God Save the Presidency

I am curious about the notion that Donald Trump is a great President. I concede that during his Presidency there may have been some desirable outcomes in foreign policy and the economy but I don’t understand them well enough to be sure. The question is, even if America and the World have benefitted from his term in office, how do you reconcile Trump’s personal demeanour, rhetoric and arrogance? He is crass, biased and ignorant.  Fake News can’t put words in his mouth. Fake News doesn’t fabricate his dysfunctional personality. Call me old fashioned or superficial but I still rely on my instinctual response to people. If their words and behaviour repulse me I feel I am entitled to make judgments about their worth as human beings. Tweeting Trump has lowered the tone of American public life and tainted the Presidency with his absurd theatrics.

I don’t have a deep understanding of American politics but I suspect that some Presidents are simply token leaders representing the power groups who are actually running the country. My impressions of recent Presidential terms may be wildly inaccurate but they don’t give me a lot of faith in the strength of US democracy.

JFK was removed when he began to believe a President could oppose the power brokers and implement reform. His brother Bobby was prevented from even making the attempt. Ronald Reagan was a B grade actor employed to read the scripts that were written for him. George Bush Two was just there to serve the Masters of War unleashed by his father. Jimmy Carter tried to set his own agenda and was emasculated. Bill Clinton was allowed free reign with some of his reform agendas as long as he towed the foreign policy aggression line, which was at odds with his pacifist leaning background. Barack Obama was also allowed to implement social reforms but he did the Master’s bidding on foreign policy.

Trump has been allowed to embarrass the nation with his buffoonery and crass values because his business acumen was deemed essential in difficult economic times. He is presently attempting to subvert the democratic elections with innuendo and threat. There are no doubt powerful factions that will use every legal avenue to help him retain power. Is this the behaviour of a great man?

America now waits to see if the biggest popular vote in its history is honoured and the Electoral College gerrymander can be defeated. If that happens America’s hope lies with the elected Joe Biden paving the way for a future Kamala Harris administration.