HERE'S A JOKE: TRUMP COMPARES HIMSELF TO WASHINGTON
FATHER OF COUNTRY VERSUS CRYPTO SCAM KING
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For a column two thoughts emerged: I’m still on a high on the founding fathers and some outrages are so crazy they’re comical.
So naturally let’s write about Donald Trump comparing himself to George Washington. On the father of the country I turn to two great historians who have written about him, Lindsay Chervinsky, head of the George Washington Library at Mount Vernon, and Ron Chernow who also authored the celebrated biography of Alexander Hamilton.
On every imaginable positive trait -- character, courage, integrity, leadership -- next to Washington, Trump is a midget.
Let’s look at some of the contrasts.
Washington saw three essential pillars for the new Republic: the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power and civilian control of the military.
Trump and his Justice Department see the rule of law as politically expedient.That criiticsm is leveled even by some high level Republicans, judges, former top Justice Department officials and the GOP’s last presidential nominee before Trump, Mitt Romney.
A survey co-directed by the UCLA law school -- including several dozen federal judges, elite lawyers, law school and political science professors, along with a national survey of 2,750 pf he general public -- found a significant erosion in the rule of law under the current Trump Administration.
Overwhelming majorities of legal experts surveyed say this Administration has used the Justice Department to go after political enemies and provided favors to the President’s allies.
On the transfer of power, before 2020 there were several bitter fights. In 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular and electoral votes but fell short of a majority. It went to the House where Henry Clay orchestrated a victory for John Quincy Adams who appointed him Secretary of State.
In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency even though he lost on election day. Under a deal in return for the White House, his party agreed to pull federal troops from the South, opening the way for suppression of Blacks.
However, the losing party didn’t litigate those results -- Jackson captured the presidency four years later. Trump, going on six years after an election he demonstrably lost, still is ordering hundreds of FBI agents to try to find fraud in that election.
Trump has followed Washington’s insistence on civilian control of the military. I fervently believe in that, even though today there are scores of military officers who would be much better than Pete Hegseth.
Washington turned over control of the military after the Revolutionary War to a Congress he knew was incompetent. I doubt Trump would have done that.
I also suspect he would have been on the wrong side, in a classic test, when President Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. (During the Clinton Administration I was with a group of mainly conservative Republicans who complained we were too soft and needed a MacArthur. One asked someone else there, John Glenn, what he thought of MacArthur: “I’m glad Truman fired his ass,” the retired Marine Colonel and American hero replied.)
Washington also consistently sought out different views from subordinates during the war; the two most prominent members of his presidency were Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton, with markedly different views on the new country and who despised one another. Trump, by contrast, surrounds himself with sycophants.
Washington appreciated the need to build institutions. Trump relishes tearing down institutions, such as the Voice of America, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, and the Federal Reserve.
After the Supreme Court said Trump could not arbitrarily remove Federal Reserve Governors, the White House doubled down, duplicitously going after the Fed. Top economic adviser Kevin Hassett, once a respectable and honest conservative economist, charged former Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term doesn’t expire for a year and a half, was staying on the Board just to vote against Trump.
And while five Supreme Court justices ruled birthright citizenship was constitutionally protected, Trump Republicans, encouraged by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, always a GOP operative, are mapping ways to undercut this decision.
Back to the comparisons, Trump has tried to justify his money making scams by drawing a parallel to Washington who he said had two desks together -- one for his business interests and the other for the presidency. That was a lie. No hint of impropriety was permitted anywhere near President Washington, historians have noted.
He was a man of impeccable integrity, though the story is apocryphal about chopping down his father’s cherry tree and confessing, “I can not tell a lie.”
For Trump it often is more like, “I can not tell the truth.”
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HERE’S A JOKE: TRUMP COMPARES HIMSELF TO WASHINGTON
FATHER OF COUNTRY VS. THE CRYPTO SCAM KING
For a column two thoughts emerged: I’m still on a high on the founding fathers and some outrages are so crazy they’re comical.
So naturally let’s write about Donald Trump comparing himself to George Washington. On the father of the country I turn to two great historians who have written about him, Lindsay Chervinsky, head of the George Washington Library at Mount Vernon, and Ron Chernow who also authored the celebrated biography of Alexander Hamilton.
On every imaginable positive trait -- character, courage, integrity, leadership -- next to Washington, Trump is a midget.
Let’s look at some of the contrasts.
Washington saw three essential pillars for the new Republic: the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power and civilian control of the military.
Trump and his Justice Department see the rule of law as politically expedient.That criticsm is leveled even by some high level Republicans, judges, former top Justice Department officials and the GOP’s last presidential nominee pre-Trump, Mitt Romney.
A survey co-directed by the UCLA law school -- including several dozen federal judges, elite lawyers, law school and political science professors, along with a national survey of 2,750 of the general public -- found a significant erosion in the rule of law under the current Trump Administration.
Overwhelming majorities of legal experts surveyed say this Administration has used the Justice Department to go after political enemies and provided favors to the President’s allies.
On the transfer of power, before 2020 there were several bitter fights. In 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular and electoral votes but fell short of a majority. It went to the House where Henry Clay orchestrated a victory for John Quincy Adams who appointed him Secretary of State.
In 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency even though he lost on election day. Under a deal in return for the White House, his party agreed to pull federal troops from the South, opening the way for suppression of Blacks.
However, the losing party didn’t litigate those results -- Jackson captured the presidency four years later. Trump, going on six years after an election he demonstrably lost, still is ordering hundreds of FBI agents to try to find fraud in that election.
Trump has followed Washington’s insistence on civilian control of the military. I fervently believe in that, even though today there are scores of military officers who would be much better than Pete Hegseth.
Washington turned over control of the military after the Revolutionary War to a Congress he knew was incompetent. I doubt Trump would have done that.
I also suspect he would have been on the wrong side, in a classic test, when President Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. (During the Clinton Administration I was with a group of mainly conservative Republicans who complained we were too soft and needed a MacArthur. One asked someone else there, John Glenn, what he thought of MacArthur: “I’m glad Truman fired his ass,” the retired Marine Colonel and American hero replied.)
Washington also consistently sought out different views from subordinates during the war; the two most prominent members of his presidency were Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton, with markedly different views on the new country and who despised one another. Trump, by contrast, surrounds himself with sycophants.
Washington appreciated the need to build institutions. Trump relishes tearing down institutions, such as the Voice of America, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, and the Federal Reserve.
After the Supreme Court said Trump could not arbitrarily remove Federal Reserve Governors, the White House doubled down, duplicitously going after the Fed. Top economic adviser Kevin Hassett, once a respectable and honest conservative economist, charged former Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term doesn’t expire for a year and a half, was staying on the Board just to vote against Trump.
And while five Supreme Court justices ruled birthright citizenship was constitutionally protected, Trump Republicans, encouraged by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, always a GOP operative, are mapping ways to undercut this decision.
Back to the comparisons, Trump has tried to justify his money making scams by drawing a parallel to Washington who he said had two desks together -- one for his business interests and the other for the presidency. That was a lie. No hint of impropriety was permitted anywhere near President Washington, historians have noted.
He was a man of impeccable integrity, though the story is apocryphal about chopping down his father’s cherry tree and confessing, “I can not tell a lie.”
For Trump it often is more like, “I can not tell the truth.”
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tRump appears to idolize George Washington, as he should. However, I’m sure he forgot that Washington, as all the Founding Fathers, were grown men who put on wigs, heels, rouge and stockings. This fact would not sit well with his MAGAts.
That is hilarious Donald Trump 'mr nobody' comparing himself to George Washington why he wouldn't make a pimple on George Washington's ass.