I miss the old days. At least, I think I do. I\u2019m trying to remember the last \u201cacceptable\u201d Republican President, that is, acceptable to me. Let\u2019s see: I was born in 1956, and don\u2019t remember much of Dwight Eisenhower (other than my own \u201cPresidential Campaign\u201d of 1960, \u201cVote, Vote, Vote for Martin Dahlman, throw old Ikey down the sink\u2026\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mom didn\u2019t like Eisenhower, she had a run-in with him during World War II. The story went that he \u201ccalled her out\u201d for an improper uniform, though her unit, the SOE, was completely irregular anyway.\u00a0\u00a0According to Mom, she made it clear he wasn\u2019t the General of \u201cher\u201d Army. \u00a0\u00a0She had the equivalent \u201crank\u201d of Wing Commander, a Lieutenant Colonel, in US Army terms, and wore a uniform when she wasn\u2019t in Nazi occupied Europe.\u00a0\u00a0I was never really sure if that was a real conversation with the Commanding General, or what Mom thought she should have said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides, Mom didn\u2019t like the fact that Eisenhower, like many Americans in England at the time, was having an open affair with a British girl.\u00a0\u00a0It wasn\u2019t that Kay Summersby was \u201cliving in sin\u201d or anything.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s just that Eisenhower was married to Mamie back home, and Americans already had a terrible reputation for womanizing while English men were away fighting the war.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, Mom had my father, a US Army Warrant Officer, \u201cvetted\u201d, before she met him for the first time.\u00a0\u00a0She wasn\u2019t looking for an \u201caffair\u201d like Ike was having.\u00a0\u00a0They married in 1944.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I didn\u2019t like Nixon.\u00a0\u00a0Mom had something to do with that as well.\u00a0\u00a0One of her college roommates was Kathleen Kennedy, the ill-fated sister of John F. Kennedy. So Mom was a Kennedy fan, even though as a British citizen, she couldn\u2019t vote in Cincinnati.\u00a0\u00a0That Kennedy button never came off my blue sweater in the fall of 1960. And my disdain for Nixon grew stronger in 1962 when he lost the California Governor\u2019s race (\u201cYou won\u2019t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By 1968 I was twelve, and Nixon ran as the \u201cman who could win\u201d the Vietnam War.\u00a0\u00a0I was dedicated to Senator Robert Kennedy, and after his assassinaation, a reluctant supporter of Vice President Hubert Humphrey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I did kind of admire Gerald Ford.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon supposedly picked him for Vice President, because Congress would \u201cnever dare\u201d put him in as President of the United States. (The joke was Ford played \u201ctoo much football without a helmet on\u201d at Michigan).\u00a0\u00a0But Congress got Nixon out of office, and Ford did well for a few weeks. That is \u2013 until he pardoned Nixon.\u00a0\u00a0I wasn\u2019t so happy with him after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The world was supposed to end when Ronald Reagan took office.\u00a0\u00a0A lot of his policies were awful; cutting support to public schools, attacking organized labor,\u00a0\u00a0slashing aid for mental illness and putting mental patients on the street.\u00a0\u00a0But Reagan was a \u201cmuscular force\u201d in foreign policy. He \u201cwon\u201d the war in Granada.\u00a0\u00a0And while a lot of us thought his nuclear brinksmanship might bring us all to devastation, the economic impact of his buildup did bring the Soviet Union down and ended the Cold War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as far as the Bushes\u2019 were concerned \u2013 I liked George HW a whole lot more than George W. But both were kind of \u201ctraditional Republicans\u201d, not as wedded to \u201cConservatism\u201d as they were pragmatic about running the Nation for the good of \u201cbusiness\u201d (what\u2019s good for General Motors is good for America). I didn\u2019t agree with that ideology, but I could live with it. At least, they weren\u2019t what I would call anti-American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But since the Bush v. Gore debacle of 2000, the first \u201celection steal\u201d, (in my view), America has been on a long road into polarization. When the Supreme Court voted on party lines, the veneer of \u201cJudicial impartiality\u201d was pierced. It kind of struck me like the Nixon Pardon. The Court was making a decision \u201cfor the good of the Nation\u201d, pushing us through the crisis, when it seemed more like they were really deciding what was good for the Republican Party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 9-11 I could stand behind Bush. I too was stirred when he called out the terrorists \u2013 \u201c\u2026the whole world will hear us\u201d. But the ugly \u201cwatched the TV show Twenty-Four\u201d too many times actions of his Administration (blame Dick Cheney, but Bush was the President) was far too much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obviously, the Obama Administration was great \u2013 even though he was stymied by Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate, and his own careful awareness of his place in history. But the first Black President created a backlash that directly led us to Donald Trump. It wasn\u2019t Obama\u2019s fault, but absolutely a clear \u201ccause and effect\u201d, from the Tea Party to MAGA world. And that final level of extremism meant that the Republicans of \u201cold\u201d, were left with no Party. Even the heirs of Bush became irrelevant, relics of a bygone era. The \u201cold Republicans\u201d are a lot like the segregationist Democrats of the 1950\u2019s; no longer representative of anything but ancient history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\u00a0<\/em>1859, as he awaited his execution for the raid on Harper’s Ferry, John Brown foresaw the Civil War in his final speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n