By Edwin Cooney
Fourteen days from today, President Trump will enter the second half of his presidency. That’s 731 days out of a total of 1461 days in a presidential term. Before I proclaim my conclusions about the president’s past, present and future, I’m going to explain my motives and purposes in making the forthcoming assertions.
First, I have an obligation to my readers to express conclusions that go beyond the scope of mere opinion. Opinions are as cheap as the proverbial “dime a dozen.” An opinion merely expresses a hope or a belief. It seldom requires either integrity or documentation. Its ultimate effect is either reinforcement or defiance. “The president is wonderful” or “the president is terrible” possess the same power. Conclusions, on the other hand, require a healthy degree of objectivity. While I both doubted and opposed Mr. Trump’s election, from the very outset I’ve asserted that he deserves the benefit of all reasonable doubts. Furthermore, I’ve opposed the successful election efforts of men named Humphrey, (which I now regret!), Ford, Reagan, and two Bush’s. All these men now have my respect if not my affection.
Only three presidents in the last 86 years since 1932, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter, have been in as much trouble with re-election looming, as President Donald J. Trump. (Note: President George H. W. Bush’s trouble wasn’t evident until the presidential primaries in the spring of 1992, while Presidents Hoover, Truman, and Carter, like the current incumbent, were in trouble at the halfway point of their presidential terms.)
Although President Trump retains support from approximately 88 percent of his fellow Republicans, there are a significant number of gaps in support of Mr. Trump’s nomination. President Trump may well be in the same situation as President Jimmy Carter in 1980 when the liberal element of the party under the leadership of Senator Edward Moore Kennedy was Jimmy Carter’s biggest political fisher. President Trump’s scorn for the last two GOP presidential nominees, the late Senator John McCain and the newly elected Utah Republican Mitt Romney, are clear signs of President Trump’s ultimate political flaw.
Writing recently in the Washington Post, Paul Waldman points out that President Trump faces the outset of 2019 minus a Chief of Staff, a Secretary of Defense, and with an Acting Attorney General, an Acting Environmental Protection Administrator, no Ambassador to the UN, and no Interior Secretary. Additionally, his former campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, his first Chief of Staff, and his personal lawyer have all pleaded guilty to crimes. His presidential campaign, his transition team, and his foundation are all under investigation. Finally, there is the federal government shutdown which, apparently, the president is willing to allow to continue into the foreseeable future as long as the president sees the shutdown working to his advantage.
President Trump, although he insists it’s due to the “deep state” as well as to the efforts of professional radical liberals, is potentially in criminal trouble. Thus, the man who bragged that he would “drain the swamp” of criminally stupid politicians could conceivably find himself indictable whether he leaves office in 2021 or in 2025.
President Trump’s ultimate flaw isn’t ideological. His achievements which include the tax reduction measure he signed into law last August, his deregulation of economic and environmental laws, and his decision to withdraw American forces from both Syria and Afghanistan, although controversial even among conservatives, don’t even begin to reflect his major flaw. The fact of the matter is that his major flaw obscures his most significant achievements.
Everyone including the President of the United States is entitled to their own agendas. What they’re not entitled to is the right to freely demean or dehumanize on a continuous basis the thoughts, agendas and beliefs of others. Donald Trump, day in and day out, time and time again, carries on a belittlement of just about everyone around him who isn’t in the process of glorifying him. Hence, every quarrel he has is personal rather than professional or political. Even worse, he seldom keeps his word. One instant he insists that he’ll heartily take the blame for a government shutdown and in the next instant he blames his political opponents. Next, he shifts his position claiming that he’s proud of what he is doing and that the government shutdown isn’t really a shutdown but is merely the right thing to do given the current “national emergency.” He’s even inconsistent as to whether he seeks a wall or merely a security system. Thus, I conclude that there is no need for the current government shutdown. Here is why,
Writing in the New York Times, Glenn Thrush and Thomas Gibbons-Neff reveal to readers the existence of the National Emergencies Act of 1976 which empowers the president to declare a national emergency and take unilateral action to meet such an emergency. All he has to do is inform Congress of the emergency and document whatever actions he has employed to meet it. Such being the case, why shut down the government? Why didn’t he sign the proposal passed by Congress in December and declare the need for constructing a wall to meet the illegal immigration emergency? The reason is simple. President Trump believes his chronic anger is his most effective political tool to master the American body politic. His continuous childlike narcissism is contemptuous of even conservative ideology. Thus, professionals such as General Mattis and even ideologists, such as George Will, John Kasich, and David Brooks become grist for the Trumpian mill.
Whether we like it or not, “we, the people,” under specific provisions of our constitution, elected him and thus we deserve him. Sadly, he behaves himself in a way that any parent wouldn’t tolerate from a beloved child no matter what age. It’s too early to know if we will re-elect him and thus, it would be presumptuous and even self-serving to predict either his re-election victory or his defeat.
Traditionally, historians have rated presidents categorizing them as great, near great, average, below average and, finally, as failed presidents. So, hang on, here it goes. I’ll modify what I’m about to write by acknowledging that this evaluation can be altered by behavior and time.
Up to this point, I’ve asserted that James Buchanan was the worst president ever to take office because he traded his sense of morality for political peace. He knew slavery was immoral because he’d actually purchased several slaves so he could free them. However, ultimately he accepted the 1857 Dred Scott decision which legitimized human slaves as property because a slaveholder’s property rights were more politically valid than a black man’s human rights. I think James Buchanan knew better, but he traded principle for legality and politics. Thus, if President Buchanan is the worst president, what is there to say about President Trump?
Because President Trump’s quarrels are invariably personal, one can hardly use the traditional adjectives of great, near great, average, below average, and failed to adequately describe his presidency.
Thus, until and unless President Trump alters his behavior, he deserves the following evaluation: So far, Donald John Trump is the most despicable president in America’s 242 year history.
No wonder, if you listen, you can hear the flutter of each chicken’s wings as it flies home to roost!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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