By David Glenn Cox
I am haunted by the ghosts of 1968. When Democrats had decided to have a knife fight over the nomination after the death of Robert Kennedy. Dividing the Party up and giving the White House to “If the President does it, it isn’t a crime,” Richard Nixon. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Nixon’s character due to a generational handicap. Think Ted Cruz only more intelligent but equally dislikeable. Nixon had a dislikable streak a mile wide and yet he still got elected. He got elected President by Democrats as much or more than by Republicans.
But we had our ideological arguments which needed to be settled. We were going to end the Vietnam War by first getting our Party thrown out of the White House. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Nixon and the Republican Party just like today, made silly claims they had no intentions of following through on. Nixon had a plan to end the Vietnam War too! But it was a secret plan. The only way to find out what was in Nixon’s secret plan was to vote for Nixon.
Then surprise! The Nixon plan to end the Vietnam War was actually a plan to expand the Vietnam War. There is a Trump advertisement which plays ad nausea on the TV. Claiming immigrants mean less money for police and schools. That part always makes me laugh because Republicans would rather burn the money in a coal stove before they’d spend it on schools. (religious monuments exempted)
If the Democrats do as the Republicans wish and hound Joe Biden into stepping down. Whoever is chosen to supplant the President will first have to deal with the wreckage of the Democratic Party. The stalwarts vs. the insurgents and chances are, somebody is going to be very unhappy about the results and maybe everyone will be very unhappy. You don’t mind if we crush your career, do you? But we need someone young and vital as our candidate and standard bearer to lead at least half of the Democratic Party into November.
Democratic panic becomes Republican fodder. Is Joe Biden too old? Is Joe Biden too old x 10,000? Fox News asks? The Democratic Party could take a vow of silence and the Republicans will carry this issue on into November. So, the Democrats speaking publicly on the issue are drilling holes in the bottom of our boat. Claiming they just want to let the water out.
Abe Lincoln had migraine headaches and treated himself with opium powder. Maybe we should go with General McClellan. Woodrow Wilson couldn’t hit a curveball. Wilson had a secret plan to end WW1 by sending a million troops to Europe. (He kept us out of war) Nixon liked his drink and would wander the halls of the White House sometimes in his boxer shorts talking things over with the pictures on the wall. Only after hours of course. I wanna be clear, he never startled a Girl Scout troop’s White House tour.
The President decides as Harry Truman once said, “I’m not the smartest guy in the room, but I know who is.” The President makes decisions based on experience, it’s not American Ninja’s. Franklin Roosevelt did the job from a wheelchair. But if his mind is going?
You know, Donald Trump is only three years younger than Joe Biden and starts intellectually from a much lower baseline. Do you hear any Republicans talking about Donald Trump’s age? HELL NO! It is verboten to speak of the King or of his new wardrobe. The Republicans don’t give a shit if Trump picks his nose, plays with himself and asks, “are you, my Mommy?”
This is about raw power and Republicans and don’t care if Donald Trump is a vegetable on life support. Should we cut taxes for corporations and the rich? His finger twitched! That means yes! Trump is no intellectual fountainhead, and the sharpies on the inside will use Trump up like a Bic lighter. Just sign here sir. This is that bill you proposed sir. Renaming Tuesdays as Trump Day!
Imagine you are a hedge fund manager and they just put a crazy man in charge of the US government. Using your education and experience what would you suppose would happen to the economy under such conditions? Cut taxes and drastically cut spending, what could possibly go wrong? I remember when Arnold was Governor, and California was in a recession. Sacramento was outperforming the entire state and then Arnold got the bright idea to save money by laying off state employees. In less than a year, Sacramento wasn’t out performing anybody anymore. Your tax dollars at work!
Now imagine you are a foreign hedge fund manager who invests in economies around the world. What does a second Trump Presidency mean to you? It means, time to go. Time to invest elsewhere. Maybe NATO will cease to exist or will exist without the United States. Would that be good for overseas investments?
The lure of Fascism like a child watching brownies in the oven. Dreaming about which brownies will be theirs to eat without thinking about where the brownies actually come from. Mine! Mine! Mine! It’s gonna be great! We’ll cut taxes and radically cut spending and the economy will just soar! Our former allies might hate us, but will they still buy our Treasury bills? Odds are…no. But I read about a doctor once who was sent to a concentration camp for using non-German pharmaceuticals. That’s how Fascists motivates sales!
“Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.”– Franklin Delano Roosevelt