Blue Wave Blunders
I have never registered for a political party in my life. I suspect what started as apathy has turned into resentment for the system at this point. I probably should try to help select the Democratic candidates (there is zero chance I would ever register Republican or even Libertarian). The truth is that I find most of the Democratic candidates (except perhaps Bill DeBlasio this time around) as somewhat acceptable and yet I have no strong preference. I like Elizabeth and Kamala and Pete. I think Bernie is too old, but I like his fire of righteousness. Joe is a fine man, but I tend to think we deserve better. The rest are OK, but I don’t know them yet. I have a deep abiding faith that the Democratic Party will nominate the most electable person and team them with one of the others to build a highly electable team. Some would tell me they screwed up last time and I should not be so sure of them. I personally think they chose well, but we all greatly misjudged the extent of the dislike for Hillary (not that Donald and his gang of indictable felons didn’t fan those flames into a bonfire of their own vanity).
I believe with all my soul that the world needs a blue wave very badly in 2020. I feel we need to return to a path that leads to a good an honorable place for America in hopes that we can continue to provide some moral leadership for the world as we have before. It turns out that I too want to make America great again, I just don’t want to have it done in the ways of the MAGA hat brigade.
Eugene Robinson wrote in his latest editorial for the Washington Post, why Trump needs to be impeached. It is such a powerful list that I need to repeat it here:
Obstruct a Justice Department investigation, perhaps? No, apparently that’s not enough. What about playing footsie with a hostile foreign power? Abusing his office to settle personal grievances? Using instruments of the state, including the justice system, to attack his perceived political opponents? Aligning the nation with murderous foreign dictators while forsaking democracy and human rights? Violating campaign-finance laws with disguised hush-money payments to alleged paramours? Giving aid and comfort to neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Defying requests and subpoenas from congressional committees charged with oversight? Refusing to protect our electoral system from malign foreign interference? Cruelly ripping young children away from their asylum-seeking parents? Lying constantly and shamelessly to the American people, to the point where not a single word he says, or writes can be believed?
That is a powerful list of reasons why this man is unfit for office. I doubt any Republican in Congress, if put on lie detector would say that not all of those are true. What they would say immediately after is that you must look at the big picture and look at all the good things he has done. They will talk of reigning in China (right thought, wrong actions), finally getting the courts properly aligned (gag, sputter!), fixing the tax system (big guffaw), and oh yeah, she’s better than Lying Hillary.
I just read an article about the Gallup Most Admired Man/Woman poll. Hillary, I learned, was the Most Admired Woman in the world (a poll taken among Americans however) for a total of twenty-two years. She was only unseated in that spot this year, being replaced by Michelle Obama. That put her side-by-side with Barack, who was polled as the Most Admired Man for the eleventh year. She was by his side for those other ten years, but it was Hillary who was most admired in all those other years. Hillary was by Bill Clinton’s side throughout his Presidency except for twice when she got bumped by Mother Theresa. She was most admired for the full duration of George W. Bush’s presidency except for his first year, when Laura Bush bumped her briefly.
Stop and think about that. Only one other president, Dwight Eisenhower, was Most Admired Man eleven times (longer than his term as President, but I shaved off his post-war hero twelfth election) like Barack. And Hillary has been Most Admired Woman for twice as long and never been president…and was only First Lady for six of those years. The rest she did on her own as a senator or Secretary of State. That my friends, is an accomplishment any way you look at it.
What also needs to be said is that Donald Trump has not topped the list yet during his presidency. The closest he came was in 2017 where he had 14% versus Barack’s 17%, a big spread of 21%. He is the only president since Gerald Ford to not make the list in the first few years of his presidency…or at any time. Gallup only did the poll starting in 1946. They suspended it in 1976 but have done it every other year. Republicans have generally fared worse than Democrats (especially if you discount Truman as falling prey to the post-war hero complex that tossed the vote to Eisenhower and MacArthur). Since Reagan, presidents have pretty much held this poll during the term of president, until Trump came along. That my friends, is noteworthy any way you look at it.
I think it’s fair to say that Trump leaves little for people to admire other than his scrappiness. He is neither admirable not particularly competent. All that leaves us now on the cusp of impeachment…or not. The self-flagellation going on among Democrats over whether to impeach the President or not is an amazing debate and the subject for high school civics classes and debate teams for years to come. What I think is going on here is a shame. The Democrats should be proud of their record. They should celebrate their accomplishments as recorded in the annals of the Gallup poll (both male and female). They need to stay the course of the high ground and stay focus on the admirable qualities that make them admiration-worthy. That includes standing up for what’s right, like impeachment, regardless of the political fallout. Right will win out in the long run. The Blue Wave can only blunder if it fails to stay on that high road.