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WANTED: A PRESIDENT
WITH DIGNITY |
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In January, the week of the inauguration of Donald Trump as
President, I wrote a serious column titled "Time for Other Voices to
be Heard." I took a lot of heat from some readers, and I promised to
revisit the issue sometime in the future.
I still feel the same way. We went from Truman to Eisenhower
to Kennedy, from Johnson to Nixon, from Carter to Reagan, from Bush to
Clinton to Bush and then to Obama. Liberal to conservative to liberal,
again and again. It's a pattern that has gone on for generations. And in
2016, it happened again.
People vote for change. So in an attempt to soften the blow
of what many, including me, considered a disastrous election, I wrote that
the divisions would have only got worse if Clinton had been elected. Let
the other voices, which had been stifled for 8 years, be heard. And then
see what happens in 2018 and 2020.
It's been six months, and I have only one caveat to what I
wrote:
Just not his voice. Just not this man.
This isn't a column about politics. This is a column about
bringing dignity back to the office of the President of the United States
of America.
Donald Trump is a national and international embarrassment.
He is a crude, narcissistic egomaniac who has no qualifications or
credentials to lead a country. He went to Washington to drain the swamp,
and found himself at the bottom.
He is mean-spirited. He has no respect for the truth. His
only interest is to win, and anyone who stands in his way is swept aside
unmercifully. He is, in my opinion, unfit to lead our country.
Sooner or later, whether it's the Russian investigation or
something else, there will be calls for impeachment. This is where, in an
ironic twist of fate, Donald Trump can bring the vast majority of
Americans together.
His approval rating is hovering around the mid-thirties,
about the same as Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate crisis just
before he resigned. At the end, there were few Americans defending Nixon.
And when he resigned in disgrace, the dignity of the White House was
restored when Gerald Ford was sworn in as his successor.
I'm no fan of Mike Pence. He may be more conservative than
Trump. He's an evangelical Christian who questions evolution, eschews gun
control of any kind, tramples LGBT rights, is skeptical of climate change
and seems to have little compassion for anyone that doesn't live in his
world.
There is one big difference, though, between Mike Pence and
Donald Trump---Pence has a sense of dignity. He treats people with
respect. Like Gerald Ford, he would bring stateliness and nobility back to
the White House.
That's something all Americans, regardless of their political
persuasion, should root for. If you're conservative, not much changes on
the policy front. You won the election, you get your voice. But it's a
voice that is not an embarrassment.
If you're liberal, not much changes on the policy front.
Protests continue, but it's a protest of only policy, not personality.
Rely on the more moderate members of Congress to keep the President in
check, and then work to turn the tables in 2018 and 2020.
Donald Trump needs to go. He continues to make a mockery of
the most prestigious office in the world. I still shudder when I hear the
words, "President Trump." The man is intellectually challenged,
with the vocabulary of a 12 year old. He alienates everyone and
everything. He is the antithesis of what a leader should be.
We need dignity back in the Oval Office. We've been through
this before, with Nixon and then with Bill Clinton and his sexual
escapades, and we've survived. Nixon resigned, Clinton was impeached by
the House, and now it's Trump's turn.
The time is not yet right, because being an oaf is not
grounds for impeachment, but no one will be surprised when the time comes.
He will do something, or say something, that will be his final nail in his
coffin. Decent Americans, whether they're liberal or conservative, will
say that's enough.
Enough of us will come together, including enough House
members and Senators, to show him the door. He can go back to building
golf courses, staging Miss Universe pageants and berating people on
television reality shows, where he belongs.
I'll say it one more time. It's not about politics. It's
about dignity.
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