TRUMPISM EQUALS TRIBALISM

By Edwin Cooney

The culture war through which we’ve been passing since the era of President Carter’s abandonment by Neo-Democrats in the late 1970s has advanced to a degree that most of us, me included, have yet to fully grasp.

Traditionally, issues have been fought out between conservatives and liberals, each insisting that they haven’t really changed their principles, the other guy has changed his or the other woman has changed hers. Ronald Reagan used to give the split between FDR and Al Smith as an example. Al Smith, the “wet” “Catholic” 1928 Democratic Party presidential candidate who lost to Herbert Hoover, split with Franklin Roosevelt over his New Deal government plan. Mr. Reagan always asserted that the split between them was a principled or ideological split. “…Al Smith didn’t leave his party, the party left him,” Mr. Reagan often insisted. The truth is that it was a very personal split which began when Governor-elect Roosevelt refused to hire Al Smith’s secretary Belle Moskowitz. Tragically, Al Smith lost not only the presidency, but was the victim of bitter prejudice on the part of an anti-Catholic public. Understandably angered and bitter about his loss of office and its accompanying prestige, Smith felt that FDR was ungrateful for his assistance in transforming his invalid friend from obscurity into the Governorship of New York. The point of this story is that all politics is ultimately personal and thus we must cope today with both Tribalism and Trumpism.

Tribalism is a very, very ingrained aspect of who Americans are. What it all comes down to is that we’re all, in one way or another, fans. We’re sports fans, rock-in-roll fans, movie actor and actress fans, talk show host fans, Red Sox Nation fans, Savage (talk show host Michael Savage) Nation fans, etc. Fandom is the personalization of fanatic or fanaticism but its significance depends on how and for what purpose our individual sense of fandom is interpreted and ultimately exercised. A fan may not always agree with the decisions made by the object of its affection, but a fan seldom, if ever, objects publicly to that object’s actions. Even more, it ignores a leader’s inconsistencies no matter how blatant.

Sports and entertainment fandom is, for the most part, pretty harmless, but political fandom is rapidly, as I see it, breaking down into tribalism which too often creates a subculture with its own often extreme values and mores.

The election and inauguration of President Trump is a case in point. Donald Trump isn’t and never has been a conservative. Conservatism for President Trump is merely a convenient instrument, much as is the Republican party, for election to high public office. One of my favorite people, a man I’ll call Michigan Chris, used to assure me that no conservative would ever do what Bill Clinton did because conservatives, unlike liberals, possess a strong sense of Christian morality. Yet here in 2018, we find fundamentalist Christian preachers insisting that they didn’t support Donald Trump because he was or is a saint, but because he’s dedicated to return America to the values and mores of the Eisenhower era.

There are a number of very prominent conservatives who are absolutely baffled and bewildered by President Trump’s personalization of conservative doctrine. Their hero is still President Ronald Reagan who used his eloquent persuasiveness rather than the tactics of the worst type of ward politician to get his way. Ronald Reagan was, I believe, aloof, self-serving, and self-righteous, but he ultimately was a gentleman.

Tribalism is a social division much as nationhood. Nationhood or tribalism is the master of any political ideology. Its mainspring is loyalty rather than practicality or principle. Its doctrines, religious beliefs and practices are legitimized or delegitimized by the chief or the senior council. Tribalism as a political activity isn’t new in this country, but tribalism as a movement is what I believe we’re facing in 2018.

There have always been subdivisions of liberalism and conservatism. As the late great Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr once observed in a book about the cycles in American politics, traditionally, there are two main elements of conservatism. They are economic and social conservatism and they each have different “fish to fry.” Conservatism has a set of heroes with different agendas. Senator Robert A. Taft was primarily an international isolationist. Barry Goldwater was generally a strict constitutionalist. Bill Buckley was mostly a libertarian and Ronald Reagan was primarily a social conservative.

Likewise the history of liberalism has its own set of heroes. FDR, Truman, and Hubert Humphrey were labor union liberals. Adlai Stevenson, George Kennan, JFK and LBJ were primarily cold war activists.

President Trump has no set ideological pattern. He embraces tax cuts, business and climate deregulation, and good old “Know Nothing Party nativism.” At the same time, he’s anti NATO, and seemingly pro-dictator. Perhaps most powerful of all, he’s anti-politician even as he sits atop the greasy pole of American politics.

The primary responsibility of any tribe is self-protection. Modern 21st Century tribalism is absent of doctrine or dogmatism, but it’s loaded with self-righteous ambition and, under the guise of good old American conservatism, its goal is the socio/political defamation and destruction of all who oppose it.

Trump tribalism may well pass into history when the president’s term ends. But tribalism may well succeed as a political practice if Chief Trump wins re-election.

Next week I’ll tell you about an incredibly disturbing speech from a man named Dan.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

CRACK CRACK CRACK!” THERE GOES MY LIMB, BUT I’M READY AND RARING TO GO!

By Edwin Cooney

I feel sorry for those who only dare to take a position in order to be right! In the absence of hard evidence all any of us have is instinct modified by intelligence and experience. I’m an optimistic person by nature. When I reach a conclusion about anything, much of that conclusion is based on that combination of instinct, experience and intelligence. Nor do I have to be emotionally comfortable with my conclusions.

During this week, I received two very intriguing responses to last week’s column. One was from a reader who expressed surprise that I’ve “…drunk the Kool-Aid" and had thus fallen under the persuasion of that enemy of all that’s decent, George Soros. Mr. Soros, according to this reader, has most likely sent a handsome check to Dr. Blasey Ford for testifying as she did. (I wonder how much this writer really knows about the background and person of George Soros and what makes George Soros less legitimate than either the Koch Brothers or the Mercers or even the Murdochs?) When I really think about it, it’s not too surprising that Conservatives and their purely reactionary sympathizers suspect money to be the sole force that moves people when they themselves depend upon it so much. No sensible person allows themselves to be overwhelmed by feelings when they have so much to gain by collecting money. Many of these sympathizers would rapidly change their outlook had their sisters, daughters, girlfriends and wives been victimized by a drunken teenager some 36 years ago.

Another even more intriguing item I received this week is a commentary to which I must give further study before commenting on it. The writer of this missive introduces an article suggesting that we’re headed toward the brink of civil war due to the surrender to feelings rather than duties which have been bred into today’s liberals by permissive parents of the late 1960s and 1970s. As he introduces his article, he insists that although he thoroughly disliked President Barack Obama, he always gave to him the respect due to him as a legitimate occupant of his office. (I’m assuming, of course, that this gentleman never questioned President Obama’s citizenship!) He charges therefore that President Trump’s opponents deny him even the legitimacy of his office. For that reason their lack of respect for President Trump is pretty close to treason. Thus, we’re headed toward almost certain civil war. That guy is much, much further out on a limb than I’ve ever been.

If you ask me (and you haven’t), publicly stepping out on a limb serves a vital purpose. It stimulates debate by openly encouraging people to consider likelihoods rather than merely surrendering to the obvious. Therefore, although I heartily disapprove of conspiracy theories and theorists, before closing here, I’ll jump out on still another limb.

At the bottom of last week’s limb-hopping is my belief that “where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.” Even more to the point is my belief that there’ll be a very heavy political price that’ll be payable by those who insist that what women assert as mattering is silly or irrelevant. Most of those who take that position are conservative absolutists in their individual and even collective morality.

My quarrel with President Trump isn’t that he didn’t legitimately attain his office. He’s as legitimately president as was Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes and perhaps even more so than was George W. Bush, who was practically declared president by the Supreme Court of the United States in December 2000. As a student of history, I spent many a delightful hour studying the legitimacy of such British Kings as John (1199-1216) who was forced to sign the Magna Carta denying to kings absolute power; King Henry IV who usurped his cousin Richard II’s throne in 1399 and who died in 1413 guilt ridden by that usurpation; King Henry VIII, with all his greed and cruelty, was most definitely legitimate.

Nor do I quarrel with the president’s right to destroy the Affordable Care Act, to make enemies out of immigrants and a bosom buddy out of Vladimir Putin. After all, it’s up to a free people to correct a president who has gone too far on any issue.

Finally, although I’d oppose him even if he was primarily a Conservative, a la Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or even (Heaven help me), Pat Buchanan, my objection to Donald Trump is his personal behavior. The president isn’t, as I see it, ultimately a Conservative. The president merely uses Conservatism to legitimatize Trumpism. President Trump doesn’t in the least fear fear; he endorses it as a vital aspect of legitimate power.

John F. Kennedy said in 1960 that the legitimate task of the president is to set before the American people the unfinished public responsibility of the people.

Clearly, President Trump believes the legitimate task of his presidency is to protect our borders rather than to tackle the problems in Central America which lie at the root of those border problems. Apparently, President Trump is perfectly willing to close off the borders of this country to millions of immigrants who would still like to share their energy and creativity with us rather than with the Chinese. Apparently, even in all his legitimacy, President Trump believes he can control all those who must work with him, both at home and abroad, using coercion rather than cooperation.

Free men and women cannot afford to be fearful. Fear, as I’ve written before, is merely the father of anger. You may well ask if I’m afraid of President Trump! The answer to that is that I’m leery of him and much of what he stands for, as well as of the tactics he’s willing to use to achieve his goals. However, I’m not afraid because I’m sure that sooner rather than later he’ll pay a devastating political price for what he’s been doing and for who he is.

My next limb asserts that a Democratic Congress will not seek Trump’s impeachment. They will definitely peck away at his political vitals, but ultimately they’ll do all they can to insure that the electorate in 2020 will proceed to delegitimize a possible second term.

Oh, as for that cracked limb, I forgot to mention my super parachute!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

SEE THAT GUY SITTIN’ WAY, WAY OUT THERE ON THAT LIMB? THAT’S ME!

By Edwin Cooney

Last week, in an attempt to be fair, I reminded my fellow progressives (liberals, if you must) that when judging the sins of youth, as opposed to the sins of adults, we progressives usually weigh them on different scales. Therefore, I asserted, we should remember that 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh shouldn’t be evaluated the same way that we evaluate 53-year-old Judge Kavanaugh. The problem with that analysis is that confirmation to high public office isn’t a legal process, it’s a political process — or it has increasingly come to be that. Confirmation to high public office is equivalent to a job interview.

That being the case, those charged with the task of hiring someone for this position must keep in mind not only our national welfare, but the way any potential public servant’s background and experience affects it. Even more to the point, since 1969 and 1970 when President Nixon’s first two nominees to the Supreme Court,  Clement Haynsworth and Harold Carswell, were turned down by an overwhelmingly liberal democratic Senate, ideology has been a key factor in the United States Supreme Court confirmations. Since 1991 when President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to fill the seat of Judge Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court nominees’ personal behavior (past and present) have had much to do with each nominee’s likely approval.

Thus, in this “Year of Our Lord 2018,” more than at any time in history, election and appointment to high public office has become increasingly downright personal.

We need only to look back two years ago to know such is the case. What Democrats too conveniently forget is that Hillary Clinton’s reputation was as much a factor as Donald Trump’s during  the 2016 campaign. Trump, however, had the ultimate advantage of being a change to national leadership when many Americans, especially in key electoral states, were looking for “change” every bit as much as progressives were looking for “change” in 2008 when we voted for Barack Obama. Hillary was an old candidate even though in actuality she is 16 months younger than President Trump. We’ve known Hillary since 1992. Thus, a good portion of those who voted for Mr. Trump were simply tired of Hillary. So, as we sometimes do with our sweethearts, we often look for “a change” even though we may eventually discover that we are the ones who need to change - not our sweethearts.

Therefore, it’s not too surprising that the personal history and character, as much as any political or ideological factor of those we appoint or elect to high public office, matters as much as any public or civic experience or activity.

Last Thursday, Americans saw and evaluated the behavior of two people as they testified before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. Christine Blasey Ford testified that she was the victim of Brett Kavanaugh’s juvenile drunken status and teenage sexual appetite thirty-six years ago. Dr. Ford made her case in opposition to his nomination utilizing only what she remembers of her experience, and her subsequent feelings about his behavior toward her. Her testimony, though tearful and vague at times, was absent of name calling or of any purely political judgment. As likely as it appears to be that Dr. Ford is a liberal, she didn’t expound as a liberal. Her testimony reflected a state of feeling that is foreign to most males who, after all, remain the most powerful movers and shakers of American society. Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony, on the other hand, was righteously angry and exceedingly precise. All aspects of his victimhood, unlike Dr. Ford’s, are well known to him. No reasonable person should deny him of his right to be angry, but the form of his anger was quite revealing.

Had Judge Kavanaugh simply denied her charge, even as he presented his calendar as evidence of his innocence, he could not have been faulted for vigorously defending himself. Unfortunately, the tone of his testimony was that of a temper tantrum. Not daring to fault Dr. Ford’s  presentation, he proceeded to attack the vehicle of that testimony — namely, the “left wing of the Democratic Party,” thus politicizing his victimhood and hers.

Even more telling was his unwillingness when appealed to, to publicly ask the White House to order even a time-limited FBI investigation of Christine Blasey Ford’s agonized charges. His behavior was pretty much the same as that of Clarence Thomas’ 27 years ago when he responded to Anita Hill’s charges by counter-charging her testimony with the assertion that he was the victim of a modern racial lynching.

As for heroes, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was front and center. I don’t know many people, especially women, who would be willing to publicly reveal such an intimate humiliation no matter how healing it may be. Even more admirable is her willingness to bear the inconveniences, threats, and insecurities that have accompanied her soul-destroying teenage humiliation. Senator Jeffrey Flake’s decision to support the Kavanaugh nomination on the floor of the Senate only on the condition that there be an FBI investigation indeed does him credit.

Regrettably, both political parties represented on the Judiciary committee came across as being more interested in appealing to their constituencies than they were in looking out for the future security and safety of the whole public. This tendency is lately being called tribalism which values party loyalty above even truth. I call it the Sovietization of American politics.

Finally, I’m optimistic enough to believe that the forthcoming FBI investigation will sustain Dr. Ford and, as a result, Judge Kavanaugh will not be confirmed by the United States Senate as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

When the Clintons were in the White House, conservatives insisted that individual morality was the mainspring of our democracy. Now that the nation is free of the Clintons, individual morality has been replaced primarily by fear and political payback.

It’s my guess that much of the anger that led to the 2016 defeat of Mrs. Clinton will, very soon, turn its wrath on those who so arrogantly stirred it up and unleashed it. Perhaps President Trump is becoming aware of that possibility since he has decided to order the FBI investigation. As I write this, there have not been any angry tweets or caustic comments emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, the president’s silence has been almost deafening. His behavior has been downright gentlemanly! 

Perhaps the president realizes that there is a severe price to pay if you defame the sensibilities and the feelings of nearly half of humanity.

Therefore, I’m guessing that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s bravery may well have begun to tip the scales, perhaps ever so slightly, on we males’ treatment of our ladies! 

Hence, from way, way out on that proverbial limb…!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

IS THURSDAY’S SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEARING ABOUT POLITICS OR PURPOSE?

By Edwin Cooney

I suspect that for most Americans, the nature of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s upcoming appearance before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee will be that of sociopolitical revenge. After all, the very nature of American politics has been pretty dirty historically. Today, as Winston Churchill might well assert, American politics has gone from dirty to downright squalid. I’m hopeful that we’re all about to be pleasantly surprised! Whether I’m right or wrong in this hope, the only way out of this 21st Century squalor is to think our way out of it. I’ll try and help here. We have within the latest sensational political crisis one of the main keys for our deliverance from this culture war that has gone on far too long.

We have two American citizens about to approach the United States Senate Judiciary Committee who appear to find themselves in locked cross purposes. One is a distinguished federal judge who holds pristine legal and politically ideological credentials which are more than sufficient for him to occupy a seat on the highest court in the land. His purpose is to be appointed to that seat.

The other is a highly intelligent, scientifically-oriented professional woman who claims that way back when they were very young, she was sexually assaulted and abused by this man of high judicial  accomplishment and stellar integrity. Exactly what her purpose is in bringing to the public’s attention the above unfortunate incident is yet to be explained by her. The question before the Senate Judiciary Committee as well as that which faces a very judgmental American public is whether what did (or didn’t) happen approximately 36 years ago is yesterday or today’s issue!

Since Judge Kavanaugh emphatically denies the charges, his dilemma is that he can’t possibly disprove them unless he can demonstrate that he was somewhere else on the occasion of the alleged sexual assault. His accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, is equally  unlikely to scientifically prove her accusation against Judge Kavanaugh. Therefore, in the absence of proof (certainly beyond a reasonable doubt), neither the American people nor the distinguished members of the United States Senate will have anything but the manner in which Dr. Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh present their cases on which to make a judgment about the veracity of the charges or of the denial.

It recently has become a progressive practice to weigh the sins of youth and the sins of adults on different scales. In 1982 when this incident apparently occurred, both Dr. Blasey Ford and Mr. Kavanaugh were minors prone to the indiscretions of youth. Neither their compulsions nor their actions were sufficiently adult. Accordingly, on the surface, it seems to me that the adult Kavanaugh ought to be the Kavanaugh that’s relevant to our national judgment except for one factor. That factor is Dr. Blasey Ford’s purpose for bringing her painful past to our attention.

If her sole purpose is to damage Judge Kavanaugh then shame on her. If her purpose is to dramatize the victimhood of women by perhaps going so far as to publicly forgive Judge Kavanaugh for his youthful indiscretion, she may well have taken the first step in the humanization of 21st Century American politics even as she testifies as to the veracity of her charges.

It’s possible, as we study history, to discover an aggressor and a victim behind every crisis in American history. In 1776, King George the Third was the aggressor and we colonists were his victims. Throughout the civil strife of the 1840s, 50s, and 60s, the slave owners were the aggressors (if you were to ask the abolitionists) and free men and women were the victims. If you had asked the Confederates, the abolitionists and the federal government were the aggressors and those who believed in states’ rights were the victims. When I was growing up, liberals, for the most part, held the higher hand of morality (especially on the civil rights issue) because both discrimination and racism were (and still is) immoral. Not until the Vietnam War and the Watergate eras did the personal morality of the President of the United States and his fellow politicians become the focus of questions of intense debate.

Since the resignation of President Nixon and the advent of President Bill Clinton, political leaders and commentators make every controversial issue primarily a moral issue. Americans are in continuous doubt about the very humanity of our national leadership. Accordingly, today Conservatives who once condemned the lack of morality in Bill Clinton’s White House see little relevance in what clearly appears to be immoral in President Trump’s White House.

Thus we come to the Kavanaugh/Blasey Ford crisis. One of the ironies here is that back in 1991 when Clarence Thomas’s and Anita Hill’s involvement became an issue, that issue was a question of adult behavior. It seems to have been far more relevant than the behavior of youths. Not too long ago, a United States Senator was forced to resign due to behavior considerably less objectionable than that of young Kavanaugh or the adult Justice Thomas.

What we need to realize is that the very fabric of truth, believability, as well as integrity, have become weakened not because they are no longer valuable, but because they have become mere tools of persuasion for the sake of immediate political one-upmanship.

Women are understandably angry over the ways in which they’ve been taken advantage of by the males in their lives. Nevertheless, since they’ll always have to live with them, their challenge is to master all men in such a way that at all times commands their respect.

Dr. Blasey Ford’s challenge before the United States Senate even as she puts him on notice that she remembers that awful night (whether or not he does) is to master the man with whom she has a conflict with so that the end result is for her own healing. 

The political correctness or political moral self-righteousness must come to a screeching halt! No matter what you believe or in whom you believe, be it ideological politics or your religious faith, you’ll never enable it to prevail by belittling or destroying the reputations or sensibilities of others.

Here’s a brief example of what I mean. President Woodrow Wilson was absolutely right about the need for the establishment of the League of Nations in the wake of World War One. However, once he allowed the League of Nations to become a moral difference between himself and the GOP-controlled United States Senate, he lost his fight and the casualties and deaths of World War Two were almost inevitable. In other words, Wilson allowed his dislike and jealousy of Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. of Massachusetts to destroy his dream as well as the very lives of millions during the war and the holocaust that were to come twenty-five years later.

With that lesson and that spirit in mind, may the meeting of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee please come to order!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

231: THAT’S A LOT OF YEARS — EVEN FOR A NATIONAL CONSTITUTION!

By Edwin Cooney

Don’t get nervous. I’m not about to analyze either the origin or the meaning of the Constitution of the United States — nothing real heady like that. What I am going to write about this week is what two rather strong-minded Americans believe about its significance and meaning.

Last Thursday night, I called an old friend of mine to catch up on things. I think we may have talked perhaps once in the last five years since we’ve both been away from California. When we first met back in the 1990s, it became immediately clear to both of us that the most compelling aspect of our friendship was, and would always be, the enjoyment we both got out of debating one another. Once, during a fit of pique over Rush Limbaugh’s book titled “The Way Things Ought to Be,” I tossed some keys I was holding at him. He caught the keys and, luckily for me, simply laughed. (After all, he used to be a policeman and would have had no trouble at all handling me!) The point of all this is the vital significance in our attitudes and outlook toward life in 21st Century America.

My friend BD is a “born again” Christian. He’s also a Conservative which means that he’s a strict constructionist as an interpreter of the Constitution. He would have been a member of “The Silent Majority” during the days of Spiro Theodore Agnew, John Newton Mitchell, and Richard Milhous Nixon had those days been extendable. On the other hand, I, although a Christian, am primarily a civic-minded citizen who believes in both equity and equality — contradictory as the two may seem. As a progressive, I believe that the Constitution is a living document flexible enough to fit changing times. BD dismisses me as a “secular humanist.” His two guideposts are the Bible and the Constitution. My two guideposts are my history books and my clearly liberal interpretation of the Bible. I welcome all those immigrants Jesus loves and BD just doesn’t.

Last Thursday night, BD expressed, as he always has, his belief in the ongoing wisdom of the Founding Fathers. Although he concedes that times have changed bringing with that change circumstances that they couldn’t possibly have anticipated, he sees in their construction of it and its implied outlook an essential rigidity which we ignore at our extreme peril. He even defends (hang on tight now!) the electoral college as did men such as Alexander Hamilton and John Adams.

Most of me, although not all of me, rejects the idea that there exists a group or class of men or women who are sufficiently gifted with the unerring ability to continuously make wise decisions for the ongoing freedom and moral betterment of us all. The part of me that does believe that we not only should but ought to construct bodies of regulation takes this belief from my study of history. Specifically, I have observed that men and women, unless checked, will invariably tend to regulate their opposites or opponents leaving themselves free to savor the profitable and delicious benefits (largely financial) of this free and most vital American society.

BD, as I understand his outlook, would regulate people’s moral attitudes and behavior, leaving their financial behavior or options absolutely alone. During our conversation he used the old worm-eaten “socialist” label to describe the agenda of “the left.” I countered with the long overdue observation that conservative social and political doctrine, when you come right down to the heart of the matter, is antisocial just as much as it is anti-socialist!  (There is an element of ideological conservatism that isn’t antisocial. These citizens are generally known as Civil Libertarians. They believe in the best of both worlds: fiscal freedom and civil liberty.)

On the other hand, only with great reluctance would I regulate people’s social behavior. The social behavior I would regulate would be, of course, that behavior that endangers our safety and security. Insofar as I’m concerned, you neither endanger me, my children or grandchildren because you’re gay. Nor do you enhance their future because you are “straight.” These are just some of the matters that my friend BD and I have debated over the years.

Eventually, as you can well imagine, we got down to the present, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. Of course, BD voted for Mr. Trump although his first choice was Senator Cruz. Ultimately, Donald would do.

I came away with several conclusions from my conversation with BD.

Up until the November 22nd, 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, Americans, for the most part (despite the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley beforehand), largely lived during a period of political innocence.  

That innocence was shattered by the increasing capacity of the national media to bring the whole unsettled and dirty world into our living rooms. Thus Americans who were born after the traumatic events that took place during the Vietnam War and political scandals that followed were exposed to the causes and forces that brought them into being rather than sheltered as my generation was.

Thus, I, who was born during the 1940s, remain in some emotional way secure in the knowledge of what society can be once it chooses to be a certain way. Unlike Mr. Limbaugh, I don’t advocate forcing people to be a certain way through either political or economic means. I think it is my friend BD’s hope that people will one day be compelled to be both righteous and moral — according to both scripture and to the laws of liberty.

BD’s world is logical and profitable which he believes are the blessings of his religious faith. My world is a world based on the Biblical admonition to “love thy neighbor as thy self”  which is reinforced by the Golden Rule.

Finally, I’m convinced that neither Donald Trump nor any other single person or body of persons (specifically the Supreme Court of the United States) can overpower the writ of the Constitution of the United States, the 231st  birthday of which we celebrate this vary day. My guess is that on that observation my friend BD and I pretty much agree.

Oh, one more thing! With all his rigid righteousness, BD really and truly is not only a good friend to have, he’s a good citizen. During the week of Tuesday, October 17th, 1989, I mostly worried and fretted following the World Series earthquake. BD rolled up his sleeves and without compensation did all he could as a trained ambulance medic to aid and comfort those injured and distressed. 

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

A SOCIO/POLITICAL POTPOURRI, PART ONE

By Edwin Cooney

Usually, I write about one topic. Today, I offer a political potpourri in response to two occurrences and to one proposed event. This musing could be called “A Potpourri of Reactionary Red Meat” because it is composed of straight opinion rather than my usual balanced thoughtful reactions to events. For what it’s worth, here it goes:

(1.) Monday, July 16th, 2018. Standing beside President Vladimir Putin, President Trump tells the world, in particular his Republican colleagues, that he trusts the word of President Putin regarding Russia’s activities during the 2016 presidential campaign more than he does America’s intelligentsia. Since 1945, Republican and conservative leaders have shamelessly charged President Franklin D. Roosevelt with treason at the February 1945 Yalta Conference during which he made certain concessions to Premier Joseph Stalin enhancing the Soviets’ influence and power especially in Eastern Europe. For all the legitimate criticism that might be thrown at FDR, his concessions to Stalin were made with two vital purposes in mind. First, FDR sought the Soviets’ essential participation in the new United Nations. Second, and vitally important at the time, was Stalin’s agreement to declare war on Japan once the European war was over. As history unfolded, the Soviets ultimately got more out of Roosevelt than he got out of Stalin. Since the Trump-Putin conference at Helsinki, anti-Soviet and even anti-Russian Conservative Republicans have been reluctant to tag President Trump the way they have labeled Roosevelt for over seventy years. As I see it, herein lies a bit of hypocrisy! Even more, FDR’s objectives were, at the very least, forward-looking. So what were President Trump’s objectives by comparison? The least that can be said about them is that they were strictly self-serving and lacking any degree of purpose or patriotism. The most that can be said for the president’s behavior is that he “out Roosevelted” Roosevelt! Remember the story about Vice President Nixon’s first meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in July 1959? They spent much of their first 30 minutes together arguing over whether pig or cow dung smelled worse. Nixon ultimately prevailed when Khrushchev agreed that pig dung really was worse than cow manure! On July 16th, Americans got a pasture full of both Putin and Trump manure which traditional Republicans and Conservatives couldn’t even smell! Nuts!

(2.) Since Senator John McCain’s death on Saturday, August 25th, many have been searching for ways to honor him. One such suggestion has been to rename the Richard Brevard Russell Senate Office Building after John McCain who, unlike Senator Russell, was no racist. The justification for such a move is in support of a desire, especially on the part of Liberals, to tear down monuments to the Confederacy. Although I’m generally sympathetic toward the long overdue de-glorification of the Confederate States of America because they really were both racist and treasonous by their very founding, Senator Russell’s career didn’t take place during the life of the Confederacy. Richard Russell, although unapologetically racist, was the most capable member of the United States Senate of his era according to the testimony of his colleagues. He was the father of FDR’s New Deal in the Senate. He founded the National School Lunch Program and vigorously backed and advanced the National Youth Administration, of which young Lyndon B. Johnson was the Texas State Director. Many senators insist that had he not been a Southerner, he would have been the Democratic party’s presidential nominee in 1948 or 1952. He was Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and, in 1964, the same year he fought LBJ’s Civil Rights Bill, he was appointed to the Warren Commission which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Senator Russell’s appointment was a testimony to his intellect as well as to his integrity. Thus, as I see it, since Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia who served in the US Senate from January 12th, 1933 until his death on January 21st 1971 was honored by his Senate colleagues, the withdrawal of that honor would in itself lack honor. There are at least four reasons why I say this. We have rightfully honored slave owners because their accomplishments vastly outweigh their sins of slave ownership. Senator Russell’s life was neither about the confederacy nor about slavery. The Senate that supported the naming of that office building for the late Senator Russell was bedecked with such liberal senators as Humphrey, McGovern, Kennedy, Brook, Muskie, Javits, Hart, Bayh, Proxmire, Nelson, Symington, Eagleton, and others with solid non-racist backgrounds or outlooks. In addition, an honor reflects a cultural continuum. As such it ought not to be ignored by the mores of future generations. It’s true that Senator McCain undoubtedly deserves to be honored by his Senate colleagues, but that honor will be degraded if it is received at the expense of another Senator’s legacy. As I see it, downgrading Senator Richard Russell does not in any way honor the memory and life of Senator John McCain.

(3.) On Friday, September 7th, in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, Obama took off the gloves, but rather than brawling, he punched with finesse. One of my continuing criticisms of President Obama has been his reluctance to “get in there and duke it out with the opposition.” In last Friday’s speech to students at the University of Illinois, the former president utilized all of the standard criticisms of President Trump including criticism of his denial of climate change, withdrawal from NAFTA, his identification with strong dictators over parliamentarians and, of course, the president’s unwillingness to condemn racists or ethnic bigots. “How hard,” Obama asked rhetorically, “can it be to declare Nazism bad?” In addition, his style of tweets and name-calling did not escape former President Obama’s notice.

However, the most powerful part of the former president’s remarks came near the close of his address. First, he minimized the significance of the activities by the individuals in the Trump White House who were doing their best to curtail Mr. Trump’s reckless activities while devoting their efforts to support 90% of his policies. Mr. Obama’s biggest concern wasn’t as much about Trump’s activities or policies as it was about the havoc he’s visiting on our most vital national institutions. As Scott Baker pointed out in the New York Times, Obama asserted:  “…in the end, the threat to our democracy doesn't just come from Donald Trump or the current batch of Republicans in Congress or the Koch brothers and their lobbyists, or too much compromise from Democrats, or Russian hacking,” he said. “The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference…”

For most of our lives, you and I have thought that hate is the opposite of love. In other words, hate for America, the opposite of love for America, just must be our greatest enemy. However, when you really think about it, that’s not precisely true. A hater may attempt to or actually commit a single deadly deed before he or she is caught. One who is indifferent may, even without realizing it, starve America of all its energy and desire to matter.

Political and ideological bombardment by ambitious talk show hosts, politicians, and especially by preachers may be numbing our very beings, not to the desire for personal comfort or satisfaction, but from a sufficient energy to identify and thus defend our genuine and vital national interests!

If that doesn’t scare you, then I guess you’ve already been had!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

GOING TO “THE ROOT OF THE MATTER!”

By Edwin Cooney

During World War II, one of  British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s favorite advisors was Harry L. Hopkins, President Franklin Roosevelt’s friend and chief all purpose advisor who was then living at the White House.

During the 1930s, Hopkins, who was a social worker by education and training, served as the New Deal’s Works Progress Administrator and later as Secretary of Commerce. Poor health had forced him to resign as Commerce Secretary and then to take residence at the White House with FDR. It was while serving as WPA Administrator or as Commerce Secretary that Hopkins demonstrated his ability to get to the heart of any question. During the mid-1930s, he was testifying before a congressional committee that was quite doubtful as to the need for and the efficiency of a government program. “In the long run,” one Congressman said, “this relief problem could be better handled by private enterprise, couldn’t it?” “People don’t eat in the long run, Senator,” Hopkins shot back, “They eat everyday.” That’s an example of why during World War II Churchill came to call Hopkins “Lord Root-of-the-Matter.”

It’s past time that Americans identified ‘the-root-of-the-President-Donald-John-Trump-matter.” If you’re reading this as a supporter of President Trump, I’m sure you’re about to hit your delete key. If you’re anti-Trump, and there was a “delight” key on your computer or iPhone, you’d probably be caressing that. However, there is a truism that I’ll save for the end of this commentary that brings what I’m about to write into its proper focus.

Twenty-one months ago, Americans entrusted Mr. Trump with even more of the powers of government than the electors of 1788 could give to George Washington (never mind that it was via electoral rather than popular vote). Mr. Trump appealed for our support on the grounds that practically every politician (even the president) since perhaps Abraham Lincoln had been a “failure.” Candidate Trump  would apply practical business efficiencies to remedy our woes. The question, therefore, is has he accomplished that? Has efficiency been the target of his administration?

On the positive side, President Trump has applied traditional conservative Republican values and principles to the nation’s fevered brow, some of which are pretty hard to swallow for those of us who have a different political and social agenda than the president. Nevertheless, such decisions as withdrawing from NAFTA, backing out of the international climate change agreement, his attempts to kill Obamacare, and even his “tax cuts for the rich” are not legitimate reasons let alone the “root of the matter.”

Every presidency has a flavor of some kind, or if you prefer, a culture that characterizes what it’s all about. Stability and legitimacy characterized the Eisenhower Administration. Vigor and youth and its possibilities stood out during the Kennedy administration. The possibility of a “Great Society” was the touchstone of the Johnson presidency which, tragically, was swamped by the Vietnam Conflict. The Nixon and Ford presidencies were ultimately about international detent, flavored unfortunately by the scandals stemming from the Vietnam War. Jimmy Carter’s presidency was about international human rights as well as environmental reform and regeneration here at home. However, the public saw President Carter as both naive and incompetent and sent him packing back to Plains, Georgia.

The culture of the Reagan presidency was “morning in America,” personal presidential affability and restoration of the workable over the mundane. President George H. W. Bush was about progressive conservatism under the twinkling of “a thousand points of light” which were snuffed out by angry GOP conservatives when he broke his pledge that there would be “no new taxes.” President Bill (“Slick Willie”) Clinton was a combination of both moderately progressive domestic and foreign policies which were vastly overshadowed by Clinton’s penchant for self-gratification and his opponents’ delight in calling him on it. 

Like Rutherford B. Hayes back in 1876, President George W. Bush was pushed over the “finish line” by his party. It brought about an administration that catered to his party’s hunger for tax revenue that could have been used to pay down the national debt, and for the GOP’s fears of and hunger for Saddam Hussein’s hide — and eventually Osama bin Laden’s hide as well. The second Bush administration’s culture was both defensive fear and an appetite for  foreign oil.

The Obama presidency was all about change, but many citizens’ lingering questions about the legitimacy of its black president’s citizenship overwhelmed his genuine attributes which stultified the change President Obama hoped to bring about.

There’s one conclusion with which I think both Trump enthusiasts and detractors will agree. Donald John Trump was elected to the presidency by an angry and bewildered people.  Rather than do what he could to decrease the nation’s anger and bewilderment, President Trump has obviously decided to depend on it both politically and morally. The American people have often been angered when voting for a presidential candidate just as they were in 1932 when they rejected Herbert Hoover and voted for Franklin Roosevelt. Rather than appealing to the people’s distress, Roosevelt sought to alleviate it, however imperfectly. The same was true of President Reagan in 1981. Unlike Presidents Roosevelt and Reagan, President Trump is an exceedingly angry man. Even more to the point, both supporters and opponents of President Trump are determined to be angry. Anger, rather than objectivity as to what ought to be done to calm the waters of our national discontent, is what sparks their very energy to participate in political affairs. Even worse, too many Americans have surrendered to professional “think tanks” and talk show networks and hosts to keep their anger stoked. Insofar as I’m aware, this is both a new as well as a poisonous factor upon our discourse which is more virulent today than at any time since just before the Civil War.

Being the obviously reckless man he has been so far, President Trump may well destroy himself before his opponents get the chance to do so. He nearly did that during that televised news conference in late July with Russian President Vladimir Putin. What might be the factor that does him in may well be either his mobster language and mentality or one of his public tantrums over someone’s disloyalty. One of the keys to understanding President Trump is his expectation of “loyalty” on the part of officials whose ultimate loyalty isn’t to a president but to the people they’ve been hired and hopefully honored to serve. I don’t recall even Richard Nixon appealing to members of his Cabinet for “loyalty” during Watergate. 

Mr. President, Attorney General Sessions, with all his imperfections, isn’t your Attorney General — he’s ours.

Hence, what lies at “the “root of the matter” is an determinedly angry and bewildered population which has allowed itself to be led by a president who, at least for the moment, is behaving like a cancer on America’s political soul.

The most imposing element at the “root of the matter” isn’t the personage of Donald Trump. His ambition and willingness to become our president is not one of his faults. His election and possible re-election would be our fault, not his.

Thus, the ultimate fault lying at the “root of the matter” has been — and perhaps will be — ours!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY