If Only

Acknowledgement:  I would like to thank someone I don’t know who felt compelled to comment on a post about Donald Trump for providing the genesis for these thoughts.

“If only we had a President who respected Congress and our laws.”

Yes, if only we had a President who like Andrew Jackson, founder of the modern Democratic party, so respected our laws and our nation that he worked tirelessly to kill off the Native Americans so his friends could take their land.

Yes, if only we had a President like Woodrow Wilson, who ensured we maintained the white/black segregation within the Federal government, and who with his enlightened friends like Margaret Sanger viewed Blacks as inferior, and should be shown their place.  Someone who brokered the Treaty of Versailles whose punitive agreements and division of Europe created the conditions for the Nazi party’s rise to power.  He also helped create the League of Nations but was unable to convince the Senate to agree with U.S. membership.  He was clearly a President of the people, as long as they were white.

Yes, if only we had a President like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who viewed his own imperial status as above the tradition set by George Washington to serve only two terms.  A President who attempted to pack the Supreme Court when it wasn’t ruling as he thought they should, and who at the onset of World War II imprisoned over 150,000 Americans simply because of the national origin.

If only we had a President like John Fitzgerald Kennedy who promised the anti-communist Cubans that the United States would support them if they decided to return to Cuba and fight Castro, and when push came to shove let them die on the beach at the Bay of Pigs.

What I wouldn’t give to have a President like Lyndon Baines Johnson, who did little to support the equal rights acts passed by the Congress, but made sure he and his Secretary of Defense micromanaged a war that would cost 50,000 American lives.  Along the way, he created welfare programs promising a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but in reflection really just created a new class of economic slaves.

Man, Barrack Obama.  Now there was a President.  Coming into office as the first African-American he held the promise of unifying the nation like no one before him.  After eight years in office, he left creating greater racial and religious divide than anyone the KKK could have hoped for.  His respect for Congress was unequaled.  His party stonewalled 8-years of legislation and abandoned the traditions designed to encourage bi-partisan legislation.  His quote, “I have a phone and I have a pen” will stand as a testament to his love of the law and Congress.  A President who had no qualms about using the national intelligence agencies to spy on his opponents or even the average American.  A President who weaponized supposedly neutral agencies like the IRS and FBI to hunt down and destroy all those who didn’t share his vision of “Hope and Change.”

Oh, what it could have been like if we had just elected a woman who has more skeletons in her closet than she has shoes.  Someone who is directly responsible for the creation of ISIS with her support for the overthrow of two African regimes not led by religious zealots.  I am totally sure she would have worked with Congress and respected the laws she had ignored all those previous years.

Apparently, Civics is not taught these days so we can make the same mistakes over and over again.  If only we had a President who the press liked so we could ignore all his imperfections or a political party that was willing to accept the Constitution as the governing document for our nation...