Ever since Donald Trump entered
the race for the Presidency, he has traded insults, demeaned his fellow
politicians and, excuse the expression, behaved like a horse’s ass. Publicly he
accepted a Purple Heart from a veteran at an election rally, despite never
serving a day in the armed forces. And what about that live performance,
mocking a disabled man? Appalling!
Trump has consistently shown the
misogynist side of his character. Last month, Trump insulted adult-film actress
Stormy Daniels, calling her “Horseface.” He likes to undercut female
adversaries with jabs at their physical appearance. Trump tweeted:
Trump took
on then likely Presidential rival, Senator Elizabeth Warren. He said
he would pay a million dollars to charity if she proved she had Indian blood.
Warren released DNA test results showing she was between 1/64th
and 1/1,024th Native American, thus verifying her claim. Instead of
honouring the wager, Trump continued to refer to Warren as “Pocahontas.” Sadly for
Warren, the episode has backfired. A Cherokee Nation’s spokesperson railed against her for undermining tribal interests
with her continued claims of tribal heritage. Trump loved it and tweeted:
“Thank you to the Cherokee Nation for revealing that
Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas, is a complete and total
Fraud!”
Without any doubt,
Donald Trump is “un-presidential” but I must ask, so what? What does being
presidential actually mean? It is to conduct oneself in a manner befitting a president. Presidents have been criticized for not looking presidential. In my version, being
presidential requires the office-holder to transcend the norm of politics by
acting for all Americans and behaving with high standards of moral decency,
whilst demonstrating a sense of humour and trying to do what is right. That
last one is tough as we are talking about politicians, i.e. professional liars.
I suggest only three men have upheld the standards of being presidential: George
Washington, although he is alleged to have had affairs whilst he was President,
Barack Obama and Josiah (Jed) Bartlet, of fictitious West Wing fame, and even Bartlet
was censured.
Pretty well all of
Trump’s predecessors in the White House, at various moments, have used unseemly
language or have engaged in inappropriate behaviour. John Ferling’s book, Adams v Jefferson, relates the story of
the 1800 Presidential election and the underhand, appalling and crooked methods
used by both men in order to win. By comparison, the 2000 election between
George W Bush and Al Gore was child’s play.
There are so many examples
of a President being un-presidential. 1812 war hero, Andrew Jackson, taught his parrot to swear,
embarrassing colleagues and White House visitors alike. Using hot fireplace
tongs, James Monroe chased his Secretary of State
out of the Oval office. The race between John Quincy Adams and Jackson in 1828 was one of the ugliest
ever, with partisan newspaper headlines making accusations against the candidates, ranging from
murder and adultery to pimping.
Pretty well every
President, except William Harrison who died in office after only a month, has
been accused of some form of misconduct. Most of it was petty, bumbling and
shabby: there were charges of favouritism, cronyism and graft, as well as wheeling
and dealing, most often done not by the President but by the men around him.
Ulysses. S. Grant
could never bring himself to fire men close to him, especially his notorious
staffer and Whiskey Ring swindler, Orville Babcock. Instead Babcock was
appointed Inspector of Lighthouses, a lucrative position where graft was
rampant. James Monroe was twice embroiled in Congressional investigations
relating to the disappearance of White House furniture. (More than a century
later, Bill Clinton was accused of the same thing and was forced to return the
items.)
James Buchanan
appears to have had a hand in the Democrats’ attempts to rig the elections of
1856 and 1858. In 1860, after Republicans gained control of the House of
Representatives, they launched an investigation and leaked its findings to the
press, whereupon Buchanan called his accusers “parasites.” He said the
testimony against him was “nothing but falsehoods.” He complained that he was
unable to fight back, since it was unbefitting of the President to divulge the
nature of private conversations: “My lips are sealed,” was his interesting defence.
Incidentally, Buchanan was a homosexual. By the standards of the time, without
doubt this would have been un-presidential.
Three men
appointed by Warren Harding went to jail over the Teapot Dome scandal when
oil leases were granted in exchange for kick-backs. Harry Truman had a difficult
past. In 1934, when he entered the Senate, he was known as the Senator for Pendergast.
Tom Pendergast ran the notorious Kansas City political party machine and was
the master of graft, election rigging and all things crooked in local
government. Truman had worked for Pendergast. During his occupancy of the White
House, Truman was accused of favouring his poker-playing cronies and giving
them rides in the president’s jet plane, then called “Independence.” JFK
changed the name to Air Force One.
Speaking of JFK,
was he presidential? It’s now known he took drugs and was a philanderer, much
like his father and his brothers. A respecter of women? Hardly. And, more important,
was he a friend of the blacks and their cause? It was LBJ who got meaningful
civil rights laws on the statute books. I don’t suggest JFK was a racist. He
was just indifferent.
Lyndon Johnson was
well known for meting out "the Johnson treatment." When he wanted something from a
legislator, he used a blend of badgering, cajolery, reminders of
past favours, promises of future favours, and threats and predictions of personal
doom if something didn't happen. “It was like standing under a waterfall and
the stuff was pouring on you non-stop,” said one junior Congressman who wished
to remain anonymous.
Not everyone
appreciated LBJ. During the long-running Kennedy-Johnson feud, US Attorney
General and Senator Robert Kennedy said of Johnson, “He tells so many lies that
he convinces himself after a while he's telling the truth. He just doesn't
recognize truth or falsehood.” Johnson often made stunningly off-colour remarks about women and their
‘racks’, remarks which some may consider Trumpesque.
Nowadays, arguably
America’s most crooked ex-President, Richard Nixon, is starting to look like a
poster boy. His domestic record holds up well and he and Henry Kissinger brought
Russia and China to heel with such clever diplomacy. His underhandedness now looks,
comparatively, almost upstanding. Noted historian, William McFeely says: “I
think Nixon was pretty bad, but I think that even he had a respect for the
Constitution, and a constitutional sense of the value of the Presidency. Trump
trounces on these.”
Turning to the
current incumbent, will Trump get unseated by the wrongdoings of others? The
Mueller Inquiry has potted Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager. The
guilty plea of Michael Cohen, his former attorney, implicates Trump. Cohen has
pleaded guilty to violating federal law at Trump’s direction, making the
President an unindicted co-conspirator. Trump’s entire Presidency, from his
Cabinet appointments to his foreign policy, lies in a muddle of money-grubbing,
kow-towing, and influence-peddling.
But many Americans,
fed up with current Washington politics, are responding to both Trump's message
and his delivery. He routinely polls in the 40s for popularity. And as Trump
himself said, “I think the big problem this country has is being politically
correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people, and I don’t really have time
for total political correctness, and to be honest with you, this country
doesn’t have time, either."
My point is this. If the American
President keeps his or her citizens safe, runs sensible defence and military
policies; if his or her economic policies help America to thrive to the benefit
of all who work, not just the rich; if the old, the sick and children are taken
into consideration and helped; and if the administration is known as a
respecter of women and the underprivileged, does it matter one jot whether the
President is presidential? If I had a choice of great government led by a
philandering, blaspheming, womanising, cheating, swearing, insulting leader or
rubbish government led by a saint, bring on the former every time and to hell
with being presidential.
But currently American voters don’t have
this choice and Trump has to be the extreme opposite of presidential.
No comments:
Post a Comment