Central to understanding the US Presidency is it means different things to different people. Indeed, we judge our Presidents on just such a basis. Reagan was atrocious on policy, frequently embarrassing himself by badly winging responses to questions it was clear to all he was inadequately briefed on,. His critics, then and now, will be glad to remember the pollution trees cause, or his first debate with Walter Mondale when delivering their assessment of his job performance. Yet and still, he could deliver critical remarks, meticulously prepared by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, as well as any…, er, good actor could. When it came to conveying the importance of a moment, whether it was beguiling national grief after the Challenger blew up, or crystallizing history’s growing momentum to obliterate Soviet tyranny, Reagan delivered at his pay grade.
Lyndon Johnson was terrible in front of a camera and on a podium. Stiff, stilted and dispassionate, LBJ did his cause few favors when he brought it into American living rooms. However, nobody could put the elbow on a Congressman or Senator better than the rangy Texan with an encyclopedic grasp of legislative details and whipping together the numbers necessary to get bills passed. It is no stretch to maintain only a President Johnson could have succeeded in delivering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which a number of incumbents were convinced to risk their previously secure livelihoods for.
Johnson would ultimately be driven from office by his Vietnam debacle, but the legitimacy of his tenure had already been secured. It is easy to condemn him for the Indochina quagmire which cost the US plenty, however a “but” always has to follow because of how he employed his particular skill set to right perhaps our most grievous wrong. The Great Society has stood the test of time and is a great Presidential achievement.
The point is, regardless of the strengths and weaknesses Presidents have exhibited, we digest them based on our preferences for what best serves the job, which we assume promotes the national interest. In other words, we accept the notion they devote their best and worst to fulfilling the requirements of office, not their personal aspirations. In fact, the job of President is regarded as such a pinnacle of our society’s professional food chain, occupants are expected to willingly forsake past associations and fortunes as a prerequisite to avoiding any conflicts of interest that could distract from serving the nation effectively.
To do otherwise would tarnish the legitimacy of their White House enterprise, a previously unthinkable prospect. After all, however good or bad you are doing your job, could there be anything worse than a majority at odds with the premise you even mean to carry out its core responsibilities? Of course, the Trump Presidency has laid waste to all of these suppositions, metastasizing into a condition without precedent.
Anyone not appreciative of the chasm between reality and Trump/MAGA gaslighting need only watch this weekend’s PGA Championship, the first relevant pro sports competition since the Coronavirus outbreak. No fans make for an initial jolt the CBS sports team recognizes is strong enough to have Jim Nance actually introducing final round coverage by musing about “why we watch sports.” If Tiger makes a birdie and nobody cheers, did he actually hole it?
It’s elbow knocks instead of handshakes, and post round interviews conducted from the mandatory six foot distance, probably measured to the inch. PSA messaging from the PGA rotates between its commitment to furthering racial progress and the tour’s gratitude to fans for weathering the Covid crisis and bearing with current circumstances. All of this as the President picks fights with reporters at his golf club’s 19th hole for the temerity of mentioning 160 K deaths to the jeers of members he has recruited for post-round media bashing. It’s likely Bunker Duffer will feel betrayed by the one organization he thought he could still count on, check the Twitter feed for those details. Regardless, the contrast is striking.
Many will tell you Trump refused from the start to embrace the duties we elected him to carry out. However, there is a huge slippery slope from rejecting duty to the job and warping it toward the sinister aim of securing one’s rabid perception of their continued viability. That descent is now complete. Our national survival depends on how unacceptable most of us believe that is.
Trump ran for President despite knowing it would unearth a lifetime of corrupt deceit. Why will be exhaustively explored until such endeavors earn a cold cell or worse, probable if Trumpism is not soundly rejected this November. Either way, we now suffer government that, by any reasonable assessment, is overtly corrupt; that is, it exists only to protect the boss from a reckoning for his malfeasant failures. The GOP platform is now Trump’s survival, nothing else. Whatever he tweets are its details.
Whether it’s grilling Sally Yates to admit Carter Page’s “persecution” vindicates Trump of every specific the Mueller Report details, or maintaining the issue of children returning to school is the fractional percentage that will suffer Covid’s worst symptoms, rather than spread it to their parents or grandparents who very well may, the GOP now conflates Trump’s interests with the public interest…. no exceptions. Whatever gibberish he produces will either be ignored or allowed to modify previous positions. National interest now equals Lindsey Graham’s servility to Trump’s impulses – another inexplicable post-2016 development that warrants extensive investigation.
Very few now hold that anything about this Administration is normal. Polling is clear only a pronounced minority supports anything Trump touches, but they are all in, with relentless Fox/AM propaganda making sure their eye stays on the ball, which is Trump or destruction… exactly as he sees things. The temptation for Biden and Democrats is to simply stay out of the way. Doing that is all wrong because it implies there is anything less than ever increasing peril to be had from allowing his worst. There isn’t.
Every week Covid death estimates increase as Trump shrugs “it is what it is,” his wretched core ever more militant about their right to spread misery. MAGA Governors of Covid petri dish states are forcing school openings while keeping masks optional. We are about to learn how a dismantled postal service will sabotage our electoral process, not to mention basic commerce. Meanwhile, Homeland Security is being deployed, in the words of its first head, Tom Ridge, as Trump’s “private militia.”
It’s not a ticking bomb, it’s a different detonation every day, each more damaging than the last, and all with zero pretense about what completely informs the agenda. It’s a presidency devoted only to the President, whose continued viability is the sole priority his servile party apparatus pursues, top to bottom. It’s now more like a stroke than a cancer. Trump/MAGA has become a dire trauma situation; we are running out of both time and options. BC