Memories of the 28th Century

I have been following U.S. politics for a while, and the presidents have all had some peculiarities. The best that I can remember myself was Eisenhower, who didn't seem to do any more than necessary; apparently he read and understood the Constitution. JFK was big on appearances; he talked things up, but he didn't get very done before a bullet stopped him. Johnson actually got a lot done; although some people would have preferred that he did less. I find it interesting that he is sometimes given credit for implementing JFK's programs, even though the legislation involved was almost all written by Hubert Humphrey. Even though he lifted beagles by their ears and did a few other strange things Johnson was almost as good as Eisenhower. Nixon was strange; he may have wanted to be king, but he was so dull that he never took that idea very far. If he had been a better liar, then he might have gotten some more done, but no one believed that he was helping anyone, so the negative income tax failed, and Viet Nam was worse at the end than it could have been. Then there Gerry Ford, and he was a nice guy who pardoned Nixon, and the American people didn't pardon him for that. If not for that mistake he would have gone down in history as a fair president. And that was the fate of Jimmy Carter. Carter didn't figure it out until after he left office, so he is generally considered a failure as president but an excellent ex-president.

Then there was poor Ronny Reagan. I think it was reasonably clear that he wasn't all there for a long time. Even back in the 1950's he wasn't daft, but he seemed to be missing something, and playing opposite that chimp didn't help. But H. W. Bush was quite a contrast. He wasn't Eisenhower, but he was effective and alert. He just wasn't very popular. And that led to Clinton, who had some nice sounding ideas, but he wasn't very good at getting things done in Washington, and I suppose that gave him time for his friends, so he committed some misdemeanors and got caught. Then we got stuck with G. W. Bush. I guess that voters were hoping that he'd be as good as or better than his daddy, but he wasn't, and we are still suffering from his mistakes. Obama seemed to want to do more than he could, and the courts were nice enough to forbid that, but he is gone, and we have someone in that office who doesn't seem to understand written English and who has no respect for the rule of law. He would have made a decent robber baron a few hundred years ago, but that isn't how it works in the U.S.A.
It has only been a bit more than a month, but he has already tried to overthrow the rule of law, and he has made it clear that he does not understand the U.S. Constitution, separation of powers and how laws are made. It isn't clear, yet, but it appears that he is dealing in ways that will result in profit for him, and that is illegal. Some of the people he has brought in as advisors appear to have ethical problems. That reminds me of Warren G. Harding, who brought in people who stole a major oil field (Teapot Dome), and several were convicted. Somehow Harding avoided it, but he died before the end of his first term; apparently he was poisoned. That was good, because Calvin Coolidge then became president, and he was one of the best since the founding fathers.

For a combination of criminality and incompetence we have to look back almost a hundred years to find a president who is on the same level as Trump. Trump probably would take pride in that, until someone clued him in. I think that Trump’s flouting of the Constitution is worse, more serious than Nixon’s activity during the 1968 election campaign. At least Nixon was brave enough to hire some American thugs to break into the Democratic Party Headquarters; Trump let his pals from Moscow handle the dirty work. After we put a hundred years between Trump and our thoughts, he might come to be thought as a nonentity, which is pretty much what he is.


I realize that many people have no faith in the American government, but I still have faith. I believe that Mr. Trump will get what he deserves, and I don't think it will take even a whole year.