than a globalist, history shows that intelligent knowledge and planning in the international field ensures American peace and prosperity.  There’s little wisdom in pre World War II isolationism.

Race as a topic for study and redress is a legitimate one and even essential when it comes to pointing out unique differences or inherent injustices toward races of people throughout our past.  White Americans collectively remain far and above the most powerful, wealthy and freest people on God’s not-so-green earth!  We are all alike in that we are of some racial or ethnic origin.  We are all winners and losers in various aspects of life. Individually, as parents concerned for the future of their children and as citizens worried about the safety and prosperity of their country, white Americans have not only the right, but the duty to gripe!  However, their anger as a group is a little silly and it’s damned unpatriotic!

Want an example of a silly, angry white male?  Mr. Donald John Trump - that’s who!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE ROOT OF OUR VOTES!

By Edwin Cooney

It has become traditional when facing a complex choice to look for “the root of the matter.”  Next November 8th, “the root of the matter” will be your vote and mine.

 As we individually prepare ourselves to cast a presidential vote this fall, I think it’s essential that we master the most difficult human skill.  Specifically, I mean the capacity to separate or, if you will, discern small but significant factors when choosing candidates for public office — especially for the office of President of the United States.  In order to do that, it is vital to separate what we suspect to be true versus what we know to be true whether about social or political circumstances (the cause and effect as well as the application of public policies) or assessing the abilities of political candidates to successfully perform the duties of the office to which they may be elected.

At the core of everyone’s vote is one’s individual set of values and beliefs.  As I see it, what affects too many votes is our limited knowledge of the choices available to our elected officials once they are in office and our general preconceived comfort zones when it comes to those options.  Too often, we are too comfortable with what we personally believe to look beyond our prejudices.  Even worse, we actively form opinions that support our general suspicions.  Then we justify our opinions because they are convenient to us.  In other words, we function within our comfort zones preferring the convenience of opinion to the challenge of exploration and thought.

Over the next two and a half months, Americans will be deciding our national fate.  Each voter will make a value judgment based on our present and will prescribe a direction for our future.  Some may even decide not to vote. Their decisions will depend (on the surface at least) on what they believe about a number of issues.  These issues include whether participation in a global economy will provide prosperity or whether our economic future can best be served by largely ignoring the world and re-establishing a powerful domestic industrial economy; how we are affected by our current immigration policy; whether global warming is real or merely a governmental and liberal scientific establishment hoax; whether NATO and the United Nations are  now obsolete and therefore useless; whether government is a useful instrument or at the heart of all our problems; and, finally, which is more significant: that Hillary Clinton is a “lying crook” or that Donald Trump is increasingly demonstrating insufficient knowledge about vital national issues along with a tendency to make egotistical-based decisions. Frankly, the above five issues are far more important than the personal fate of either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton. 

An ongoing concern of mine is the quadrennial existence on the presidential ballot of third and fourth party presidential candidates. Of course, it would go against everything we believe in were we to make them illegal. That would be outrageous, of course, but I can  think of only once when a third party affected an election outcome and that occurred in 2000. However, I consider Jill Stein’s and Gary Johnson’s  appearance on November’s ballot to be more of a distraction than a constructive factor in the coming election.  Of course, I’m more receptive to the Johnson candidacy than I am to the Stein candidacy.  After all, Governor Johnson is more likely to take more votes from Mr. Trump than Dr. Stein may take from Mrs. Clinton.  Still, the reality is that neither Governor Johnson nor Dr. Stein is going to be elected president.  However, even if either were elected, he or she would be seriously handicapped when it comes to forming an administration.  Nor is it likely that their agendas would command significant backing in a congress made up of the two traditional parties.  Neither has much support in the political or in the vitally important academic or socio/industrial communities.  Sure, Republicans might join a Johnson administration and Democrats are more likely to join a Stein administration, but it’s important to keep in mind that the two major parties have broader sources of prepared national leaders than any third party.  Until a third party demonstrates that it can elect a president, its existence is purely negative.  Third parties are often vital in parliamentary systems of government.  Under our federalist system, they are pretty useless insofar as this observer is concerned.

Whether or not we choose to believe it, the person who becomes president is a reflection of who we are. Even if you decide not to vote, you have voted with your indifference.  After all, indifference can be very powerful.  Perhaps someone’s indifference has affected some aspect of your own personal life.

I’m not voting for Hillary Clinton this November because I particularly like her.  I’m voting for her because I believe we need a progressive Supreme Court, a tolerant immigration policy, a proactive response to climate change, a flexible and practical foreign trade and diplomatic policy, and, finally, a government which is supportive rather than suspicious of you and me.

Insofar as I am aware, Dr. Stein and Governor Johnson can’t offer the above agenda because they can’t be elected.  Mr. Trump won’t respond to the above prescriptions because, after all, he’s Donald Trump!  There are a lot of voters who insist that third and fourth party candidacies are harmless and that they are healthy for the American body politic.  I’d like to believe that, too, but then I remember those 95,000 Florida votes for Ralph Nader.  Next, I think of who might not be on the Supreme Court had Al Gore been president.  Then, I remember weapons of mass destruction.  Next, I think of the climate change policies that might have been implemented. And then I think, I think…never mind!

“Go, Hillary!”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

DATE OF THE SUMMIT - DATE OF THE VALLEY

By Edwin Cooney

Forty-eight years have past since the night of Thursday, August 8th, 1968.  On that historic night, Richard M. Nixon approached the summit of his dreams as he accepted, for the second time in his life, the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.  The absolute summit was three months, 31,775,480 popular votes, 32 states, and 301 electoral votes away from his lifelong dream of occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Exactly six years later to that very night, President Richard Milhous Nixon entered the valley of despair and disgrace as he announced that the following morning he would resign the presidency.  His given reason for resignation was that he had lost his political base of support in the Congress.  However, his loss of that base was largely due to the web of illegalities and deceptions he had spun for himself because he had come to loathe a significant percentage of his national constituency.  Of course, it wasn’t entirely his fault. After all, he was president of a restless, demanding people who themselves often felt under siege.

Few of the past 100 years of American history have been tranquil for presidents or their national constituents.  Perhaps only the year 1926 was mostly devoid of national trauma.  About the most exciting event of 1926 occurred when the St. Louis Cardinals upset Babe Ruth’s Yankees in the World Series.  The country was at peace and was prosperous led as it was by “Silent” Calvin Coolidge who was spare of frame and of speech and as honest as his actual given first name: John!

The year Mr. Nixon approached the summit of his dreams was, as is this political season of 2016, a time of considerable turmoil.  The undeclared Vietnam War, struggles over civil rights and personal privacy, and the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Francis Kennedy exemplified that turmoil.  August 8th, 2016 find Americans once again in turmoil -- social, political and even spiritual turmoil.  The culture war has been raging since Roe vs. Wade was decided on January 22^nd 1973 (which was also the day LBJ died) and during the time President Nixon believed he’d ended the Vietnam conflict “…with honor.”  Americans today are almost consumed with fear of ISOL, increasingly suspicious of Muslims, blacks, and police and especially of politicians.  On to today’s stage stroll Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Thus, the question is how can we use the Nixon trauma to our mutual benefit as we prepare to elect a president this November 8th?

Hillary Clinton is largely mistrusted as a liar and a crook in the same way many politicians have been throughout our history.  Donald Trump, on the other hand, brings to the national debate an ill-mannered evaluation of the State of the Union and a host of seemingly ill-considered solutions to some of our most vexing problems.  Even more, his willingness to take as personal effrontery every political difference with practically every opponent is disturbingly Nixonesque.

Richard Nixon was, as he took his first oath of office in 1969, pretty much of a standard middle of the road to rightward-leaning Republican.  Furthermore, there were understandable reasons why Mr. Nixon was so mistrusted by traditional liberals such as Adlai Stevenson, Harry Truman and even by some GOP liberals such as Chief Justice Earl Warren and Nelson Rockefeller.  Nixon’s political skulduggeries against past political opponents coupled with his aloofness and his suspicion and resentment of the working press had nearly terminated his career.  Finally, Mr. Nixon’s aloof and brusque personality was no match for the handsome, erudite and politically ambitious Jack Kennedy in 1960.  Mr. Nixon’s resentment left its mark and became politically radioactive when he finally became president.

However, as one compares Richard Nixon to Donald Trump, Nixon appears almost affable and even Reaganesque!

Two factors in Mr. Trump’s persona are of considerable concern.  First, there is his almost unfathomable willingness to defame and dehumanize all who confront him whether it be Hillary Clinton or John McCain.  Then there’s his policy of proscribing major changes such as the abandonment of NATO because he believes NATO members aren’t paying their fair share of that organization’s costs.

Back in January 1962, President Kennedy, during his State of the Union Address, made an observation concerning the United Nations that fits Mr. Trump’s attitude toward NATO today.  Said Kennedy:  “…I see little merit in the impatience of those who would abandon this imperfect world instrument because they dislike our imperfect world.  For the troubles of a world organization merely reflect the troubles of the world itself.  And if the organization is weakened, these troubles can only increase.”

As we pass through August 8th, 2016, we must face the possibility that a free people will choose Donald Trump as our president.  After all, Mr. Trump isn’t yet responsible for any ill-considered policy, foreign or domestic.  His attitudes, and even more his actions, demand that we wonder out loud and persistently whether Mr. Trump is about exploiting our woes or healing our hurts!  Up to this point, it appears the former is more likely than the latter!

Sadly, the trauma of Richard Nixon’s ascendancy into the valley of despair and disgrace announced on the night of Thursday, August 8th, 1974 that became official on the morrow of August 9th, remains with us most beneficially as a warning of what could come tomorrow.  Turmoil and trauma are, after all, the lot of every powerful nation. The most powerful antidote to turmoil is wisdom.  Richard Nixon’s tragedy therefore must be told and retold with a minimum of prejudice but with a maximum of objectivity, truth, and force.

However, there is a small drawback to my prescription of reasonable and responsible restraint in our wise judgment of and attitude toward our fellow citizens.  The truth is that American’s taste for controversy and suspicion is invariably far more exciting than wisdom.  Wisdom, after all, can be quite boring, especially when Americans would just as soon be entertained!

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY 

DO WE REALLY CHOOSE THE PRESIDENT?

By Edwin Cooney

Last Thursday, a lady who I suspect will vote for Mr. Trump, wondered out loud, “why don’t we do better than we do when it comes to choosing presidential candidates?”  My immediate response to her was “we don’t choose the candidates, they choose themselves. Were we, after all, to actually “choose” a candidate, we’d entice presidential candidates from their preoccupation with private or public affairs.  That, however,  doesn’t happen.  We merely select from candidates who have already chosen themselves to lead us.  It always has been that way and I’m guessing that it’ll likely always be that way!”  From Washington to Obama and their opponents, Adams to Romney, there runs a common thread: personal ambition.  No one has ever forced even one candidate to seek the presidency.  Even more, it’s highly likely that there are many people out there who don’t even dare to run even although they possess sufficient wealth and political status!  Thus, in 2016,  Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, whatever their motives, agendas and backgrounds, have one thing in common, a driving ambition for personal socio/political satisfaction and gratification. Consider this! Only 43 people since the spring of 1789 have achieved the American presidency.  That’s 43 individuals out of approximately eleven generations of Americans,  My estimation is that approximately one billion Americans have populated this continent since George Washington reportedly agreed to accept unanimous election to the newly minted office of President of the United States.  Some, perhaps even most, believe that Washington accepted election totally out of duty. However, knowledge of human nature reminds some of us that duty, when it encompasses our perceived abilities and talents, is an ever-tempting and self-energizing nectar!

Thus, between 1789 and 1831 when the first national political conventions were held with representation from most of the states, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams and even Andrew Jackson were chosen largely by a combination of state legislatures and party congressional caucuses before their ultimate election by the electoral college.  

For the next 100 years, presidents were chosen largely out of the public eye by the political and financial structures of the Whig, Republican, and Democratic parties.  Remember, United States senators weren’t popularly chosen in most states until 1914.  That tells those of us who are students of history that very few men elected president during that time (with the exception of military leaders such as Jackson, Zachary Taylor and Grant) were known nationally before the expression of their party’s preferment.  Sure, newspapers reported the speeches of Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, William Jennings Bryan, the “also rans” of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but there were few ideological differences between the unsuccessful and successful candidates which were discernible to the public of that era.

Eighty-three years have passed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, seated in a small metal wheelchair (according to one report I once read), inserted a small bridge between his two front teeth to prevent him whistling when pronouncing the letter S, next inserted a cigarette into his long ivory cigarette holder and went in front of microphones to deliver his first “fireside chat.”  The purpose of that Sunday night, March 12, 1933 address was to assure the public that banks, which were about to reopen, were safe to receive deposits.  The president’s rich tenor voice and cultivated Harvard accent gave a combination of warmth and learned authority to his reassurances that today we would describe as sufficiently “presidential.”  Ever since that broadcast, the person of the presidency has become equally if not more real to the American people than the institution itself.

Since 1932, candidates for president have been forced by multiple cultural and political circumstances to endure a political and personal grilling that is intellectually, emotionally and even spiritually invasive and dehumanizing. Hence, it is essential to victory that candidates grasp for a socio/political advantage during a presidential campaign.  Thus they’ve come to rely largely on both sensationalism and ideological agendas sustained by money and media.

As I listened to Hillary Clinton accept the Democratic nomination last Thursday night, I passed through a few somewhat conflicting moods and thoughts.  As I listened to her describe her heartfelt agenda, I passed through an instant of boredom. After all, her work on single payer healthcare while first lady adequately and permanently stamped her as a liberal in my mind. Next, as she threaded her way through the agenda she will face as president, I felt re-assurance that this lady really gets it — it, being the essential cooperation any successful president needs to accomplish priorities throughout his or her term — because like it or not, the business of politics requires the skills of a good politician.  (Note: good politicians must sometimes be both warm and ruthless. Some examples include Mayor Fiorello Laguardia of New York, Mayor Richard J. Dailey of Chicago, Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, FDR, Truman and, of course, LBJ.  As for President Obama, his successes have occurred when he has let others do the political wheeling and dealing, thus leaving the application of policymaking and inspiring up to him.)  

No, we, the American people, don’t consciously choose our presidential candidates, but we do create the atmosphere and fertilize the socio/political soil in which they ultimately thrive.  Our presidential candidates are the fruits of our creation offering themselves for our selection - or, if you prefer, for our election.

Here’s the truth!  We’ll be more successful in creating a higher quality of presidential candidates when we recognize  three essential realities.  We must modify our own political agendas in recognition of the legitimacy of our neighbor’s welfare, recognize that freedom accommodates the natural and benign needs of others, and realistically evaluate and respond to the multiple societies with which we must engage around the world.

There’s little evidence right now that we are ready to consider those three vital restraints before election day, Tuesday, November 8th, 2016.  If we don’t, Mr. Donald Trump may well be President Donald John Trump come January 2017.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY