PRESIDENTS

OTC50 #64

DEMOCRACY OFTEN A TEDIOUS FICKLE INSTRUMENT AT WORK AND PLAY

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

U

nited States Presidents often arrive in DC for their first day at the White House with the appearance of invincibility.

Far from that state of being, though, and behind the translucent armor, are the bumps, bruises and scars of two years of electioneering, first in the primaries against candidates from within to obtain the party’s nomination, and then from without, against the opposing party’s nominee to obtain the support of the electors.

Americans love to debate, but elections are so fiercely fought that it is difficult to imagine that anyone has any friends left in Washington, had there been any before.

Presidents are often figuratively limping to the White House and quickly become mortally wounded politically before even being given a brief moment to realize the full consequences of being responsible for American power from the Oval Office.

The United States electoral map has been consistently divided over the years between the conservative right and the liberal left, last election this being no less obvious with both the winner, Joe Biden, and the loser, Donald Trump, sharing razor thin margins of victory until the decisive end.

If the popular vote in percentages is any indication, with Biden getting 51% and Trump 47%, a difference of only 6 million eligible voters in a nation with a population of 330 million, the nation remains divided despite the electoral college count.

America has decidedly a two party system in which the Republican Party and the Democrat Party may, from time to time, begrudgingly share the platform with a third, splinter party. This third party is often highly specialized either from the far right or from the far left.

Ralph Nader’s third party from the left may have been responsible for enabling Republican George W. Bush to outvote incumbent Vice President Al Gore in a very close 2000 US Presidential Election. Nader received 97,421 votes in Florida, whereas Bush beat Gore by just 537 votes in Florida. That state was the deciding state in the 2000 Presidential Election with 29 electoral college votes. Florida’s importance to national elections was underscored when Trump was briefly perceived to having been given an opportunity to win the presidency after winning Florida.

Al Gore losing though made way for Barack Obama eight years later, in that time shifting way that elections influence the future.

Democrats would have been in power for 12, perhaps even 16 consecutive years had Gore won a second term, resulting in, with all likelihood, the center left, center right and the far right having had quite enough of liberal policies for a while, thank you very much, likely mustering unfathomable power and determination to develop a Republican alternative by then.

And Obama may not have been available anymore, perhaps in the intervening years moving on to developing a YouTube Channel from Chicago as a placebo supplement to his penchant for stumping before, after and between elections, and drawing bigger and bigger channel followers in the result.

Victorious Presidential candidates are often mortally wounded from the election process. Biden looks good so far as long as he is able to remember what to say next.

The media scrutiny in the United States, and more and more internationally as the national election draws closer, uncovers just about everything about the personality behind the candidacy.

Deeply personal issues are often overlooked by media as a matter of decency and personal privacy during the election, but less personal matters are often used as leverage later on by political pundits and political rivals. Especially if the vote was close, the losing side knows how to tip the results the other way next time, beginning before Inauguration Day and continuing on for every day thereafter January 20.

Trump was politically wounded from the Russian probe. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigations dropped a bomb shell on his presidential rival Hilary Clinton during the national election, something about an email account being hacked by Russians, but that same political melee became a huge burden, too cumbersome for the Trump Administration to overcome, with accusations about favors exchanged between rival nations that cut deep political wounds and unified even the smallest fragments of opposition against him.

Americans like success, and when the popular vote is so close, even the smallest failure can be the deciding factor, either determining victory or dragging down the Presidential Administration through the mid-term elections in two years, and then continuing on until the presidential elections in another two years.

US President Jimmy Carter lost re-election in 1980 in part because of the Iran Hostage Crisis that dragged on through the primaries and national elections. The Iranians steadfastly refused to negotiate with Carter especially after a US military team failed to successfully execute a dramatic rescue of the American hostages held in the United States Embassy in Tehran. The special military unit turned around without their packages when one of the helicopters crashed into a transport aircraft and the military was then suddenly one short to successfully complete the operation.

Iran had fallen into Islamic Revolution after decades of America supporting the monarchy. These developing geopolitical issues had nothing to do with Carter before his presidency.

Things got worse for Carter though, coming up against charismatic California Governor Ronald Reagan (1967-1975) who had made previous attempts at the Republican Party presidential nomination in 1968 and 1976. Reagan was a bit of a juggernaut having had popular success as Governor of California from 1968-1976, the largest electoral district in the union, after a long distinguished acting career in Hollywood.

Carter was also up against independent John B. Anderson. Anderson was from the Republican Party and drew the anti-Reagan conservative vote away from Carter. If Carter had Anderson’s votes, the race for the presidency may have been something other than the Reagan landslide that it was.

The challenge in the United States is often to win the political center with Democrats wanting liberal moderates that might vote Republican, and the Republicans wanting conservative moderates that might vote Democrat. A splinter party candidate can steal those votes and shift the election the other way without ever having any chance of success.

Biden did not have any significant challengers on his political left to speak of, and so he merely needed to move into the moderate center to win over moderate Trump supporters after Trump had painted himself into the political far right corner.

Carter had inheriting oil shortages and the Iranian Revolution to tip the scale away from him and toward Reagan. US President John F. Kennedy had a similar problem with predetermination than that which Carter endured.

Kennedy inherited a Military Industrial Complex developed in response to Communism that had been apparently spreading throughout the world. Kennedy had also inherited a plan developed by the previous Republican Administration to overthrow Communist Cuba.

The United States Central Intelligence Agency had begun a covert operation to displace the socialist revolutionary government on the Caribbean island. The CIA supported a group of Cuban exiles to launch an invasion force from Florida, but Kennedy withheld military air support over the Bay of Pigs, never having green lit the invasion in the first place.

Kennedy considered the military generals and the CIA insubordinate toward his Administration by attempting the invasion of Cuba without his approval in advance of the mission.

Cuba then took the invasion threat as leverage for the Russians to build nuclear missile silos on the island just a few hundred miles from the East Coast of the United States of America.

Kennedy had to create a naval blockade and make the world fear nuclear war to end the crisis. Kennedy had won the presidential election by the narrowest of margins over Republican nominee Richard Nixon in 1960. Just over 112,000 votes separated the rivals.

These internal problems within the Washington power structure created big foreign policy issues for Kennedy that affected America’s self-image on the world stage. As a result, Kennedy was losing the next election still one year away from the primaries.

Profound policy differences do exist between the two political parties, often symbolized in

little idiosyncrasies, like Reagan’s first order of business being to take off the solar panels that Carter had installed on the White House roof.

Solar panels were questionable technology at the time, and a lot of money was involved in the oil industry, especially after the oil shortages that had begun during the Nixon Administration had crystalized in the streets with people lined up in their cars at gas stations waiting for the refueling truck to arrive.

Trump dismantled Obamacare.

Presidents seem quite happy to leave after eight years, often barely getting back to private life in one piece. Reagan wanted to stay, and Obama sure looked keen on another four years, but overall, an outgoing president looks quite haggard after two terms. Outgoing presidents look so much older than when first elected, and the children they took with them to the White House seem suddenly all grown up.

I think even Trump lost a bit of weight from all the stress tweeting.

The job becomes so all consuming, even for high octane workaholics, one wonders how they even manage to get a good night sleep and finally rest for a bit without the whole world watching. Having a personal physician in the White House constantly double checking the effects of the vitamin cocktails helps a bit.

If personal privacy issues do not get them, then perhaps geopolitics, and then still, if they have anything left to prop themselves up with at the press briefings, natural disasters.

Hurricane Katrina caused $125 billion in damage for eight days beginning August 23, 2005. The Category 5 Atlantic Hurricane made landfall in New Orleans, overburdening the flood protection levees, and submerging 80% of the area in tropical waters.

President George W. Bush was roundly criticized for leaving people on their own to settle up with private insurance companies, and for those who lost out, to just move on out of Louisiana.

Bush was lucky in a way, being Texan and Christian, and in that way being able to accept the results, and most of all, having just been reelected, the two term limit having removed any concerns about re-election from his political agenda. War in the oil fields thousands of miles away was more important for Americans than rebuilding communities at home, according to the former Texas Governor.

Obama had Hurricane Sandy make landfall all along the Eastern seaboard, including New York City and Coney Island. But Obama did not have to deal with cleaning up after the Atlantic storm until after being re-elected for a second term during November of 2012.

A political maelstrom can be even more devastating to a presidency than a Category 5 Hurricane.

US President Richard M. Nixon never completed a second term. Nixon faced a lengthy and embarrassing impeachment trial after already being convicted in the national press, before resigning with over two years still to go on August 9, 1974.

Nixon clearly had had enough even though he probably wanted to stay for life when first assuming power in the Oval Office in 1968.

One of the great mysteries of the American voter is the quick swing between political camps that occurs every two years during the mid-term elections when Americans replenish Members of Congress and the Senator. No sooner has America elected a president from one political party than the balance of power shifts again when America votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate, often favoring the other party to check power.

The results can be so resoundly conclusive that you tend to wonder where was everybody two years earlier. Nixon likely thought that if he does not get bludgeoned to death in the hallways of power like Cesar, Congress would convict him, if for no other reason than to prevent an electoral college vote massacre for the next presidential candidate from the Republican Party.

If you can believe it, the president has less pressure than in the early years of the republic when the vice president was automatically the bitter second place loser in the presidential elections. President John Adams at 5 ft 7 inches had to share power with Thomas Jefferson at 6 ft 2 inches from 1797 – 1801. Two bitter rivals sharing power is such a classic American result, but that selection process is probably the reason why even today vice presidents rarely have more of a fraction of the power, and rarely the same measure of public responsibilities as that of the president.

Americans thrive on competition. And the spectators watching the rivalry are quite delighted when neither party emerges entirely intact, often rooting for the underdog just for the sport of it all.

The presidency is often not so much about winning as the struggle to win and taking what remains with grace for as long as God permits.