In the Shadow of Tricky Dick

In just eighteen months and six days, Donald J. Trump has managed to alienate our allies in a way that nobody could have imagined when he came into office on January 20, 2017. The extreme damage he has managed to do since then was not unexpected by anyone who has paid attention for three-and-a-half decades. We saw this coming. The comparisons have inevitably been made to Dick Nixon, which I believe to be completely unfair - to Nixon. True, it's easy to describe both men as inherently corrupt and evil, but the Donald is truly in a class all to himself. And besides, while King Richard might have been a shade out-of-sorts in the psychology department, no one ever accused him of being bat-shit-crazy. Trump is another matter all together.

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The comparisons began anew when it was revealed the other day that Trump, like Nixon before him, has his very own enemies list. The moment I heard about this I immediately hightailed it over to Twitter:

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@RealDonaldTrump:

"Hi! Would you place me on your enemies list please?"

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Dick Gregory

I then proceeded to post a link to the site you are reading to let him know that I was being completely sincere. Sadly, there was no response and I am, as yet, not on the list. But what a publicity bonanza that would be, huh? I was reminded this morning of the late Dick Gregory's reaction when he was told that he had made Nixon's list:

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"Tell him I accept before he changes his mind."

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Good old Greg! The man was always quotable. He knew damned well that being publicly listed as an "enemy" of someone like Nixon would only enhance his status with the counterculture, and he was absolutely correct. In the months after the president made the list public, the demand for Dick's appearance at college campuses all around the nation went up a notch-or-two. Whom among us wouldn't have loved to be on to be on Nixon's shit list?

Seeing enemies everywhere is a sure sign of clinical paranoia, and though it is true that both men did indeed have political enemies everywhere, none of them were threats to the president or the presidency, which only proves beyond a doubt that both men were (or in Trump's case "is") psychologically unfit to hold the job.

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Another difference between the Trickster and der Donald was that Nixon - for all his many faults (and Heaven know he had too many to count) was an intelligent man. In fact, I'll go out on a limb here and proclaim that, with the exception of Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Kennedy, Nixon was one of the smartest men to ever occupy the White House. This just cannot be said about Donald Trump. With the possible exception of Andrew Johnson, Trump is - far and away - the dumbest guy ever to hold that office. He's not a "stable genius" - as he has cheerfully told us twice now. He's a moron and he's out of his mind. This is going to end badly....but I repeat myself.

And yet for all his personal failings, Dick Nixon understood a few, basic realities that (with the exception of Gerry Ford) all of his Republican successors have never quite been able to figure out. Nixon was pretty much an Eisenhower Republican. As Dwight Eisenhower's VP, he was loyal to and respectful of the president's agenda. Although each man was uncomfortable in the presence of the other (It is said that Ike in particular didn't much care for Nixon personally) they saw the world through the same lens. President Eisenhower's views on American social engineering can best be summed up in a letter he wrote to his brother, Edgar, on the eve of the 1952 election:

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." 

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Ike cannot be accused of political pandering here. This was a private letter that was not made public until decades after his death. Here are the key words which we really need to pay attention to: "....you would not hear of that party again in our political history." Eisenhower understood - as did Nixon, I think - that the institutions that make for a stable and thriving middle class are tampered with to the detriment of the political party doing the tampering. In other words, "Mess with Social Security and you're history, Buster!" This is the reason the Republican party is within less than a decade of extinction. Donald Trump will be remembered as the final nail in the elephant's coffin.

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FUN FACT: In the entire eight years of Eisenhower's presidency, he and Mamie never once invited Dick and Pat Nixon to dine at the family living quarters of the White House. Ain't that a riot?

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Trump is the price that the GOP is finally paying for spending over fifty years pandering to extremists and crazy people; he is their fait accompli. The party's over. It's time to call it a day.

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Tom Degan

Goshen, NY