Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "jimmy-carter"
The President's Character: What's Wrong With Donald Trump
In the November 22, 2015 post ("Ms. President: Should A Retired English Professor Be President?"), as I contemplated the possibility of the only Republican candidate who might be crazier than Donald Trump becoming President, I explained why my profession made me a better candidate for President than former brain surgeon Ben Carson. English professors, I argued, would be better at communicating, thinking, and dealing with people from different cultures than would brain surgeons. Of course, this specific English professor, while not a "stable genius," is also saner than the brain surgeon who somehow thought he should be President because some racist white folks liked his attack on the half-black President at a prayer breakfast. Current 2020 candidate Andrew Yang seemed to suggest in the last debate that anyone who runs for President is a little crazy. Certainly, presidential candidates must have outsize egos and suffer from at least a mild case of delusions of grandeur. Still, the President needs to be somewhat sane or stable, and the current one clearly isn't. The alleged senior White House advisor known as Anonymous claims that there are four other characteristics that a President needs that the current one lacks--wisdom, sense of justice, courage, and temperance or restraint (the ability to behave in an inoffensive manner). I agree with him or her and would add three more: 1) Confidence 2) Honesty 3) Maturity. Trump also lacks all three of those qualities.
Those who aren't clear thinkers might assume that anyone who has a big enough ego to run for President is confident. But there is a difference between being arrogant and/or narcissistic and being confident. Confidence is usually based on achievement while arrogance is based more on a sense of entitlement due to circumstances (race, class, gender) of birth. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, for instance, were confident because they were high achievers. In the current crop of 2020 candidates, Rhodes scholars (and b-boys) Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg are confident for the same reason. George W. Bush is arrogant because he is a white man born into a rich and powerful family while the also born-rich, white, and male Trump is both arrogant and pathologically narcissistic. He is also dangerously (especially for a President) insecure. The arrogant Bush had trouble admitting his mistakes as President, but he could at least admit that he was once an alcoholic, a necessary first step to curing that disease. Trump, who is temperate when it comes to alcohol, can't admit he did anything wrong ever. Compare Bill Clinton's reaction to impeachment, for instance, to Trump's. Clinton was able to admit his mistakes and even be friendly with some of the people who criticized and impeached him. Trump is forcing (apparently, it doesn't take courage to be a Republican Senator or Representative) the Republicans in Congress to defend his actions and demonize the Democrats who are trying to do a job that the cowardly Republicans should have done in 2017. While he tries to take credit for anything good that happens, Trump is incapable of taking responsibility for his mistakes. Unless it's a really good buck that will bring praise, the buck doesn't stop with this President. If something goes wrong, it's the Democrats' fault or the fault of a former close friend whom he now barely knows. The insecure President is also easily played by anyone willing to flatter him, and as he likes to say, "everyone knows it." Not only such allies as the leaders of France and Canada but such adversaries as the leaders of Russia and North Korea know that Trump will at least try to give them whatever they want if they just tell him he's the greatest U.S. President ever, a much better President than Obama. Thus, his insecurity is a threat to our national security.
While the President's dishonesty might not be as large a security threat as his insecurity, it undermines his moral authority at home and abroad and makes it impossible for our allies to trust him or us. We all lie, and most Presidents probably lie more than most brain surgeons and English teachers, but this President is a pathological liar who lies more than he tells the truth. He tells crazy lies and contradictory lies. Sometimes his lies are funny like when he says he's a stable genius or that he's taken pictures with everyone (if you see me in a picture with Trump, it's photo shopped; believe me). His braggadocio lies had the world leaders laughing at him (and us) at the UN in 2018. Ironically, one of the lies that the Liar-in-Chief has told is that the world was laughing at us before he became President. While it's true that the British thought we were foolish when we reelected the arrogantly incompetent George W in 2004, most of the world was impressed in 2008 when we became the first predominantly white country to elect a nonwhite President who happened to be intelligent (while not a genius), dignified, and extremely cool. Now they're laughing at us for electing through the undemocratic electoral college a lying fool.
The British ridicule Trump (and us) with their big baby Trump balloon. The Trump baby is the perfect metaphor for everything that is wrong with the electoral college President. He's dishonest, insecure, intemperate, cowardly, unwise, and unfair because his development arrested somewhere between the ages of two and seven. I'm sure the overrated founding fathers chose thirty-five as the minimum age for a President because they assumed most men (those bigots didn't plan for women to be President) would reach peak maturity around that age. (They didn't worry about the President being too old back then because most people died before the age of dementia.) As we grow older and learn to walk without holding Mommy's hand, learn to use our words instead of screaming and crying, and start to achieve our goals, whether earning all "A's" in school, winning tennis matches, and/or helping our teams win football, basketball, baseball, or soccer games, we gain confidence. We start to believe that we can. And as we learn from our mistakes (those of us who can), we gain wisdom. That's why maturity is the most important trait in a President.
It's interesting (and scary) that the three top polling 2020 Democratic candidates are in their seventies. One reason for this odd phenomenon might be that the people who respond to the polls are older, but voters might also be looking for mature candidates. However, they should remember that the current President is the oldest ever and the least mature of the ones in my lifetime while the previous President was one of the youngest and most mature.
The French ambassador to the U.S. recently suggested another reason why I might have made a better President than Ben Carson. He complained that Trump doesn't read. Obviously, English teachers usually read more than brain surgeons and Presidents. But the primary reason I would make a better President than Carson or Trump is that I'm sane and wise enough to know that I am not qualified to be President. If I lost my mind, ran for President, and was elected just as I regained my sanity, I would be on the phone to Obama, Carter, Clinton, and even GW Bush before I entered the White House. In fact, I would have an ex-Presidents' office in the White House and try to keep one ex-President (preferably Obama or Clinton) in there every day that I was on the job. But one ex-President would be banned. I would not allow Donald Trump to enter the White House if I woke up from a period of madness and discovered I was President. I'd call my ten-year-old grand-nephew DJ or my seven-year-old grand-niece Kylah for advice before I would contact the most immature, insane, and incompetent President in my lifetime and probably in the history of our nation.
Those who aren't clear thinkers might assume that anyone who has a big enough ego to run for President is confident. But there is a difference between being arrogant and/or narcissistic and being confident. Confidence is usually based on achievement while arrogance is based more on a sense of entitlement due to circumstances (race, class, gender) of birth. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, for instance, were confident because they were high achievers. In the current crop of 2020 candidates, Rhodes scholars (and b-boys) Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg are confident for the same reason. George W. Bush is arrogant because he is a white man born into a rich and powerful family while the also born-rich, white, and male Trump is both arrogant and pathologically narcissistic. He is also dangerously (especially for a President) insecure. The arrogant Bush had trouble admitting his mistakes as President, but he could at least admit that he was once an alcoholic, a necessary first step to curing that disease. Trump, who is temperate when it comes to alcohol, can't admit he did anything wrong ever. Compare Bill Clinton's reaction to impeachment, for instance, to Trump's. Clinton was able to admit his mistakes and even be friendly with some of the people who criticized and impeached him. Trump is forcing (apparently, it doesn't take courage to be a Republican Senator or Representative) the Republicans in Congress to defend his actions and demonize the Democrats who are trying to do a job that the cowardly Republicans should have done in 2017. While he tries to take credit for anything good that happens, Trump is incapable of taking responsibility for his mistakes. Unless it's a really good buck that will bring praise, the buck doesn't stop with this President. If something goes wrong, it's the Democrats' fault or the fault of a former close friend whom he now barely knows. The insecure President is also easily played by anyone willing to flatter him, and as he likes to say, "everyone knows it." Not only such allies as the leaders of France and Canada but such adversaries as the leaders of Russia and North Korea know that Trump will at least try to give them whatever they want if they just tell him he's the greatest U.S. President ever, a much better President than Obama. Thus, his insecurity is a threat to our national security.
While the President's dishonesty might not be as large a security threat as his insecurity, it undermines his moral authority at home and abroad and makes it impossible for our allies to trust him or us. We all lie, and most Presidents probably lie more than most brain surgeons and English teachers, but this President is a pathological liar who lies more than he tells the truth. He tells crazy lies and contradictory lies. Sometimes his lies are funny like when he says he's a stable genius or that he's taken pictures with everyone (if you see me in a picture with Trump, it's photo shopped; believe me). His braggadocio lies had the world leaders laughing at him (and us) at the UN in 2018. Ironically, one of the lies that the Liar-in-Chief has told is that the world was laughing at us before he became President. While it's true that the British thought we were foolish when we reelected the arrogantly incompetent George W in 2004, most of the world was impressed in 2008 when we became the first predominantly white country to elect a nonwhite President who happened to be intelligent (while not a genius), dignified, and extremely cool. Now they're laughing at us for electing through the undemocratic electoral college a lying fool.
The British ridicule Trump (and us) with their big baby Trump balloon. The Trump baby is the perfect metaphor for everything that is wrong with the electoral college President. He's dishonest, insecure, intemperate, cowardly, unwise, and unfair because his development arrested somewhere between the ages of two and seven. I'm sure the overrated founding fathers chose thirty-five as the minimum age for a President because they assumed most men (those bigots didn't plan for women to be President) would reach peak maturity around that age. (They didn't worry about the President being too old back then because most people died before the age of dementia.) As we grow older and learn to walk without holding Mommy's hand, learn to use our words instead of screaming and crying, and start to achieve our goals, whether earning all "A's" in school, winning tennis matches, and/or helping our teams win football, basketball, baseball, or soccer games, we gain confidence. We start to believe that we can. And as we learn from our mistakes (those of us who can), we gain wisdom. That's why maturity is the most important trait in a President.
It's interesting (and scary) that the three top polling 2020 Democratic candidates are in their seventies. One reason for this odd phenomenon might be that the people who respond to the polls are older, but voters might also be looking for mature candidates. However, they should remember that the current President is the oldest ever and the least mature of the ones in my lifetime while the previous President was one of the youngest and most mature.
The French ambassador to the U.S. recently suggested another reason why I might have made a better President than Ben Carson. He complained that Trump doesn't read. Obviously, English teachers usually read more than brain surgeons and Presidents. But the primary reason I would make a better President than Carson or Trump is that I'm sane and wise enough to know that I am not qualified to be President. If I lost my mind, ran for President, and was elected just as I regained my sanity, I would be on the phone to Obama, Carter, Clinton, and even GW Bush before I entered the White House. In fact, I would have an ex-Presidents' office in the White House and try to keep one ex-President (preferably Obama or Clinton) in there every day that I was on the job. But one ex-President would be banned. I would not allow Donald Trump to enter the White House if I woke up from a period of madness and discovered I was President. I'd call my ten-year-old grand-nephew DJ or my seven-year-old grand-niece Kylah for advice before I would contact the most immature, insane, and incompetent President in my lifetime and probably in the history of our nation.
