Ronald Reagan "Real"

The “Real” Reagan

Ask any Republican who was the best President during the 20^th Century and they will likely evoke the name Ronald Reagan, without hesitation. In fact, many will have Reagan listed at the top of their list of the greatest US Presidents in history.

According to conservatives, Reagan created anywhere from sixteen million to twenty-five million jobs while in office. They also credit him with cutting taxes, cutting the budget and the national debt. On foreign affairs Reagan is seen as a hawk’s hawk, a president that didn’t back down from anyone and wasn’t afraid to use our military might to enforce our political views around the world. In fact, many of the current candidates for the Republican nomination cite Reagan as the role model that they aspire to.

The real Reagan is a bit more of a complex contradiction than the Republican’s fantasy version. First of all, it’s important to understand that presidents don’t actually create employment for anyone but themselves and their appointees, many of whom are already employed prior to their promotions. The recession of the late seventies and early eighties saw a lot of layoffs; when those workers were called back to work, they were seen as new jobs added. Contrasting that with today’s economy, rarely do we hear the term “layoff” anymore, today they are simply “cuts” and those employees wishing to return to work must apply as new employees rather than be called back to work. The president states his agenda, but it’s actually the Congress who initiate and pass legislation to help employment, its then up to the President to either sign those initiatives into law or veto them. The head of the Federal Reserve is arguably more instrumental to the success or failure of employment since it’s the Feds control of the money supply that enables business to borrow capital to expand operations and add employees. Reagan inherited one of the best.

Paul Volker was one of Jimmy Carter’s last appointees after he fired nearly his entire cabinet in late 1979. By that time, the country had sunk into “stagflation”, which was a term that was coined to describe an economy that is stagnant while suffering from high inflation at the same time. Interest rates were also rising causing businesses to lay off employees. This phenomenon was originally created by Richard Nixon in 1971 with his failed Wage and Price freeze. Nixon was trying to manipulate the economy to create the image of prosperity in preparation for his 1972 re-election. Volker recognized the problem, and, with Reagan’s blessing, he began raising the discount rate exponentially. Today it’s big news if the Fed raises that discount rate at all, back then Volker was raising it as much as a point a month. Eventually, he raised the discount rate so high that he choked off the money supply and forced massive layoffs as the economy ground to a halt. Eventually, interest rates and inflation began to recede, employers began borrowing money again and calling employees back to work. The Reagan miracle had begun.

On the issue of taxes, Reagan did cut taxes, most notably the tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, however he also signed five tax increases into law during his administrations. And the notion that Reagan was a fiscal conservative is totally biased. In fact, Reagan tripled the national debt during his eight years in office and added about 250,000 not military jobs to the federal payroll. Reagan often complained that our government had gotten too big and that the government was the problem, not the answer. In actuality, he grew the government while using it to improve the economy, both actions flew in the face of the vaunted Republican concept known as Supply-side Economics.

Although openly hawkish on foreign affairs, Reagan worked tirelessly to try to limit nuclear weapons proliferation. Near the end of his administration in 1987, he and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treat (INF), which eliminated intermediate-range nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles. Like Eisenhower and Kennedy before him, Reagan seemed to feel the weight of his own authority and the repercussions of his decisions in regards to a potential nuclear conflict. Republicans can learn a lot from the actions of these Presidents on this matter and tone-down their inflammatory statements and comments.

In the end, Reagan was not all that he seemed, sometimes he was more, but more often he was not. He was simply a man for his time who cared about his country and did what he thought was right. It’s a shame that our conservatives today spew such venomous ideals and invoke Reagan’s name while doing so. Reagan and his legacy deserve much better.

Donald Trump Arrogance

Teflon Don

Donald Trump is his own raison d'tetre. We all should be, but he, more than the rest of us, appears to be enamored with his own image. Like Narcissus in Greek mythology, Trump seems to have fallen hopelessly in love with himself, his image, his name and anything associated with it.

Photo - Gage Skidmore

To this end, pity the poor fool that dares to offend Trump or attack him, his response is swift and visceral. Comments like:  “loser, stiff, idiot, waste of time, stupid, clown…” the list goes on and on, are slapped on the unfortunate target of his tongue. Occasionally he goes a step too far. When Trump commented that Senator John McCain wasn’t a war hero, fellow Republicans, Texas Governor Rick Perry and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, called Trump out and denounced his antics. Trump’s responses were quick and cruel, he implied that Perry wears glassed to appear intelligent…and then reassured his audience that he wasn’t, and called Graham a “nothing” and then gave out Graham’s personal cell phone number.

The ultimate fault was not Trump’s, it was Graham and Perry’s. Both have, in the past, solicited favors and campaign contributions from Trump. In 2012, Republican candidates journeyed to see Trump as he sat in his New York offices and received visitors like Don Corleone in a scene out of The Godfather. Although Trump doesn’t seem to possess a great deal of influence outside of his business dealings, what he does possess is a lot of money. Cash is a politician’s drug of choice and Trump is a dealer. Though estimates vary greatly as to how much he is actually worth, since most of the immediate threats to the Republican nomination are career politicians, suffice it to say that he dwarfs any or all of his rival’s wealth.  And there, as Shakespeare said, “lies the rub.” 

Those who made the sojourn to Trump’s castle are now finding out that just like a mafia godfather, all favors granted have paybacks, and the payback is that Trump can now use those visits as proof of his superiority to his rivals. The image is undeniably one of subservience. His rivals will pay more for asking for the money than they ever gained by getting it.

Trumps fellow Republican candidates also seem to fear his verbal reprisals. Trump has become copy for the news media in the same way the Joe McCarthy had in the early fifties. Although most of what he says is insulting and, at times, vulgar, the media can’t get enough of him. When Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio attack Trump, it’s the Trump response that get the fat headlines. Consequently, he’s spent the least amount of money on advertising of any of the Republicans. 

Ultimately, Trump is a bully who uses his perceived wealth, the same way a schoolyard bully uses his reputation and physicality to intimidate anyone that offends him. Senator McCain it seems, got off easy. Trump publicly disparaged fellow candidate Carly Fiorina for being too unattractive to be elected, implied that the reason Fox News personality Meagan Kelly asked tough questions is that she was having her menstrual cycle and described Hispanic immigrants as rapists and murders. In spite of these insults, Trump touts himself as the best person on women’s and veterans affairs, foreign policy and immigration. Looking at life from his point of view, perhaps he’s right. He’s been married three times with two of his wives being from Eastern Europe. He’s also been accused of employing illegal immigrants and he requested and received four military deferments while attending college during the Vietnam War. Upon graduating in 1968 at the age of 22, although having been a stud first baseman and captain of the baseball team, he was classified medically ineligible for military service for an undisclosed issue, so he might just be the best authority on staying out of future military conflicts.

The constituents backing Trump for President are no different than the lackeys that hung around with the bully in school egging him on to beat up every wimp in the schoolyard and will no-doubt abandon him when someone stands up to him and puts him in his place. Then it will become obvious to everyone - that Trump is a buffoon. Until then, it matters little to “The Donald”, he’ll keep spewing his insults and gazing into his own reflection while falling deeper and more passionately in love with what he sees.

Mike Huckabee Conflict

Mike Huckabee is a conflicted man.

Huckabee, who is one of the ubiquitous Republican candidates for president and an ordained minister, seems to have both a religious agenda and a political one for wanting to lead the nation. In many ways, Huckabee’s a typical Republican when it comes to domestic issues. However his primary concerns in regards to foreign policy center around the welfare of Israel. Huckabee’s recent comments where he implied that by trusting the Iranians, President Obama would essentially lead the Israeli people to another Holocaust, demonstrates exactly why he is unfit to lead this country. He doesn’t seem to understand that the role of President is to do what is best for the American people, not to use the American people to do what is best for the people of Israel. In this respect, Huckabee and his fellow Christians seem to be hopelessly lost in the Old Testament.

Photo - Gage Skidmore

Perhaps no president in our history had a better grasp or understanding of the will of God than Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln often tempered his comments and writing with biblical quotations. However, Lincoln’s belief in God, which guided him in many of his most difficult decisions, seemed to be a very personal one, not one he attempted to enforce upon the country. His primary focus was on using his faith in God to lead the republic, rather than using his office to lead the republic to a faith in God.

The issue of the presidency and religion has evolved dramatically over the years. In the presidential elections of 1960, conservative Christians of Huckabee’s ilk, led by the late Reverend Norman Vincent Peal, were terrified that a Catholic president would allow the Vatican to annex the White House. That fear was completely irrational and unfounded. Although Democratic candidate John Kennedy was a practicing Catholic, he was not openly demonstrative or vocal about his faith. As president, like Lincoln, he relied on his faith to temper his actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy understood the risks to humanity of armed aggression with Soviet-backed Cuba and felt the weight of the consequences of his decisions. Although his military advisers, Congress, and most of his administration favored an invasion of Cuba, Kennedy knew that such an action would very well lead to a nuclear confrontation with the Soviets. His desire to negotiate allowed Khrushchev the opportunity to back down while saving face.

Today’s Republican candidates have no such concerns. Listening to comments about bombing countries back to the stone-age and taking out regimes, demonstrates a lack of understanding of the complexity of these decisions and the end results of their actions. We must never forget that we killed and vaporized more than a quarter of a million Japanese people, most of them innocent citizens when we dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a horrific example of how powerful and destructive nuclear weapons are. At that time, we were the only country on the earth that possessed that capability. Today, we cannot be sure exactly who is nuclear armed or more importantly, who is controlling those arsenals. A wrong decision by our commander in chief could set off a nuclear chain reaction that would have catastrophic consequences.

With public comments by Huckabee and others that they are going to take back the country for Christ, today the Christian Right that seems committed to obliterating the Constitutional mandate of separation of Church and state. The question is, does Huckabee want to lead the country or lead the country to Jesus? Anyone aspiring to the office of President who doesn’t have the complete and best interest of the American people as his or her primary concern, should not ascend to that office. Huckabee’s public concern for the welfare of Israel seems to be heavily rooted in his Christian faith which, I believe, ultimately obscures his ability to look at the situation with Iran objectively. In this respect, Huckabee is conflicted because his religious beliefs are in diametric opposition to his desire to be a political leader. The Bible warns that “a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James, 1:8 NIV). Another verse says that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Matthew 12:25 NKJV). Having a political leader who is also a religious leader is precisely why Iran is in the position that they are in now, and why we are faced with the difficult dilemma of how to deal with them.

Ultimately, the global roll of the United States should be that of a fair-minded moderator who only uses its military might as a last resort. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq has had dire consequences as it destabilized the entire region that was held in check by a paper-tiger dictator. By deposing Saddam Hussein, we opened the flood gates allowing insurgents with all kinds of agendas to rise up and threaten not only the region, but the entire world.

If Mike Huckabee really wants to help this country, he should withdraw himself from consideration for public office, and use his considerable speaking skills and voice to help modulate public policy, as the Reverend Martin Luther King did fifty years ago. His continuing comments disparaging the performance and character of President Obama, only serves to lessen the impact of anything meaningful that he can add to the discussion. His constant criticisms of our foreign policy also tend to fly in the face of the teaching of Jesus who refrained from interjecting himself into political activities while admonishing us to respect our leaders and pay our taxes.

Christ’s most powerful messages were ones where he told us what we needed to hear instead of what we wanted to hear. It’s time for Reverend Huckabee to realize that he should return to the pulpit and do the same. Constantly telling the conservative Right what they want to hear, only serves to divide this country against its leadership and ultimately undermines its authority.