Western Democracies

Imagining A Theodore Roosevelt-Donald Trump Meeting!

Ronald 8 Comments

At a tumultuous time like now, in late March 2025, after two months of the second Donald Trump Presidency, it seems appropriate to make a comparison between a past President, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President, and Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th President.

First, the similarities:

Both TR and Trump were Republican Presidents, although massively different in philosophy and outlook.

Both TR and Trump ushered in massive change, revolutionary in many ways.

Both TR and Trump were attention grabbers on a daily basis, constantly creating news and publicity.

Both TR and Trump were egomanics, having an element of insecurity that required them to insist on “rocking the boat” on a regular basis.

Both TR and Trump could be described as “characters”, highly outspoken more than any other combination of Presidents.

It has been said that TR wanted to be “the bride at every wedding, and the groom on every wedding cake”, and that Trump wanted to be equally admired and noticed constantly.

TR was toasted by Great Britain as a great man during and after his Presidency, and loved every minute of it, while Donald Trump was toasted as a great man during his first Presidency by the Saudi Arabian government, and loved every minute of it!

Both TR and Trump were born to wealth and in New York City, with TR in Manhattan, and Trump in Queens County, and with TR’s vacation home in Nassau County, Long Island, at Oyster Bay, and Trump’s vacation home in Palm Beach County, Florida at Mar a Lago.

As former Presidents running again for reelection in 1912 for TR and 2024 for Trump, both were victims of assassination attempts, with TR more seriously wounded than Trump, but both showing a defiant spirit at the time of their being victims.

Now, the massive differences between TR and Trump!

TR was our youngest President ever at age 42 and ten and a half months of age in September 1901, while Trump was our oldest inagurated President age 78 and 7 months in January 2025, and he will be the oldest President when he leaves office in 2029, surpassing Joe Biden in that statistic if it occurs.

TR believed in a need for a stronger, more engaged national government, challenging the conservative, laissez faire philosophy of the Republican Party, and proudly asserting he was a “progressive”.

Trump has declared “war” on the federal government, wanting to cut down the involvement of the national government in a wide variety of ways, promoting a return to state and local government control as in the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.

TR was the promoter of environmental reform and conservation of natural resources, regarded as the single most significant President in that area of policy.

Trump has made clear his desire to shut down most environmental and conservation efforts, and promote more drilling and more industrial use of natural resources, despite the reality of climate change and global warming. He is attempting to cut back on national parks, national conservation lands and national monuments in a dramatic fashion.

TR believed in the need for federal government regulation for consumers, regarding food and drug protection, while Trump has allowed himself to appoint a Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who is reckless and unstable, and has created great concerns about the protection of health for the American people.

TR promoted openmindedness on workers’s rights, while Trump has demonstrated that he is unconcerned about the average working man and the significance of labor unions.

TR believed in the concept of corporate regulation and responsibility, while Trump has the belief that corporations should not be regulated, and corporate taxes should be cut, both in his first term, and now in his second term. So TR utilized the anti trust laws, while Trump has not and will not do so.

TR and Trump both were involved in the issue of the Panama Canal, with TR promoting a revolution in the area of Colombia which broke away, became independent with US support, and agreed to the building of the Canal, while Trump is now promoting US takeover the Canal, which was given back by treaty in 1977 under Jimmy Carter, and returning to Panamanian control in the year 2000.

TR was aggressive in his relations with the rest of Latin America, promoting the “Big Stick” policy, with intervention in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, while Trump has created tensions in the entire Western Hemisphere, and including our Canadian neighbors to the North, as well as the nations south of the US.

TR cultivated good relations with Japan, while looking down on China, while Trump is being aggressive in his policies toward China, and ready to use tariffs against all nations, including those in Asia.

TR wanted good relations with Europe, particularly with Great Britain and France; was suspicious of Germany; and critical of Russia and its mistreatment of Jews and other minorities. Trump, on the other hand, seems ready to abandon NATO and our close alliances with Western democracies since World War II, and is cozying up with our traditional antagonist, the Russian Federation..

TR won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to negotiate the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War, while Trump is hoping for a Nobel Peace Prize by resolving the Russia-Ukraine War.

It is very clear that TR, were he alive today, would be a major critic of Donald Trump, and would have no issue in confronting him openly and “in his face”.

The question is how would Trump react to such scathing and extreme criticism!

The Republican Party And Russia From Joseph McCarthy To Donald Trump!

Ronald 18 Comments

The Republican Party has completely reversed its long held stand against Russian aggression, from the time of the Soviet Union’s founding in 1917; through its decline and collapse and the end of the Cold War in 1991; and through the rise of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation in the year 2000 to the present.

Whether Democratic or Republican administrations, the US Government has stood against the imperialism and expansionist urges of the Russian government for more than a century.

No longer though, now, as Donald Trump has embraced Vladimir Putin’s three year war on Ukraine, and called Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy a “dictator”, totally upending all reasonable assessments of the worst destruction and bloodshed in Europe since World War II and Nazi Germany.

Trump has hijacked the Republican Party, silencing most members of the party in the Congress and in the states, who have instead of doing the right thing, condemning Russia’s imperialism and threat to all of Europe and the NATO alliance, rather become the cheering squad for Trump’s destructive relationship with the western democracies, and his embrace of authoritarianism.

Despite the overall negative view of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led the Second Red Scare from 1950-1954, he was certainly right on the menace of the Soviet Union, while tragically destroying the reputations of many Americans in his quest for power and influence.

Richard Nixon was also a promoter of the Second Red Scare, along with a multitude of others, but the one consistency in the midst of horrendous abuse of their attack on Democrats, liberals, and decent Americans, there was recognition of the dangers of Communism and the Russian control of Eastern Europe and the desire to expand further.

But now, we see people in the Republican Party who know better, going along with Donald Trump’s destruction of the basic traditions of American foreign policy, in order to advance their own personal agenda and ambitions.

Now, we have Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State, keeping silent on what Trump is doing regarding Russia, and the same for other Cabinet Officers and House and Senate Republicans.

Only a few are willing to speak up and condemn the switch in attitude toward Russia, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Congressman Don Bacon from the Second District of Nebraska.

But Tillis and Bacon are in danger of being opposed for reelection by Elon Musk recruiting opponents, and most Republicans are unwilling to speak up, in fear of losing their seats, which is, sadly, more important than having any principles!

So the Republican Party is a disaster, with the old traditions thrown out, and instead, embracing a war criminal, Vladimir Putin, who was a KGB Spy in the latter years of the former Soviet Union!

It can be assured that Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and other hardline critics of Russia, are tossing in their graves!

Democrats Need To Go On The Offensive, Play Hardball, If They Are To Keep Control In Congress In 2022!

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The Democratic Party has a history of staying cordial, pleasant, and being unwilling to go on the offensive and play hardball.

The Republican Party, historically, and conservatives in general, are always on the offensive, play nasty and dirty, and love to stir emotions of fear and scare as regular tactics.

This was true even before the age of Donald Trump, using the words “Socialism”, “Communism”, “Liberalism”, and “Progressivism” as code words to keep uneducated and ill informed voters to support a party that only truly cares about corporations and the wealthy, and is excellent as “pulling the wool over one’s eyes”, about what is truth, facts, and reality.

From the age of Joseph McCarthy, through Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and on to Donald Trump, their strategy and tactics have been to manipulate and deceive Americans to think they are the true party of the average Americans, which is furthest from reality.

So Democrats must become more aggressive, and go on the attack, not just against Donald Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole, as a threat to American democracy and the rule of law.

And they must emphasize the details of what they are doing with their “Build Back Better” agenda, the most advanced programs since the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson.

The “Build Back Better” programs will have a dramatic effect on everyday life for tens of millions of Americans, long overdue to make the lives of average Americans along the lines of other Western democracies in Europe, Canada, and Australia!

The Economy Over Character And Morality: The Typical Trump Supporter

Ronald 59 Comments

It is very disconcerting that a large percentage of Donald Trump supporters admit they do not like his tweets; wish he would stop uttering a lot of his controversial comments and promotion of divisiveness; and yet still support him, all because of the stock market being up, and their 401 Ks being better, and many wealthy people getting massive tax cuts.

So economics, the evil of money, dominates them, and if Trump takes us into a war; or is destroying environmental laws; or undermining consumer protections; or is flirting with authoritarian leaders; or is destroying our traditional alliances with democracies; or is threatening civil liberties and civil rights; or is mistreating migrant children and undermining their physical and emotional health long term; or is out to destroy all regulations of corporate practices; or is turning our court system back to the Gilded Age; or is working to destroy all the good that came out of the New Deal of FDR and the Great Society of LBJ; well, that is not important as long as one’s economic prosperity is greater.

The fact that the economy being in good shape is due to the amazing revival under Barack Obama, and would most certainly have continued under Hillary Clinton, is often denied by such people. And they clearly do not give a damn what happens to the nation, as long as they, personally, are doing well economically. Nothing else matters, as this is a case of ME, MYSELF and I, and nothing else.

So character and morality and the harm being done to America does not matter as long as one is economically better off personally, so to hell with what is good for America!

What could be more despicable than that? But remember, a similar mentality existed in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and look what it led to!

Capital Punishment In Oklahoma And Arizona: Obscene, Barbaric And MUST End Nationally!

Ronald 2 Comments

The issue of capital punishment is always controversial, but with the reality that support for it is declining, and it is becoming much more difficult for states which allow capital punishment to gain the appropriate drugs to be administered, so as to avoid violation of the Eighth Amendment, “Cruel and Unusual Punishment”!

We have now witnessed the obscene and barbaric use of a mixed cocktail of drugs which set up what is barred–botched executions in Oklahoma a few weeks ago, and now today, in Arizona!

The inmate who was executed in Oklahoma took 40 excruciating moments to die, and today, it took two hours for the inmate in Arizona to die!

This is totally unacceptable, and the whole concept of capital punishment itself is despicable, and MUST end nationally, as it does not deter crime, and too many people are executed who have been on death row, a situation in which many have been exonerated of their crimes by DNA evidence!

But even if a criminal is truly guilty, the idea that America allows capital punishment when only a few nations do so, including China and Iran, makes us stand out as uncivilized, as compared to other western democracies in the world!

Governors Mary Fallin of Oklahoma and Jan Brewer of Arizona should be condemned for their hardline stand, amazing even more so in that to imagine women authorizing unconstitutional “experiments” with unknown cocktails of drugs is to make one wish to vomit!

It does not take courage, but rather lack of humanity, for these two GOP Governors to have allowed such a despicable example of violation of the Constitution of the United States!

Many Significant Anniversaries In 2014

Ronald 1 Comment

As we enter the year 2014, we are reminded that many significant anniversaries, that have affected America and the world at large, are being celebrated this year.

In 1689, 325 years ago, we had the Glorious Revolution in England, which ended absolute monarchy and established the rule of Parliament, and the promotion of the English Bill of Rights, all of which would become the model for the American Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

In 1789, 225 years ago, we had the French Revolution’s beginning, with its promotion of the concepts of liberty and equality, and it would affect the concept of revolutions in other nations over time, and also advocate the concept of popular sovereignty and democracy.

In 1914, 100 years ago, we saw the beginnings of the First World War, which would kill over 8 million people, bring about America’s first major international engagement, and lead to the rise of Communism in the Soviet Union, Fascism in Italy, and Nazism in Germany, all leading to World War II.

In 1939, 75 years ago, we had the beginnings of a war that caused even greater loss of life and property damage, World War II, and would see the horrors of the Holocaust, and the rise of America to leadership of the free world against the Soviet menace, and the beginnings of the Cold War.

In 1989, 25 years ago, we would see the end of the half century Cold War between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, led by the United States, with the Berlin Wall symbol, which had been built in 1961, suddenly coming to a dramatic end, and the liberation of the Eastern European nations which had been part of the Soviet Empire, followed by the fall of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.

We will see a lot of attention paid to these anniversaries this year, particularly the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War, as they have shaped so much of world history and American history in the past century!