WHAT FORMER US PRESIDENT CAN WE COMPARE DONALD J. TRUMP TO?

…The 36^th US President, Lyndon Baines Johnson

 

 

Rep. John Lewis is one of the last of the great civil rights-era heroes.

 

I find it interesting that some very capable opinion writers have properly compared our new president to the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson.  No, they did not compare the new White House occupant to the president that championed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Economic Opportunity Act, the Attack on Poverty or the Job Corp, or the Elementary Education Act or the National Endowment for the Arts, or the Omnibus Housing Act or the Consumer Products Safety Act.  No, the comparison was of none of these LBJ acts that formed what became known as the foundation for his very successful “Great Society”.

 

Instead, it was a comparison to some other jarring similarities between Donald J. Trump and LBJ.

 

The reality is that both of these very fleshy large men were given to vulgarities and disgusting behavior, both offered a boastful demeanor, and they both had a very thin-skin.  Both men were politically amoral, both vengeful, totally unforgiving and, most important, because of how they both came to office, both are considered potentially illegitimate presidents. For Johnson, all of that realization took some time to sink in.  But for Trump, all of that has been part of his make-up since puberty.  And it came to us as our new president on day one.

 

Even though LBJ later won an election in a landslide over Barry Goldwater, that air of illegitimacy clung to him like another skin.   That illegitimate idea became even stronger as the nation came to oppose the war in Vietnam.  As we continued to send our young men to die in a foreign land for questionable reasons, it eventually forced Johnson to decide to not run for re-election. 

 

Today, even though the list of Trump’s alleged shenanigans in Russia are unverified and are possibly all untrue, based on Trump’s past activities, as revolting as many of the accusations are, the currency of those acts could easily be explained by Trump’s past behavior

 

Trump called the report of his Russian trip antics “fake news” and, as always, he blamed the media, the intelligence community, et all, but seriously he ought to have looked in the mirror and at least wondered why he looks so disgusting to so many people.

 

The Georgia Democrat and Civil Rights icon, Rep. John Lewis said the other day that he thought Trump’s presidency was illegitimate and he would not, as an invited member of Congress, attend the inauguration. Trump, of course, immediately grabbed his phone and tweeted an ugly response. Just as he did when he disgraced John McCain’s military heroism under torture, Trump tweeted that Lewis was “all talk” and “no action” and should take care of his "poor district in Atlanta".  (A district that is anything but poor and is in fine shape.)

(Yes, Trump seems to think that all districts with Black populations are in poor areas and are in terrible shape.)

 

Lewis is one of the last of the great civil rights-era heroes. He marched and he protested. Lewis came close to death when his head was bashed in at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. It was 1965 and the Alabama State Police nearly beat him to death.  Lewis is a man of immense courage and morality.  It is disgusting that a person like Trump should criticize hero’s such as McCain and Lewis. 

 

No, I am not arguing the election.  Hillary won the popular vote and Trump won in the electoral college, and that is all that matters.

 

But Rep. Lewis is correct that Trump should be looked at as being an illegitimate president.  During the campaign, Trump continually lied so much that the Fact Checkers had a hard time keeping up.  One organization has said that when Trump spoke at his rallies, he told untruths every 71/2  seconds.

 

Trump conducted a dirty, dishonest campaign that sullied the very presidency he won. He questioned Barack Obama’s legitimacy, trafficked in racism and demagoguery.  Still, he’ll be the next US president.

 

The president-elect will take the oath having won a minority of the popular vote.  A deficit of almost 3 million votes should say something to him, but he instead had to lie once more saying that he "lost the popular vote because of millions of illegal voters".  Just one more total falsehood.

 

Trump also enters the Oval Office with historical record negative poll numbers, lower now than right after he won the election. He has done nothing to woo the majority of Americans who rejected his candidacy and has, instead, adhered to his juvenile bullying habit of tweeting his every grievance.  He denigrates his every critic, and makes cameo visits with vaccine and global-warming doubters.  As one publication wrote, Trump is a  “Gong Show” with no gong in sight.

 

Where there is no comparison, is that LBJ was a highly capable politician.  His list of accomplishments as I stated above have entitled him to the greatness as president that he deserves.  After the war in Vietnam started bringing him down, he also went through his own period of lying and other perversion. This is where Trump is standing now.

 

Today, Trump will officially be POTUS, President of the United States.

 

I am having a problem in separating my loathing of Trump and my love of this great country.  I do not believe that time will do anything to change my feelings about this new president.

 

When the head person that is responsible for the operations of this great nation has a history of lying through his teeth at the drop of a hat, that is a hard issue to properly reconcile.

 

I’m still going with the idea that Trump will not have the ability to deal with the presidency when things finally start to go wrong.  And they always do at some point.  For someone that has lied himself into the job, this will happen unless Trump makes some major changes.  Most of us don’t think he is capable of doing that, as things do eventually go south.

 

As with LBJ, Trump will eventually be chased from the office. 

 

And the ancient Greeks knew why someone like Trump would eventually fail: According to them, “A man’s character is his fate.” If that is the case here, Donald Trump’s presidency is seriously doomed.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017