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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 11, 2022 at 12:10 am
During his 1992 Presidential campaign, Bill Clinton had “It’s the Economy, Stupid,” as his mantra for staying focused on the issue that recession-suffering Americans most cared about.
For Donald Trump in 2016, the issue he—and his base—held dearest could be summed up as: “It’s the Hatred, Stupid.”
As a Presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly used Twitter to attack hundreds of real and imagined enemies in politics, journalism, TV and films.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
- Hillary Clinton
- President Barack Obama
- Actress Meryl Streep
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Comedian John Oliver
- News organizations
- New Jersey
- Beauty pageant contestants
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
- Women
- Democrats
- Republicans
- Blacks
- Hispanics
- Asians
- Muslims
- The disabled
- Prisoners-of-war
As President, he continued to insult virtually everyone, verbally and on Twitter.
He even attacked members of his own administration. Among these:
- His press secretary, Sean Spicer, quit on July 21, 2017. The reason: He believed—correctly—hat his loyalty to Trump had become a one-way street. Trump kept him in the dark about events Spicer needed to know—such as an interview that Trump arranged with the New York Times—and which ended disastrously.
- Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation. On November 7, 2018, the day after Democrats won a majority of House seats, Trump fired Sessions.
- Trump fired FBI Director James Comey without warning on May 9, 2017. Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump and turn the FBI into Trump’s secret police. He had also refused to drop the Bureau’s investigation into Russia’s efforts during the 2016 election to elect Trump.
- Trump repeatedly humiliated his then-chief of staff, Reince Priebus—at one point ordering him to kill a fly that was buzzing about. On July 28, 2017, Priebus resigned.
- In October, 2016, as a Presidential candidate, Trump attacked Colin Kaepernick, then quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, who had gained notoriety by kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.
- On October 8, 2017, at Trump’s instigation, Vice President Mike Pence staged a walk-out during a match between the San Francisco 49ers and the Indianapolis Colts.
- The Trump/Pence stunt cost taxpayers about $242,500 in air fare for Air Force Two, advance personnel and Secret Service protection.
- On March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, Trump falsely accused former President Barack Obama of illegally tapping his Trump Tower phones during the 2016 campaign: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
As Americans have watched Trump’s behavior with morbid fascination, many of them have asked: “Why is he so consumed with hatred?”
There are two reasons to this:
First, his base is equally motivated by hatred—of the same persons and organizations Trump regularly attacks. Every attack endears him anew to these voters.
During the 2016 campaign, countless such voters told interviewers: “He says what I’ve long been thinking!”
Trump didn’t implant hatred in them—he simply gave it legitimacy. And they love him for it.
Second, the 1993 Western, Tombstone unintentionally illuminated Trump’s character while delving into that of the notorious gunman Johnny Ringo.
Tombstone recounts the legendary blood feud between the Ike Clanton outlaw gang and the Earp brothers—Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil—in the famous gold-mining town of 1881 Arizona.
Wyatt Earp has been challenged to a gunfight by quick-trigger gunman Johnny Ringo. Although he impulsively accepted the challenge, Wyatt now realizes he’s certain to be killed. Thus follows this exchange with his longtime friend, the pistol-packing dentist, John H. “Doc” Holliday:
WYATT EARP: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
JOHN H. “DOC” HOLLIDAY: A man like Ringo….got a great empty hole right through the middle of him. He can never kill enough or steal enough….or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
EARP: What does he need?
HOLLIDAY: Revenge.
EARP: For what?
HOLLIDAY: Bein’ born.
Donald Trump was born into a world of wealth and privilege. He has claimed to be worth a billion dollars.
He has been linked to some of the most beautiful women in the world. He has literally stamped his name on hundreds of buildings. And for four years he held the Presidency of the United States, the most powerful office in the Western world.
Yet he remains filled with a poisonous hatred that encompasses almost everyone.
After taking office, he offered nothing positive in his agenda.
Instead, he focused on what rights he could take from others. At the top of his list: The Affordable Care Act, providing access to medical care for millions who previously could not obtain it.
He ended his term by staging an attempted coup to overturn his defeat in the 2020 Presidential election by Joseph R. Biden.
As first-mate Starbuck says of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick: “He is a champion of darkness.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 20, 2021 at 12:08 am
Why are some Presidents remembered with affection, while others are detested—or forgotten altogether?
Generally, Presidents who are warmly remembered are seen as making positive contributions to the lives of their fellow Americans and being “people-oriented.”
Among these:
- Abraham Lincoln
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Franklin Roosevelt
- John F. Kennedy
Among the reasons they are held in such high regard:
- Abraham Lincoln ended slavery and restored the Union. Although he ruthlessly prosecuted the Civil War, his humanity remains engraved in stories such as his pardoning a soldier condemned to be shot for cowardice: “If Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs, how can he help their running away with him?”
Abraham Lincoln
- Theodore Roosevelt championed an era of reform, such as creating the Food and Drug Administration and five National Parks. Popularly known as “Teddy,” he even had a toy bear—the teddy bear—named after him.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully led America through the Great Depression and World War II. He was the first President to insist that government existed to directly better the lives of its citizens: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- John F. Kennedy supported civil rights and called for an end to the Cold War. He challenged Americans to “ask what you can do for your country” and made government service respectable, even chic. His youth, charisma, intelligence and handsomeness led millions to mourn for “what might have been” had he lived to win a second term.
John F. Kennedy
Presidents who remain unpopular among Americans are seen as unlikable and responsible (directly or not) for mass suffering.
Among these:
- Herbert Hoover
- Lyndon B. Johnson
- Richard M. Nixon
Among the reasons they are held in such low regard:
- Herbert Hoover is still blamed for the 1929 Great Depression. He didn’t create it, but his conservative, “small-government” philosophy led him to refuse to aid its victims. An engineer by profession, he saw the Depression as a machine that needed repair, not as a catastrophe for human beings. This lack of “emotional intelligence” cost him heavily with voters.
- Lyndon B. Johnson is still blamed as the President “who got us into Vietnam.” John F. Kennedy had laid the groundwork by placing 16,000 American troops there by the time he died in 1963. But it was Johnson who greatly expanded the war in 1965 and kept it going—with hugely expanding casualties—for the next three years. Unlike Kennedy, whom he followed, he looked and sounded terrible on TV. Voters compared LBJ’s Texas drawl and false piety with JFK’s wit and good looks—and found him wanting.
Lyndon B. Johnson
- Richard M. Nixon will be remembered foremost as the President who was forced to resign under threat of impeachment and removal from office. Like Herbert Hoover, he was not a “people person” and seemed remote to even his closest associates. Although he took office on a pledge to “bring us together” and end the Vietnam war, he attacked war protesters as traitors and kept the war going another four years. His paranoid fears of losing the 1972 election led to his creating an illegal “Plumbers” unit which bugged the Democratic offices at the Watergate Hotel. And his attempted cover-up of their illegal actions led to his being forced to resign from office in disgrace.
Richard M. Nixon
Which brings us to the question: How is President Donald J. Trump likely to be remembered?
Historian Joachim C. Fest offers an unintended answer to this question in his 1973 bestselling biography Hitler:
“An ancient tenet of aesthetics holds that one who for all his remarkable traits is a repulsive human being, is unfit to be a hero.”
Among the reasons for Hitler’s being “a repulsive human being,” Fest cites the Fuhrer’s
- “intolerance and vindictiveness”;
- “lack of generosity”; and
- “banal and naked materialism—power was the only motive he would recognize.”
Fest then quotes German chancellor Otto von Bismarck on what constitutes greatness: “Impressiveness in this world is always akin to the fallen angel who is beautiful but without peace, great in his plans and efforts, but without success, proud but sad.”
And Fest concludes: “If this is true greatness, Hitler’s distance from it is immeasurable.”
What Fest writes about Adolf Hitler applies just as brutally to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
He has:
- Boasted about the politicians he’s bought and the women he’s bedded—and forced himself on.
- Slandered entire segments of Americans—blacks, Hispanics, women, journalists, Asians, the disabled.
- Attacked the FBI and CIA for accurately reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had intervened in the 2016 Presidential election to ensure Trump’s victory.
- Refused to effectively attack the Coronavirus pandemic, leaving 400,000 dead by the end of his Presidency.
- Refused to accept that Democratic nominee Joseph Biden legitimately won the 2020 Presidential election.
- Ordered a mob of his Fascistic followers to attack the Capitol Building and stop the certifying of Biden as the winner of Electoral College votes.
At this stage, it’s hard to imagine Trump joining that select number of Presidents Americans remember with awe and reverence.
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TRUMP AND HIS BASE: A MUTUAL LOVE SONG OF HATRED
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 11, 2022 at 12:10 amDuring his 1992 Presidential campaign, Bill Clinton had “It’s the Economy, Stupid,” as his mantra for staying focused on the issue that recession-suffering Americans most cared about.
For Donald Trump in 2016, the issue he—and his base—held dearest could be summed up as: “It’s the Hatred, Stupid.”
As a Presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly used Twitter to attack hundreds of real and imagined enemies in politics, journalism, TV and films.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, Trump fired almost 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions that had somehow offended him.
Donald Trump
The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Among his targets:
Others he clearly delighted in insulting during the campaign included:
As President, he continued to insult virtually everyone, verbally and on Twitter.
He even attacked members of his own administration. Among these:
As Americans have watched Trump’s behavior with morbid fascination, many of them have asked: “Why is he so consumed with hatred?”
There are two reasons to this:
First, his base is equally motivated by hatred—of the same persons and organizations Trump regularly attacks. Every attack endears him anew to these voters.
During the 2016 campaign, countless such voters told interviewers: “He says what I’ve long been thinking!”
Trump didn’t implant hatred in them—he simply gave it legitimacy. And they love him for it.
Second, the 1993 Western, Tombstone unintentionally illuminated Trump’s character while delving into that of the notorious gunman Johnny Ringo.
Tombstone recounts the legendary blood feud between the Ike Clanton outlaw gang and the Earp brothers—Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil—in the famous gold-mining town of 1881 Arizona.
Wyatt Earp has been challenged to a gunfight by quick-trigger gunman Johnny Ringo. Although he impulsively accepted the challenge, Wyatt now realizes he’s certain to be killed. Thus follows this exchange with his longtime friend, the pistol-packing dentist, John H. “Doc” Holliday:
WYATT EARP: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
JOHN H. “DOC” HOLLIDAY: A man like Ringo….got a great empty hole right through the middle of him. He can never kill enough or steal enough….or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
EARP: What does he need?
HOLLIDAY: Revenge.
EARP: For what?
HOLLIDAY: Bein’ born.
Donald Trump was born into a world of wealth and privilege. He has claimed to be worth a billion dollars.
He has been linked to some of the most beautiful women in the world. He has literally stamped his name on hundreds of buildings. And for four years he held the Presidency of the United States, the most powerful office in the Western world.
Yet he remains filled with a poisonous hatred that encompasses almost everyone.
After taking office, he offered nothing positive in his agenda.
Instead, he focused on what rights he could take from others. At the top of his list: The Affordable Care Act, providing access to medical care for millions who previously could not obtain it.
He ended his term by staging an attempted coup to overturn his defeat in the 2020 Presidential election by Joseph R. Biden.
As first-mate Starbuck says of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick: “He is a champion of darkness.”
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