“THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT”

 

This title is the title of a 1995 movie starring Michael Douglas and Annette Benning. I watched it again on New Years Day. I don’t know how many times I have enjoyed this film, but I can tell you that it is my second favorite movie of all time.

The reason I love this movie so much is simple: I would like to see a president like the fictional Andrew Shepherd in my lifetime. The only man close to the character was John F. Kennedy. However, I was a senior in high school when he was murdered, and never had a chance to vote for him. I was 22 in 1968 and planned to vote for Bobby Kennedy before he too was taken from us far too soon.

I have experienced 13 presidents in my lifetime. The first was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 when I was ten years old. I turned on our black and white television one afternoon, and Eisenhower’s second convention was on all three stations. I was hooked, not yet realizing that I would become an obsessed politico.

In between Eisenhower and President Biden, only one man can be called a great president. Sadly, JFK was only with us for three short years. He inspired generations while displaying great wisdom and courage. “Doing the right thing” was at the forefront of his legacy.

A few were good presidents whose accomplishments served all of our nation’s people: Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. The naughty list includes Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and, of course the worst in history, Donald John Trump. Richard Nixon would be on the list of accomplished presidents if he had not become a criminal. His accomplishments surpass all other Republicans combined. Just to name a few: Nixon negotiated the first nuclear arms agreement with the Soviet Union. He established a relationship with Communist China. It was Nixon who helped create the Environmental Protection Agency, which is now opposed by all Republicans in support of major and environmentally destructive corporations. Nixon ended the draft and signed a bill into law giving 18-year-olds the right to vote. The list goes on and on.

It feels like a bad dream, but in just 17 days the worst president in history will once again defile the White House on the rare occasions when he is not golfing, partying at Mar-a-Lago, or holding hate rallies. This should never have happened for so many reasons.

I have decided to refer to Trump as “Beelzebub” because he is the most evil man in America’s 248-year history. He accomplished nothing over four very long years, intentionally divided our nation, and destroyed many of the accomplishments made by his predecessors over the previous 60-70 years. He was regressive, moving our nation backwards into the dark days of the mid-twentieth century.

I’m not sure America can survive another four years of Trump and his Washington Mafia. The choices he is making for his staff are less qualified than those in 2017. This list contains billionaires, criminals, and sexual predators. Not one possesses average intelligence. Their wannabe Fuhrer is now senile and is displaying an escalating case of dementia. This is clearly a situation where “the inmates will be running the asylum.”

If there is a “God,” only She can save us.

Op-ed by James TurnagePlease follow my blog and enjoy my novels on Amazon’s Kindle