Presidential Memories: Part 2

1993 – 2000. William J. Clinton – Ages 34 to 41 – Liked.

The 1992 election was the first one I was really invested in. Clinton was young, personable, and eloquent, which was refreshing because I thought of everyone who previously served as an old guy. Clinton felt like more of a peer.

I thought he was brilliant and the emphasis on Whitewater and Paula Jones was a lazy excuse to distract voters from the reality of our economy.  He oozed enthusiasm, optimism and hope. I vividly remember watching the election returns that night and became more excited as it became obvious what the results were going to be. 

Economically speaking, these were good times. He converted what was then the largest deficit in American history to the largest (and last) surplus. His administration achieved a record 115 months of economic expansion and the lowest poverty rate in twenty years. The world was relatively peaceful. We experienced the highest rate of home ownership up until that time, the lowest level of government spending and the lowest unemployment in three decades. What was there not to like? 

On a personal level I had become a father, had moved out of state only to return four years later, and was successful professionally. Everyone was prepping for Y2K, and 12/31/99 was the last time I intentionally stayed up to watch the clock strike midnight (that didn’t involve a party) to see if the lights stayed on or if computer systems crashed. 

I liked Clinton a lot, and still do. He was one of the smartest Presidents of my lifetime, but his Slick Willie tendencies were silly and frequently hurt him (“I smoked marijuana but didn’t inhale”), and he tarnished his legacy because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Remember how outraged everyone was that such a scandal could occur? And in the Oval Office, of all places. This is another example of how quaint and outdated this seems now given what has transpired and continues to transpire.

2001 – 2008 George W. Bush –   Ages 42 to 49 – Disliked.

My focus during this period was raising a young son, and marveling at the changes I observed as he turned from 3 to 10. But I was never a Bush fan. I didn’t think he was a bad guy, but I thought the Clinton Administration had done well and Gore deserved a chance to serve. Bush didn’t have Clinton’s intellect or drive and was a clumsy public speaker who gave the impression he wasn’t comfortable in the spotlight. The 2000 election was the biggest election fiasco up to that time, (remember hanging chads?) and the Supreme Court ultimately decided who won the election. Gore to his credit ultimately bowed out to save the country from what would have been an ugly and prolonged fight. How times have changed. 

Bush’s demeanor and response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks made me reassess, but that was short-lived. I never bought the proposition that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was very skeptical of our involvement in Afghanistan because the Russians had been engaged in a 9-year war with them, accomplished nothing, and ultimately left. Why should we have expected different results?

Then came the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression where he stayed mostly in the background. I had refinanced my variable rate mortgage to a fixed one a few years prior, so I didn’t get hammered. But people were hurting, I was cringing as my retirement portfolio took a nosedive, and his administration appeared helpless regarding what to do about it. 

By the time 2008 rolled around, I couldn’t wait for him to leave, and thought he was the worst President of my lifetime. I was comforted by the idea that we would never have anyone as inept as him. Little did I know that the next Republican president would make him look like a Noble Laureate and make me long for a Republican like him.

2009 – 2016 Barack H. Obama II – Ages 50 to 57 – Liked

I was and still am a big Obama fan. He was young, vibrant, brilliant and the best orator we’d seen since Reagan. Even though I liked and respected John McCain, I thought Obama was what we country needed to get out of the economic quicksand we were in and felt as upbeat and hopeful as I had in a while. The fact that Sarah Palin was McCain’s running mate didn’t help his cause. The country needed hope and a reason to believe that better times were coming given the situation we were in, and he provided that in abundance.

Obama delivered. We did not plunge into the abyss of what pundits were calling the second great Depression of 2009. That by itself was a great accomplishment, one that he never received the credit it deserved. Let’s also not forget the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), which opened access to care for multitudes that were previously uninsured, got rid of the pre-existing condition card insurers often played to escape responsibility of paying a claim, and allowed parents like me to cover their children’s health insurance needs until the age of 26. We also rid the world of Bin Laden on his watch.

The grace and dignity in which he handled himself was unparalleled. His entire Presidency was challenged by disrespect (remember Joe Wilson, as assistant Republican whip in the House of Representatives, interrupting his State of the union address by calling him a “liar”?), the issue of his citizenship (the birther conspiracy), and other inane allegations designed to make him appear small, weak and ineffective. Yet he didn’t sink to the level of his enemies. I admire that. Integrity is something I hold in high regard, and he and his wife had it in abundance. 

He’s the only President I can think of that didn’t have to address a single scandal or major controversy during his administration (I don’t count the Benghazi uproar because that was directed against his Secretary of State). I It feels like that all occurred in a different lifetime, and I long for those days.

Donald J. Trump – 2017 – 2020 – Ages 58 to 61 – Despise (and fear).

Where do I start?

Before the campaign even began, the two names I didn’t want to see on the ballot were Bush and Clinton. Credentials aside, we had a collective twenty years where a Bush or Clinton was in the White House, and I was burned out on both. I believed the country was too. 

I thought Trump’s candidacy was a joke, and he had less than a snowball’s chance in hell to get elected. To me he was nothing more than an arrogant, uncouth, ignorant con-artist, blowhard and egomaniac who screwed anyone over who got in his way without a tinge of remorse or regret.  He was a legend in his own mind, and I believed the only reason he was running was to promote his brand and profit from it once the election was over. Unfortunately, he validated P.T. Barnum’s assertion that “there’s a sucker born every minute.”

This was not, and still is not, a Democrat/Republican thing. I’m fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which puts me square in the middle. But Integrity is very important, and while an argument can be made that Bill Clinton had character issues as a candidate, it was nothing compared to this guy. I could not and still can’t understand how people could be bamboozled by his schtick and not recognize him for who he was: a bully who was not only lazy but incapable of admitting he was ever wrong about anything. Including the 2020 insurrection which had his fingerprints all over it.

The 2016 election was the only time where an impending feeling of doom and shock hit me to the point where I was almost physically ill. It was also the one and only time in my life where I had difficulty sleeping on an election night. A few days later I started rationalizing that maybe it wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought. I mean, how bad could the guy be? Maybe he’d surprise me. Maybe he’d surround himself with people who knew how to get things done. Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt.  That pretty much ended when Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon-Mobil who served as his Secretary of State from 2017-2018, resigned his position and reportedly called Trump a “fucking moron” once he left. 

What are Trump’s gifts to the country? Propaganda and a bunch of lapdog sycophants whose intent is to make us doubt the integrity of institutions we rarely questioned. Fake news. A tribal band of politics. Cozying up to tyrants and dictators while dissing our NATO allies. Making racial comments acceptable. Unleashing the prejudice and extremism in this country. Juvenile name calling of political adversaries. Purposefully dividing the country. Never admitting any fault. Creating an toxic environment where anyone who didn’t think he was God’s gift to mankind was scum. I could go on and on.

The scary thing is that if it weren’t for the COVID pandemic and the way he handled it, he’d still be president today. And if anyone still doubted his true character, the election denial saga, the January 6^th insurrection, and the Congressional hearings that followed should have laid that issue to rest. The fact that a large swath of this country seems willing to ignore January 6^thand its aftermath is unfathomable, sickening and disturbing. 

Trump has no regard for anyone or anybody but himself. You want to argue that we didn’t know him prior to 2016, and we needed someone who was not a politician who could “drain the swamp”?  Well, the swamp didn’t get drained, and he approaches governing like a Mafia Mob-Boss. He’d rather be King because there isn’t any accountability, and I am more afraid of him getting elected now than I was in 2016. 

Simply stated, he would sell you and this country down the river without thought or remorse if it put money in his pockets or keeps him in power. I honestly believe the democracy we enjoy and the freedoms that come with it are at risk, that he would stack the deck as best he could to make sure we can never get rid of him, and punish anyone who opposed him.

Joseph R. Biden, Jr – 2021 – 2024 – Ages 62 – 65

One of the happiest days of my life was the day he was inaugurated. Do I think he’s done a good job so far? Yes. Do I think he’s perfect? No, but none of his predecessors were. Biden was and is an experienced, stable and wise politician who inherited a mess and pulled us out of the pandemic. You want to give Trump credit for developing the vaccine? Fine. But given how he handled the pandemic in general (remember the idea of injecting bleach and the cluster fuck surrounding hospitals obtaining necessary ventilators and other supplies?) do you really think he would have handled the vaccine rollout, or dealt with the competing disasters in the Ukraine and the Middle East as well as Biden? You’re on drugs if you do. 

2025 – ?

Prior to President Biden dropping out of the election, I had avoided watching anything related to politics, especially after the first debate. It was depressing because it was clear he lost the election that night. The apocalypse was approaching because we were going to be stuck with someone who has a hard time putting a coherent thought together, whose mental fitness was rapidly deteriorating before our eyes, and whose only motivation for getting elected was to keep his ass out of jail and make as much money as he could in the process. 

I would have liked to see a Nicky Haley, Chris Christie or even Liz Cheney be the Republican candidate because I think the focus would have been on issues and not the circus. That would have been intriguing and refreshing. 

If the lies about Haitians eating peoples’ pets in Ohio didn’t prove that he isn’t mentally fit to run for President, I don’t know what will. This lie has negatively impacted the lives of all Springfield residents, but he doesn’t care because he perceives it is politically advantageous to keep peddling it. Can you imagine if Hillary Clinton, Obama or any other democrat uttered those words? Or tried to overturn the 2020 election results. MAGA would be screaming for public executions.      

Biden’s age concerned me a lot, and it seemed to concern a lot of Americans. But that now applies to Trump, who is only a few years younger than Biden and has a family history of Alzheimer, yet his age and deteriorating mental acuity get seem to get discounted. 

The saddest thing of this entire affair has been the demise of the Republican Party as a moral, ethical and viable political alternative. Very few Republicans have had the cojones to stand up to Trump and his enablers, and those who have (Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and a host of others) get blackballed and run out of office.  The only way I see the party rebounding from the MAGA era is if Harris gets re-elected and the Republicans get annihilated in the Congressional and Senate races. Maybe common sense would prevail, the party would realize what an anchor he is, and they try to rebuild their honor. 

The divide and conquer mentality of what used to be the GOP has too many people convinced that the elections are rigged, and their voices are not being heard. Games are being played at the local level to suppress and/or certify the vote. So, unless Trump wins or the Harris margin of victory is so significant it can’t be debated, the events surrounding the aftermath of this year’s election, and perhaps even the election itself, will be comparable if not worse to January 6^th. 

Regardless of who the candidates are, I had always felt we were safe and secure as a country because I believed they had our best interests at heart and could manage the ever-changing and increasingly complex global economy and politics. That no longer applies and hasn’t since 2020. 

I recently saw a Mary Trump interview where she said that her uncle’s entire life has navigated a narrow band of emotions (grievance, rage and the fear of humiliation), and he has forced the rest of us to live in that world with him. Don’t know about you, but that sums up how I have felt since 2016.  Trump’s America is an all-consuming rabbit hole that is deep and dark, where there is little light or hope. It becomes deeper, darker, and harder to escape from the longer he is around. His schtick is like a once-popular television show that has gotten old, stale, is tough to watch, and needs to be cancelled. I’d like to think that the majority of the electorate is smart enough to see that. 

We’ll find out soon enough.