FUNDAMENTALS AND CONCLUSIONS

By Edwin Cooney

From the time I was first able to be aware of partisan voting which was during the 1956 campaign between President Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, my teachers, parents, and other adult authorities insisted that the proper choice between presidential candidates was one of character. "I vote not for the party, I vote for the man," they insisted. Back then, politicians appealed for your vote for the most part on issues rather than on personality. Of course, the soldierly portrait of Mr. Eisenhower and the largely scholarly image of Adlai Stevenson didn't go unnoticed.  Civil rights, working conditions, the significance of the president's health in the wake of his heart attack and ileitis surgery between September 1955 and June 1956 were all of some concern here at home. Soviet expansionism and crises in Israel and Egypt involving both France and England were the primary topics that voters worried, talked and debated about throughout 1956. Most dramatically, there was the invasion of Hungary by Soviet Russia late in that fall's campaign.

What's fascinating to me after nearly 64 years is the response to me by people when I ask what I regard as the most basic political question: what is the "fundamental" difference between the Republican and Democratic parties? Few people bother much to guess. They just don’t know the most fundamental differences! 

Republicans, above everything else, believe that the "free market" is the fastest and safest method to ensure the prosperity and freedom of the American people. To Republicans, property rights are the basis of human rights.

The Democratic Party believes that the prosperity and freedom of the people is best ensured by a strong and effective government, watched by and accountable to a free and well informed people. To Democrats, the civil rights of a people are the best guarantor of the prosperity and safety of the people.

Both parties are, of course, the home of politicians who invariably manipulate these general principles to the advantage of their most loyal and generous financial backers. Note that the this distinction refers to domestic issues. World conditions, as I see it, are too unstable for fundamental political theories of application. Who could ever have predicted that a Republican president would publicly reject the conclusions of his own government's assessment of what did or did not occur in favor of Premier Putin's assessment of what took place during the 2016 presidential election!

Ironically, I've always considered myself a "party man" going back to the days when I rooted for Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon. I must also confess that since 1976 I have generally favored the Democratic candidate over the Republican. Still, to me, the proposition before the people here in 2020 comes down to a question of character.

As I see it, President Trump's behavior and sins of both omission and  commission are far more deliberate and harmful to the body politic than that of any previous president. That would include Richard Nixon and even Andrew Jackson's behavior toward Native Americans during the 1830s! It's even worse than FDR's sins of omission and commission toward European Jews and the allowance for the construction of internment camps for the  Nisei during World War II. President Trump is too angry and self-centered to justify re-election!

As for Joe Biden, his inconsistencies and sins of omission or commission are tempered by who he obviously is. His respect for and cooperation with political and even philosophical opponents has gotten him into trouble numerous times including during the recent primaries with his current running mate Senator Kamala Harris. Still, he's approachable and reasonable enough on most issues. I warmly endorse Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. for election to the office of President of the United States of America and Kamila Devi Harris for election to the office of Vice President of the United States of America.

Of course, a lot has changed since 1956. The biggest or most significant change is who you and I are. Our demands, expectations, sense of self and assessments of right and wrong, the practical and the impractical, have all altered in many ways over the years. 

Political crises, almost more than any other type of crisis, invariably contain within their nature their potential solution. As painful as 2020 has been for us all, if we will examine both our political structure and our history, we will discover a map that will lead us to a happier future!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY