During the night, I thought about the presidents in office during my lifetime. As a little girl, I recall sitting by the family radio and listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who spoke eloquently of our ideals and values as our troops fought around the globe in World War II. Then there was scrappy Harry S Truman, who protected struggling labor unions and pressed legislation to advance better living conditions. Then Dwight D. Eisenhower, not eloquent but a hero, who ultimately sent federal troops to Little Rock to safeguard the black children integrating the schools. Then John F. Kennedy, whom I met a few times, a man who understood the power of language to lift our spirits. You can pick it up from that point. Even the much-vilified Richard Nixon opened relations with China, launched affirmative action, and created the Environmental Protection Agency.
All my life, until now, our nation has had presidents who understood the enormity of the position and reached for ideals greater than themselves.
Until now. Now we have a loathsome little man called 45 who stands for nothing more than self-aggrandizement. His political ideas, such as they are, are rank and low: disparaging our allies, excusing and encouraging racists and white nationalists, “America First” isolationism, selfishness as policy. He is utterly lacking in humility, curiosity, intellect, and compassion. He cannot inspire because he has no ideals. He is all ego. He still hopes to lock up his political opponent. His instincts are base.
A terrific article by John Harwood of CNBC about Trump and the Republican Party. They know he is not a Republican. He is not a conservative. He is a Trumpist. He believes in himself and only himself. The world revolves around him.
Will they denounce him? John McCain, Cory Gardner, and Orin Hatch made strong statements about the Nazis and terrorists in Charlottesville. Who will follow?
Trump is on track to destroy the Republican party, which used to have a core of principled conservatism. No longer. Now it exists solely to carry out the wishes of Trump and the Koch brothers, to smash healthcare, to lower corporate taxes, to remove any safety net. What do they stand for? In the age of Trump, nothing.
Will they find their soul? Or is it too late? Did they exchange it for power? With a bumbling, ignorant “leader” like Trump, the party has thus far been unable to turn their dominance into accomplishment. Given their Trumpian agenda, that’s a good thing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The GOP as a hole, and also a lot of DINOs, will keep him in office, no matter how disgusting, so long as he keeps Wall $treet fat and happy, and right now Wall $treet is relling in the dough and looking forward to turning our national and state parks into private cash cow Di$neyLand$.
reeling
You also typed “hole” rather than “whole.”
Or was that a Freudian slip?!
No, holey deliberate, but I did omit the hyphen from “a hole”.
Trump sees his enemies as anyone who does or says anything that he perceives as not supporting him 100% at all times. That mostly includes legislators, governors, or whatever public officials with a “D” or “Democratic Party” or whatever permutation of that next to their name.
However, that also includes some Republicans — i.e. the ones who voted against Trumpcare.
Based on last weekend’s one-two punch of …
1) Trump’s statement on Saturday (August 12) that “many sides” are at fault in regards to any violence in Charlottesville, or that “many sides” have a moral equivalency with each other — the neo-Nazi’s, KKK, etc. are on the same moral plane as the people protesting them;
2) Trump’s multi-million-dollar ad campaign attacking his enemies, released yesterday (Sunday, August 13) which is aimed at those mostly Democrats, and a few Republicans, but says nothing about the neo-Nazi’s, KKK, etc. that committed Saturday’s violence …
… Trump is implicitly claiming those neo-Nazi’s, KKK, etc. as his allies— allies that may have gotten a little carried away with violence, but heck, don’t be too hard on them, because don’t forget … “many sides” did this.
Read what David Duke, the neo-Nazi’s, KKK, the Daily Stormer are saying about that one-two punch. On-line, and in interviews, they’re saying that this shows that Trump’s our guy. Trump’s endorsing us! Trump’s got our backs!
When asked to repudiate them or their support of him, Trump refuses.
That’s dangerous.
Trump just gave and is giving the neo-Nazi’s, KKIK, David Duke his approval, and the Green Light to go ahead and to more violence and violent demonstrations, and do so with greater intensity, and greater frequency.
But Trump is not some kind of freakish anomaly. He’s the logical outcome of what we’ve had at least since Ronald “Greed is Good” Raygun. It really astounds me that it’s taken someone as odious as Trump for people to finally wake up and think maybe, just maybe, greed isn’t so good. I could have told you that back when everyone thought “trickle down economics” was such a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, I was 10 at the time.
The main difference between Trump and what’s gone before him is that those before were more polite and eloquent about it. Trump just lets it all hang out. I know I’ve said this many times before and I know most people on this blog disagree with me, but I think it’s good that we can finally see who we are. Now we can decide whether this is who we want to continue to be.
Thoroughly agree with your thoughts, Dienne!
Dienne,
AGREE!
I too am glad that “we can finally see who we are. DUMP is a big, fat reflection of this country ruled by GREEDY politicians and CORPs.
Dump is truly: Making America GRATE, not great.
We need to remember that: When the DNC went RIGHT, the DNC was doomed. BOTH parties dissed Public Schools and Public School Teachers, two of our national treasures.
The “common core” (yes little c’s) and testing industries have made this country stupid. So BLAME the NEO-LIBERALS, the OLIGARCHY, and the right wingers for this one.
Never cooperate with fascists bearing gifts of standards and testing. Don’t let your good name BE USED by them. We would be signing our own death as well as the death of our young and Our Constitution.
I don’t think many of us disagree with you on this . What some of us disagreed with you on was the desirability of having to deal with this vs having to do battle with the alternative.
As for trickle down who exactly was the everybody who thought it was the best thing since sliced bread . I was 30 at the time . What I never expected was 35 years later to hear the Business Rondtable advertising for more trickle down and my Democratic congressman buying it hook line and sinker. Actually I will take that back . It is not ignorance it is corruption.
Hey it’s nice that a few prominent Republicans make unequivocal statements about the nazis. Nonetheless, it was pretty clear what Trump was, and they all supported him and voted for him. Trump is the logical conclusion of their odious policies and that’s why he’s President.
It’s unfortunate for them that he states out loud what they dare only use code for. But they’re all as deep in that sewer as Orange Man.
I don’t believe today’s Republicans have any morals either. Who else would want a healthcare bill planned in secrecy that leaves 23 million with nothing just so they can claim they ended ACA and can give tax breaks to the wealthy? They stand for deregulation of the EPA because it costs too much to stop pollution by corporations. They want to deregulate corporate restrictions so that corporations can make more profits. They stand for “Right to Work’ for nothing that destroys unions and lowers workers salaries. They continuously fight to get rid of the Financial Consumer Protection Bureau that has saved many from corporate fraudulence.
When do they ever stand up for anything that would help anyone but the wealthy?
I”d like to think that the Repubs are against Trump for his total lack of morality and ethics. The GOP isn’t much better than tRump and unfortunately money from the wealthy and corporate lobbyists has also polluted too many Democrats. Democrats are all we have left.
While a few Republicans have spoken out against Trump, the vast majority have kept quiet trying to ride on his coattails all the way to populist crazy town. They have ignored the Russian connection and focused on trying to pass a bunch of legislation designed to slash social safety nets and enrich the 1%.
Given their Trumpian agenda, that’s a good thing.
Amen
He serves a purpose awakening a sleeping giant of resistance. But he is not the danger they are. Their agenda and willingness to tolerate him in order to pass their agenda are far more dangerous than him .Every appointment he has made , Every executive order he signed has his republican supporters foaming at the mouth . An EPA chief who will gut the EPA . An education secretary who will destroy not only Public Schools but our university system. A labor secretary who would have workers in chains , From the NLRB to the Supreme court men who will set workers rights and women’s back to the 19th century . A racist attorney general who will prosecute affirmative action rater than civil rights violations .
A legislative agenda to slash the saftey net , Send workers into a Dickensian world free of collective bargaining. Repeal the voting rights and civil rights act with legislation that renders the original acts toothless . All while rolling back the era of not only FDR but Teddy Roosevelt with elimination of the “Death Tax” slashing of the corporate and individual rates . , He is them and they are him. And I do not know who is worse.
Perhaps the few Republicans with integrity will stand up to not only him but their party.
Maybe when the Republican’s CONSTITUENTS begin to tell them that they equate the Republican Party with the Alt-Right, Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists, they will get the message and repudiate Trump even more. The Republicans need to know they won’t get away with a feckless response to “this guy.”
Diane,
Yes Trump is disgusting, but so are the elected officials in the legislature because it has taken THIS to occur for them to speak out, and at that, there are very few of them who did speak out. Shame on nearly all of them, Democrats and GOP!
I have always speculated that America is due for another revolution, and that it’s sprouts will show up in different ways. This latest version in VA is but an example and proof of this. The torches and pitchforks are here, and they come from different people and different motivations, but their paths all lead to the lack of redistribution of wealth.
Connect the dots, of not the paths.
Agreed .
Loosely the Brown shirts are a tool of the oligarchs . Used to divert attention from the economic reality . They may not directly fund or organize these groups . Yet they blow the dog whistles that bring out the pack.
Trump is different from the previous 44 because he is our first Russian president.
The Republicans (perhaps some of whom have likewise been compromised), in their greedy quest for money from their overlords, have no excuse for their reprehensible failure to act on behalf of their constituents.
#EndCitizensUnited
his ego is debilitated by the aging of his brain (shrinking hippocampus; blood flow to formal logic in frontal brain is reduced)…. His superego is malignant most likely from his parents or other ego ideals; and his “id” is compromised by conduct disordered, immature, and pre-adolescent.. behaviors that are impulsively erupting. No matter what the diagnosis of his component “self”. there is equifinality in what we observe in his behaviors. — he has to go…
..
I remember a “Republican party, which used to have a core of principled conservatism” from my childhood in the ’50’s/ ’60’s. Back then, the John Birchers were considered fringe extremists, & the alt-right bikers had to gather at a squirrelly out-of-town rural bar.
and, from my earlier background, Jacob Javits (spelling) was one of New England’s last “liberal” leaning republicans. He actually honored picket lines when a union was picketing. I believe the funding for gifted and talented programs (sadly always being cut) was named after hime.
Please, that party stopped existing in 68 ,with the election of Nixon . Actually Goldwater was a good start . On “conservative principals” he voted against making MLK day a national holiday On “conservative Principals “he voted against the civil rights acts . On “conservative principals” he objected to Brown vs The Board of Ed. Then of course we have Nixon and the Southern Strategy. Reagan and the Welfare Queen and now Trump . I can not remember the Bushes being particularly bigoted , except in policy or more correctly policy goals like W’s efforts in voter disenfranchisement or cutting the safteynety.
So how old were you in 60 when we said goodbye to Ike .
I was discussing with a friend yesterday who worked in criminal justice in the state department and our experience. with different governors. She said under Deval Patrick you did not even take a pencil home. I recall Commissioner of Ed Greg Anrig (who later went to ETS) saying to us “There will not even be the appearance of conflict”…. he would call heads /leaders around the state and notify them when there was a conflict of interest. Later, under Celluci, the state had some appointees and one of them was on the payroll and listed in the teacher pension fund at a town site near me and he never showed up for work there — he was working in the Boston government and they had found a convenient place to get him listed for a pension. (Di Masi went to jail for some similar junky stuff and conflicts with contrast and money– but there should have been more people in jail.). … What is human nature? and what shows up when we have leaders in power who have these traits and get tempted? It is very hard to keep one’s integrity in those positions for a decade or more. One further thing about Greg Anrig, he was the first leader in Boston that I heard say. “if there is not a woman nor a minority in the application pool then the position remains open” whereas with Romney he had the joke of the “binders full of women”… and that was a different attitude and leadership style.
my friend and I also discussed E. Warren — we believe she has kept her integrity through all this last 6 year period. …but I do believe she would maintain her integrity even in the worst of battles. That doesn’t mean she would always vote “my way”… I give her that freedom to make the judgement …
.this is A.J. Cronin’s book about medical profession and keeping one’s integrity. and it gives a picture of the context before the National Health Care system in U.K. https://reading19001950.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/the-citadel-by-a-j-cronin-1937/
I think the Republican Party began losing its “core of principled conservatism” and its soul when it embraced the political tactics of Lee Atwater, which were most evident in the Willie Horton ad campaign. I know some will go back further to Reagan’s candidacy announcement in Philadelphia, Mississippi, but I think most of us agree that there was some connection to Reagan’s type of conservatism to that of McKinley/Hanna.
In my view, the task was completed when Newt Gingrich took over the reigns of Republican leadership prior to the 1994 election. Since then the party has pretty much been about winning and punishing and marginalizing the opposition rather than governing. In retrospect, I believe the first indication that Gingrichism had infected more than House politics were the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. This would have been more evident to more in the nation had George W. Bush not had the political cover that September 11th provided him and the party. I would argue that the intellectual rot can be clearly placed at Gingrich’s feet. His agenda empowered the monied interests to go wild; it led to a Supreme Court that imposed the Citizen United decision to contaminate our system to the core. And without either and understanding or commitment to governing, only visceral tactics to exploit these trends, we are now where we are.
I can remember a time when I vehemently disagreed with a Jack Kemp, a pre-1995 Bob Dole, Bob Michel, or Mark Hatfield but still had great respect for them, personally and intellectually. I don’t think we have had anything like them in the 21st century. The mythologizing around John McCain is not even close. His rhetoric has never matched his legislative record.
Democrats bear much of the blame for not having developed a clear, consistent agenda or governing philosophy. But at least we can point to a number of individuals who are consistently principled. I’m still searching for them in what’s left of the modern Republican Party.
http://occasionalplanet.org/2010/11/04/once-upon-a-time-there-were-progressive-republicans/. I erroneously claimed Javits for New England… but you get the “gist”… New England used to have some liberal leaning republicans. I even crossed over parties (on at least one occasion) to offer support in MA … for a liberal/centrist/republican voting in the primary ( like one of my friends last fall who is a democrat voted for Kasich in order to try to have an influence in the primary; I wouldn’t do that because it is high risk ) .. We did have some really good Javits gifted and talented programs in the Title III/Title IV days but it seems much of that has been lost like the civic education program we had in MA that was determined to be an “earmark” and the programs lose their funding.
As I said , this strain goes back to Goldwater . And I too voted for Javits , By 80 he was an endangered species in the republican party .
Merck Pharma CEO Ken Frazier just resigned from the President’s Manufacturing Council to protests Trump’s actions last weekend (i.e. “many sides” are at fault, and are morally equivalent to each other)
And Trump went ballistic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2017/08/14/trump-fires-back-after-the-ceo-of-merck-resigned-from-his-manufacturing-council/?utm_term=.061126367fd4
While Trump has, to date, not tweeted one word against the KKK, neo-Nazi’s, David Duke, etc. responsible for last weekend’s racial violence … Trump has no problem attacking the Merck CEO for taking a stand against Trump on this issue. Trump even threw in a dig about how Merck charges “RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
TRUMP: “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”
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Here’s what Frazier said that prompted this attack:
WASHINGTON POST:
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“The chief executive of Merck said Monday in a tweet that he was resigning from President Trump’s American Manufacturing Council, saying he was doing so “as CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience” and that ‘America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal.’
“In the statement, Kenneth C. Frazier, one of the few African-American CEOs in the Fortune 500, said,
“ ‘I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism’ and touted the power of diversity.
“ ‘Our country’s strength stems from its diversity and the contributions made by men and women of different faiths, races, sexual orientations and political beliefs.’
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
That sounds pretty reasonable. right? Not to Trump. If you do or say anything opposing him, you are the enemy.
Is he bullying Ken Frazier of Merck because he is African American? Trump is very selective about his targets
I think we can all agree that it made it much easier for Dear Leader to do so. It was an instinctive reaction.
That pretty much says it all. Knowing #45 track record which is widely known unless you’ve been living under a rock for 50 years, there are a few examples of how he got elected. The election was hacked, putting killary in the demo position against him gave him the election, the people that voted for him are mental midgets, or the world powers that have an agenda wanted him in so the election really didn’t matter.
In my lifetime, I can trace back to JFK…but in thinking back to the foundations of our nation, I think that almost all of our presidents have had something of a legacy to stand on.
What does it mean to be “presidential”?
For one thing, it demonstrates a leader who includes and respects the voices of all, not just what is desired to be heard.
It means to be of sound mind and heart, one who leads by example rather than forcing opinion onto others.
It means trying to serve as a moral and ethical role model for all…Americans from eight to eighty should be able to call this person “my president”…whether or not they support the political views or not, but because this person has earned the trust and respect that should come with this office.
A president should be one who all can turn to as a guiding light, a beacon, a person of reason…that all can look to…
Unfortunately, we have witnessed the theft of our presidency, of our congress, of our courts, of our executors and legislators…as the 0.01% seek to turn the United States into their own personal fiefdoms. Arkansas the personal estate of Walton…Michigan that of DeVos…Washington that of Gates…
Shame on all of those who criticize our great leaders, those who have shaped the American experience. The presidents of the last 30 or so years have been complicit in this, both Republican and Democrat.
Window dressing as they lie to the American people…all the while stealing democracy from our citizens, with a smile on their faces. After all, they claim to be the forebearers of “civil rights”…a heinous and criminal claim.
How appropriate that Trump, the great “drainer of the swamps”, has done more to perpetuate everything that we shun as American citizens, our principles, and that what makes us who we are.
A beauty pageant is what we are living through…a beauty pagent of evil and ugliness.
When will our leaders develop their backbones that they campaigned on…and say enough is enough?
But for the time being, the horrific pageant continues.
This is a riot:
New Rule: What If Obama Said It? | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)
Real Time with Bill Maher
Published on Aug 4, 2017
Bill imagines how Republicans would react if Barack Obama exhibited the same crude behavior as Donald Trump – with a little help from Obama impersonator Reggie Brown.