THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST TRUMP

THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST TRUMP The title of this essay is THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST TRUMP. With two words added this is the same title of a book about Donald Trump by Victor Davis Hanson. Not to worry; book titles generally cannot be copyrighted and this is no exception. Still, I would like to borrow from that book where Hanson quotes someone saying that they approve of almost everything Trump does and disapprove of almost everything Trump says. It is an oversimplification, but generally tracts with what this thesis is about and parallels my own belief. President Donald Trump and even before he became president has made numerous statements, both orally and in social media, which could rationally be described as mean spirited, ill advised, politically inept, unwise, yes, and even stupid. Why did he and does he still do this? It is his life long habit and at his age of 73 he is not only unlikely to change you can bet against long odds that he will not change. Mostly it just his own personality developed over the years and because he is that type of brash New Yorker. What has he said that is so objectionable? Where to start? I will give you what I consider some of his most egregious examples: (1.) In 2011 Trump questioned whether Barack Obama was born in the United States. In 2015 he still had not admitted that Obama was a natural born citizen. A bit later he finally admitted that Obama was born in Hawaii. What took him so long to say that when the evidence was so overwhelming? (2.) In 2015 Trump said about John McCain “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who were not captured.” For all his peccadillos, John McCain was a war hero. He spent 5 ½ years as a prisoner of war by the Vietnamese. When they found out McCain was the son of the USA commander in that area they offer to release him. When McCain found out his other USA military captured comrades would not be released he refused their offer. What more of a hero do you want? Even after McCain died Trump gratuitously said he was last in his class at West Point. In fact McCain was fifth from the bottom of his class. (3.) In 2016 Trump said “When Mexico sends its people they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They bring crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.” How unartful and even insulting that was expressed. He should have said that those Mexicans (and Central Americans) are mostly good people who want a better life, but are entering this country illegally. There are also some who are bringing in drugs and crime. (4.) In 2016 when a federal judge made a ruling that Trump did not like he claimed that the judge, Gonzalo Curiel, was biased because he’s a Mexican. (5.) In 2016 the father of an army captain killed in Iraq criticized President Trump by accusing him of not knowing the constitution and said that he would gladly lend him his copy. Trump responded in kind instead of taking the high road and just ignoring it. (6.) In 2017 during a Unite The Right rally at Charlottesville, VA 20-year-old neo-Nazi, James Alex Fields drove his car into a group of peaceably protesting people, killing one and injuring 28. President Trump characterized it as the alt-left and alt-right being equally to blame. This was unfortunate in that in this instance it wasn’t true and it gave Trump’s enemies ammunition to be used against him which they still do to this day. I could go on with more examples, but I believe these make the point. Then there are, perhaps politically incorrect, statements Trump has made which his biased enemies have unfairly used against him. Trump said “Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and Hispanics – a tough subject, must be discussed.” He could have further commented that most of this violent crime is committed against other blacks and Hispanics. Unlike what the lying Beto O’Rourke said, Trump did not call all immigrants “animals.” He was referring to the vicious and murderous MS-13 gang members. Now I will turn to the positives of President Trump. But first let me address the question whether Trump is a serial liar as his opponents in Congress, those running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and the Main Stream Media (MSM) repeatedly and insistently allege. For further reference in this essay, by the MSM I am referring to the completely left wing CNN and MSNBC and to a lesser degree ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, and Washington Post. The conservative Media Research Center, headed by Brent Bozell, tabulated that over 90% of their coverage of Present Trump by CNN and MSNBC is negative. If this were seriously off the mark the left would excoriate and discredit the Media Research Center. They have not. Also just listen to them as I do and that conclusion is inescapable. The irony is there are legitimate reasons to criticize President Trump, some of which I outlined above, but when every thing he says and does is unfairly and dishonestly criticized, then all credibility is lost. That Trump frequently and wildly exaggerates, and yes, even lies on occasion cannot be denied by honest observers. However, to what extent does he lie? Not nearly as much as his virulent opponents claim. What persons, and that includes presidents, do not lie and deceive on occasion? President Obama lied when he said if you like your health care plan you can keep it and if you like your doctor you can keep him. During the flap where some in the IRS, primarily Lois Learner, was either denying or holding up tax free status for conservative groups Obama said there was not a scintilla of corruption in the IRS. He had to know better. Even someone as deservedly labeled as Honest Abe could deceive when it suited him. During a series of seven debates with Stephen Douglas for a seat in the USA Senate in 1858, Douglas noticed that what Lincoln said in the northern part of the state was markedly different than in the southern part, especially on the subject of slavery. During one of their last debates Douglas pointed this out to the audience. When it was Lincoln’s turn to speak he told the audience that his opponent said that he was two-faced and the clearly homely Lincoln asked them if he were two-faced would he keep the one he has? Even though it was true it was impossible keep a serious point when the people there were convulsed with laughter. Few people got the better of Lincoln in debates. Even honest speaking Harry Truman (the 2nd best president of the USA in the 20th century next to Ronald Reagan in my opinion) could lie when it suited him. In 1948 when Truman was on a train during his “Whistle Stop” campaign for the presidential election a reporter told him that what he said in a previous stop was markedly different that what he had just said. Truman responded that he did not say that. The reporter responded that he had written it down in his notes. Truman still maintained that he did not say it. What was the reporter to do – it was his word against the president of the United States? That was completely different than the example of G.H.W. Bush when he agreed to raise taxes after he was elected president and when he famously said, ”Read my lips, no new taxes” while he was campaigning. When a reporter on TV brought this up Bush denied he had said that. The next thing the viewer saw and heard was Bush saying exactly that. Too bad the reporter interrogating Truman did not have a recording devise. Before I get into the positives of President Trump I want to digress a bit and discuss evaluating the totality of presidents – that is to say both their negatives and positives. Consider two former Democrat presidents: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Carter was the more moral of the two. Yes, Carter could be self-righteous and pompous at times, but in personal decency and moral rectitude he was clearly superior to Clinton. Who had the more successful presidency? Again, the answer is clear- it was Bill Clinton. Carter had what I consider two major accomplishments in (1.) giving sovereignty of the Panama Canal to Panama (Reagan was against it). The treaty allowed the USA to keep the canal open, even using force if necessary. That was one less irritant for Latin American countries to have against the USA. (2.) Brokering a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which is in effect to this day. The negotiations, which were held at Camp David, were headed by Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel. At some point Sadat and Begin stopped talking to each other and threatened to leave. Carter then personally carried messages from one to other and got them talking again. Begin and Sadat received Nobel Peace Prizes, but not Carter. He should have similar to Theodore Roosevelt receiving the Nobel Peace prize in 1906 for his part in ending the Russo-Japanese War. There was little else positive that Carter accomplished in his one term presidency. The country was in an economic downturn and dispirited social condition – a malaise, although Carter did not explicitly use that term. Carter’s weakness in dealing with the American embassy take over and hostage situation by Iran was plain for all to see. There was a reason that in his reelection bid Carter won only 6 states to 44 for Ronald Reagan. In the first by-election of President Clinton in 1994 the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years by picking up 54 seats and also won control of the Senate. In the first by-election of President Obama the Democrats lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives with the Republicans gaining control. This loss was the most by either party since 1938 in a by-election and the most in any election since 1948. The Republicans gained 7 seats in the senate, but not a majority. Obama said that the Democrats had taken a ”shellacking”, but doubled down on his left wing agenda. To the contrary, Clinton recalled his political advisor he had in Arkansas while he was governor, Dick Morris (he did not go to Washington D.C. with Bill Clinton originally because Hillary did not like him). Together Dick Morris and Bill Clinton formulated a strategy they called “triangulation” to enlist the moderate Democrats and Republicans in congress to get legislation passed. One of the major items was welfare reform which resulted in approximately two million fewer women on welfare and getting good jobs after five years. A high official in the Dept. of Health and Human Services resigned, saying this reform would put an additional one million women into poverty. This shows how wrong ideologues can be. The Clinton administration cut other domestic programs as well as the military budget. Some conservatives did not like that – not me. The military needed to be cut (see my essay: The USA Military). In the last three years of the Clinton presidency and the 1st of the G.W. Bush administration the federal government ran surpluses. During the eight year Clinton presidency the federal deficit was increased less than any of the last six presidencies (much less that G.W. Bush and Barack Obama and so far also less than in the Trump administration). The Trump administration put through a federal income tax cut that Democrats falsely claimed benefited only the rich. With almost the same declared income and the same quarterly income tax payments as the previous year I received several thousand dollars more in a refund from the IRS. I am not in the high income tax bracket the Democrats call the rich. From the start of his presidency, and even before, Trump has been saying this country faces an illegal immigration crisis. Initially Democrats and the MSM downplayed and ridiculed that notion. Then President Obama even joined the chorus in the last days of his presidency. Trump made controlling illegal immigration one of the centerpieces of his presidency. He is doing the best he can about this, but has been and is being thwarted at every turn by the Democrats in congress and the like-minded MSM. The left wing apologists for illegal immigration insist on referring to those people as “undocumented immigrants.” “Undocumented” is a euphemism intended to imply that their situation is only a paperwork mix up without any real illegality involved. Never under estimate the degree the left will distort and evade the truth in order to advance their agenda. Now even the progressives on the left admit that a crisis exists on our southern border with people illegally entering or attempting to enter the USA. So they now call for “immigration reform.” Of course, they never define what that means and absolutely do not cooperate in any meaningful attempt to correct this major problem. Trump is the first president, Democrat or Republican, to publically express the view and attempt to get our internationally friendly countries to fund their share of expenses for NATO and the United Nations. For this the Democrats (and as always the MSM) claim Trump is making enemies of our friends. If that is what it takes, then good luck with that. Again, Trump is the first president to examine the equity of the trade agreements the USA has entered into in the past few decades. The trade imbalance favoring our partners is plain for all to see and Trump has been trying to correct it. What rationally minded and pro USA person could be against that? The answer is none so where does that leave the progressive Democrats? They criticize Trump for everything he does, including this so take your pick: Are they irrational, anti-USA or both? Those extreme critics both at home and abroad, should consider the USA treatment of our defeated enemy, Japan after WWII. In contrast to the way Germany was treated by France, Italy, and Great Britain after WWI, the USA acted magnanimously toward Japan after WWII. Not only did the USA allow Japan to keep their Emperor, but we also greatly assisted them in their post war economic and social recovery. From the start and continuing to this day we have allowed Japan to export more good and services to us than we import from them. While this could be justified initially the time has long since past when we should continue to allow it. And that brings us to China. What USA president has seriously addressed the long trade imbalance and theft of intellectual property by China from us before Trump? It is not only time, it is long past time this was addressed and Trump is doing it. Some Democrats have agreed this is a problem which needs to be corrected, but the progressives continue to excoriate Trump for confronting China and imposing tariffs on Chinese goods. The Chinese government has shown it will not change unless we take a hard line with them. Some Democrats in congress (e.g. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Eric Swalwell, Majie Hirono, and Ted Lieu among others); those campaigning for the Democrat presidential position (e.g. Bernie Sanders, Robert Francis (Beto) O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobachar); and many guest commentators especially on MSNBC and CNN have called President Trump a racist, a bigot, a White Supremacist and even worse. On the 5th anniversary on August 9, 2019 of the Ferguson, MO shooting of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson both Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren called it murder on television. The President Obama Justice Dept. did not indict officer Wilson, ruling the shooting was justified. How disgusting and dishonest it is for Harris and Warren to lie and stir up racial hatred. Trump may exhibit an obnoxious personality on occasion, too many occasions, but he is none of the above labels those dishonest and themselves obnoxious people have said. What they have called Trump is a calumny and should be legally actionable. Author Philip Wylie wrote a 1943 book titled Generation of Vipers. The real generation of vipers, some more venomous than others, are the people and so-called news organizations mentioned above. The country has changed in many ways in the past few decades. There have been negative changes, however there are many important positives changes also. For example the first US Supreme Court Jew on the court was Louis Brandeis, nominated in 1916 by Woodrow Wilson. Before the death of Antonin Scalia in 2016, all nine of the Supreme Court justices were either Catholics or Jews. When John F. Kennedy ran for the presidency in 1960 he felt it necessary to publically declare that he was independent of the Pope and his decisions for the country would not be influenced by the Vatican. When Ronald Reagan ran for the presidency in 1980 it was problematic for some people that he had been divorced once. Anyone who watches television must surely have noticed how many more black Americans there are in TV series, as commentators and guests on various programs, and in advertisements than in the past, even a decade ago. I have no problem with that despite what now appears to be a greater number than the black population as a whole. The number of blacks Americans is about 13% of the total population. In the census of 1860, just prior to the Civil War, the black population was close to 13%. No, what I have a problem with is the bogus claim by some liberals that blacks are still being discriminated against. Those progressives who say that the USA is not only racist, but xenophobic would have a difficult time explaining why Robert Francis O’Rourke uses the Hispanic nickname “Beto” to enhance his political career and Barack Obama stopped using the name he went by as a student “Barry” (his father Barack Obama, sr., was also called “Barry” while he was at Harvard University) and went back to “Barack” when he entered politics. And for that matter how do they explain a black American being elected and reelected president of the USA in 2008 and 2012? The progressive Democrats, including the “squad” headed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have said that this country has always been and is still racist. The late professor of English and author, Bergen Evans, wrote in his book The Natural History of Nonsense that in the 1930’s he picked up a hitchhiker who was friendly and above all talkative. Evans relates that he was at first amused then awestruck at the immensity of his ignorance. It was not that he was wrong about so much as that he was so colorfully wrong, so militantly wrong, so basely wrong, so confidently wrong. He seemed to Evans to be Rumor personified, the blind mouth of Demos babbling in darkness. This description fits AOC perfectly. In the short time she has been in congress she has added arrogance to ignorance – a woeful and egregious combination. AOC should have taken the advice of Mark Train: “It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.” I personally saw what real racism in the South was in the mid 1950’s (see my essay Mid 1950’S Adventures in the Crawfish State). The people who insist this is currently a racist country are either delusional or are liars. It was Eric Hoffer (see my essay Eric Hoffer) who wrote in the 1960’s that it is not when people are the most repressed and denied their rights that they complain and make the most trouble, it is when they are well underway to equitable treatment that they do so. At a campaign rally for the 1948 presidency a supporter of Harry Truman shouted out “Give them hell Harry!” Truman responded “I don’t give them hell, I tell the truth on them and it seems like hell.” This is my response to the partisan people on both the political left and right who think I have not been accurate and fair in this essay.