Caffeinated Politics

The words during the 1912 nomination speech by Warren G. Harding, then an Ohio newspaper editor, for President William Taft at the tumultuous Republican Convention need to be considered this week. The following portion showcases a stark contrast between then and what happened this week when Donald Trump verbally attacked Rob Reiner just a few hours after the savage murders of the famed director and his wife.

The nominating speech declared that Taft was “as wise and patient as Abraham Lincoln, as modest and dauntless as Ulysses S. Grant, as temperate and peace-loving as Rutherford B. Hayes, as patriotic and intellectual as James A. Garfield, as courtly and generous as Chester A. Arthur, as learned in the law as Benjamin Harrison, as sympathetic and brave as William McKinley……”

No honest person in the Republican Party today could pen a similar type of statement about Trump. Not before this week, and certainly not after the incomprehensible behavior he exhibited against Reiner in a social media statement and later in front of the White House press corps. I have had an easy time arguing for years that character is not a word that anyone can employ in a favorable way towards Trump.

We have always had a president in our nation who was able to show empathy and use words in the office to bring a nation together during times of crisis or tremendous sadness. Some were more artful in using it, and some less so. But each had the basic foundation of empathy in their DNA. A president needs to have that quality. That fact has never been more clearly understood than now, when we view its complete glaring absence.

Let me explain what I mean. In 1986, I was on-air at WDOR the night President Ronald Reagan spoke to the nation following the horrific explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was a profoundly powerful moment where a speech clearly demonstrated the role of a president in times of national crisis or extreme sadness. It was one of the shining examples in our history of the heights of rhetorical balm being correctly applied from the Oval Office to the needs of the people. I sat in the broadcast studio and was moved to tears.  Contrast those types of national moments with what we had to endure from Trump as this week started. Trump finds pleasure and a sick, perverse thrill by continually stoking words to further the anger and resentments of people for what he views as a partisan advantage.

We have, for too long, witnessed Trump’s lack of sound character. I will never forget that during the 2016 campaign, he made fun of a disabled journalist. It was a truly pathetic display. During his first term in office, he made one of the most gut-wrenching displays when he showed poor behavior toward the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in Niger. That episode proved that he was unfamiliar with the whole concept of empathy. Trump failed to offer comforting words in the phone call to the widow and then petulantly defended himself for his stunning lack of grace on social media. At that time, it was almost unbearable to watch it all play out as some of his lowbrow followers brought down a withering barrage of abuse on the grieving widow during what we all know was the worst moment of her life.

Following the inexcusable behavior from Trump towards Reiner, several conservatives are speaking out. Perhaps the most notable conservative in Dane County with a will to convey a message is David Blaska. He wrote a powerful summation of his post about what happened.

There is just no excuse for that pettiness, unless it be a clinically damaged pysche. (We thought Nixon was crazy.) Expect the usual situational ethics from his sycophants, afraid I.C.E. will confiscate their red MAGA baseball caps if they utter the faintest reproach. This one called Trump a Nazi and that one called him Deplorable. Whaddabout? Whaddabout? POW hero John McCain and iconoclast Majorie Taylor Greene are “traitors” for falling out of lockstep. Contra Reagan, Trump’s 80 percent friends are his 100 percent enemies.

One of the books I have loved over the decades is Character Above All.  I have often written about the book, which consists of a series of essays about why character is central when it comes to presidents sitting in the Oval Office.  From FDR to George Bush (41), the writers, specialized in their topic, provide examples of why character must be the prime qualification for high public office.

Today, there is a glaring crisis of character from Trump, which is demonstrated in countless ways each day. Those in the nation with a moral compass, and who were brought up in homes where values were taught and instilled, grasp the need to have higher ideals once again restored in the Oval Office.