Michael Reagan, son of the former President, Ronald Reagan, in his latest column about national politics, takes Donald Trump to the proverbial woodshed. The occasion was the riot at the Capitol on January 6, where a group of Republican extremists and Trump supporters attempted to enter the building to protest the irregularities in the November election.
In that column, Reagan wrote “But the country he (Trump) wanted to make great again is going to pay the ultimate price for his character flaws.”
Normally I feel this columnist is fairly objective and leaves out the heated rhetoric about the political scene. But he dismisses the Trump Presidency with that one sentence which does not stand up under any kind of historical scrutiny. That is a disappointment to me.
First and foremost, what is the “ultimate” price a nation can pay for one man’s personal folly? Logically, only one cost meets that criteria; the loss of freedom, and in the case of a republic/democracy, the loss of our form of government, and our way of life.
Reagan engages in hyperbole of the highest order, for he ignores the strength of the American people who have persevered under some difficult times in our history. Included in that history are people who, arguably, were worse in their character flaws than Donald Trump. For someone who is steeped in our past as he seems to be, it seems to me this remark about the President is by one who “forgets the past” as Santayana wrote many years ago.
A trip down memory lane in our storied past will show that many who led our nation were flawed men, men who threw personal integrity to the winds as they enjoyed their high station in life.
From the 19th century, Andrew Jackson was a flawed man, both personally and politically. In the Seminole Wars, as he was leading punitive action against the Indians in what is now North Florida, Jackson executed two British subjects on what was then Spanish soil. After his election in 1828 he instituted an Indian policy which led to the infamous Trail of Tears. In the waning days of his second term, Jackson passed a money bill, the Specie Act, which triggered one of the most devastating financial crises in American history, which effectively destroyed the Presidency of his successor, Martin Van Buren.
In the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson resegregated Washington, D. C., and praised D. W. Griffith’s movie that glorified the KKK. Warren Harding fathered a child with a woman not his wife, and was known as a serial womanizer.
John Kennedy had a squeaky clean reputation, in spite of the fact that his “little black book” contained about 700 names. Secret Service agents spirited women up the back stairs in the White House for his pleasure. One of his paramours was known to be a Soviet operative, and another was the girlfriend of a Mafia don.
After JFK’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson continued the tradition of flawed Democratic residents of the White House. He, also, was a serial adulterer; no young, pretty female aide was safe from his predations. In 1964 Johnson used a questionable “attack” on an American warship to escalate the Vietnam War; he continued that escalation until at one time over half a million troops were in that godforsaken jungle country. This resulted in over 58,000 deaths. I can remember well demonstrations where one chant was, “LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?!”
Watergate ruined Richard Nixon’s Presidency and reputation. Forced to resign, Nixon is regularly listed as one of the most flawed of leaders, and his ant-Semitism and anti-black feelings are seen in the transcripts of the tapes made during his residency in the Oval Office.
Who can forget the moral failings of Bill Clinton? Credible accusations of sexual assault and extramarital affairs plagued Clinton during his tenure. His affair with a White House intern 30 years his junior will forever stain his character. No one ever conflated Clinton with a person of high moral integrity.
Other of our elected high officials also showed great indifference to Christian values and character, but these show that the country did not “pay the ultimate price” for their actions and words.
Although Reagan did mention some of Trump’s triumphs in his four years at the apex of American power, his use of this ill-thought out sentence will forever prevent me from giving much credence to his objectiveness in looking at the national scene. Some introspection is needed if he is to be taken seriously. Perhaps he believes his storied surname will make his views immune from serious criticisms and keep people from pointing out such egregious statements as he made.
Trump has made mistakes; all Presidents do that. But nothing he has done will cause his nation and mine to suffer the “ultimate price” for his actions and words.