World War II

Six And A Half Months To Most Crucial Presidential Election Since 1940

Ronald 5 Comments

We are facing this November the fifth most crucial Presidential election in American history.

Every Presidential election matters, of course, and in the midst of each campaign, there are those who will think it is the most important event ever to occur.

But in reality, the number of times that an election has been truly “crucial” is limited to what this author and blogger believes are only a few times.

Those few elections that have been crucial to the extreme would include, chronologically the following:

Election of 1860, a four way race, with the Civil War seen as on the horizon, and Abraham Lincoln winning with only 39.8 percent of the vote, over Stephen Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and John Bell.

Election of 1864, in which Lincoln defeated former General George McClellan, at a crucial time in the Civil War.

Election of 1932, in which the nation was at its lowest economic point in history, with the failure of Herbert Hoover, and the alternative of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal.

Election of 1940, when America faced the danger of Fascism in the world, but isolationism reigned, and Franklin D. Roosevelt faced a businessman with no government experience, Wendell Willkie, as the world was engaged in World War II.

Now, in 2020, we face a CoronaVirus Pandemic; a collapsed economy worse than any time since the Great Depression; and a crazed, dangerous President who should have been removed from office for abuse of power, and instead is, effectively, taking the nation over the brink of the cliff that it is facing at this time!

So just as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt came to the rescue, each of them twice, now Joe Biden and his female running mate face the challenge of the greatest crisis in 80 years, and we have to hope he can gather the strength, courage, and decisiveness of Lincoln, FDR, and other great Presidents, including Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama in difficult moments in their Presidencies!

Donald Trump Should Be Charged With Negligent Homocide For His Horrific Handling Of CoronaVirus Crisis!

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Donald Trump every day adds to his reputation as the absolutely worst President in American history, and the nightmare of his horrific handling of the CoronaVirus Pandemic only adds to the destruction of his name in the long run of history.

It is so bad now, with 32,000 deaths in the last five weeks, and Trump proving totally incapable of crisis leadership.

Trump has shown no awareness of the massive loss of life, and has the total inability to have compassion, empathy, or a sense of common decency, as he sees it all as an opportunity to assert his absolute authority, even though he has no clue as to how to deal with this most significant crisis in the past 75 years since World War II and the Great Depression.

By all rights, Donald Trump should be removed from office right now, be arrested and charged with involuntary homicide or manslaughter, and face the death penalty by law.

But our weak, ineffective Vice President, Mike Pence, is too much of a slavish sycophant, and the cabinet is the most corrupt, incompetent such group in American history.

So we will have to suffer through eight and a half more months of this nightmare, but once upon leaving office, the Trump family and Trump enablers all need to face legal consequences, not be pardoned or excused for the crimes they have committed.

75th Anniversary Of Death Of FDR: A President We Need Desperately Now In 2020 And Into 2021!

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Today is the 75th Anniversary of the death of the greatest 20th Century President, Franklin D. Roosevelt!

Other than Abraham Lincoln, no President matches the significance and impact of FDR!

Of course, there are naysayers, and as a scholar and author of a book on the New Deal, and having taught about FDR and the New Deal for decades, it is clear that there were faults and shortcomings in the FDR record in both domestic and foreign policy!

But the reality is that FDR came to office at the worst time since the Civil War, and while the Great Depression did not end until World War II, millions were helped by FDR New Deal policies, and he saved the nation from total collapse, as was happening under his predecessor, Herbert Hoover.

A person such as FDR is needed now, at a time when the situation is the worst for America since the Great Depression and World War II!

The question is can Joe Biden be the savior for the next four years, since he will be 78 two weeks after the Presidential Election of 2020.

Many will see Joe Biden as having possible signs of dementia, but this blogger and author has observed and listened to him, and while he has his “moments” of sounding a bit silly or clueless, can anyone really say that Donald Trump sounds less silly or clueless?

In fact, Trump daily seems much more dangerous, as his personality and viewpoints on all issues domestic and foreign, is horrific!

And if one looks back at Lincoln and FDR, Lincoln had definite issues with depression and circulatory issues with his health, and FDR had polio and bouts with poor health in his last few years. And yet, they both led brilliantly under the strains of their times!

Biden has elements of decency, compassion, sincerity, humanity, empathy, and a genuinely kind personality, and he has always been this way. Joe is loved by many because he is real, not a phony. That does not mean everything he has ever said or done is perfect, far from it!

But elections are choices, and Joe is far superior to Donald Trump in personality, but also in experience, knowledge, work ethic, and willingness be considerate in what he utters and actions he takes!

And let’s face it, either Biden or Trump could become incapacitated or die during the next term, as it has been a long time, nearly six decades since a President died, and five decades since a President left office during a term. This is longer than at any time in American history since 1841 to 1974, when we had a total of eight Presidential deaths and one Presidential resignation, so in a sense, we are overdue.

So the key issue is not whether either Biden nor Trump make it to the end of the term, but rather does one prefer a woman VP or Mike Pence to be the 47th President of the United States, which may be the end result sometime during the term!

Any sane, decent person would say the former would be preferable!

America Likely To Lose More In CoronaVirus Pandemic Of 2020 Than All Wars In American History!

Ronald 12 Comments

America is about to witness the greatest loss of life in our history in a short time, over the next six months!

The death toll from the CoronaVirus Pandemic is already on the way to being the greatest of any nation in the world, with Donald Trump being responsible for a delay in reaction to the realities of medicine and science!

And when one looks at death statistics of all of our wars since 1775, it is truly sobering to realize we are likely to see more loss of life in 2020 than in all of America’s conflicts combined!

Witness the following statistics on deaths in wartime, using the information available from varying sources and in many cases, rounded off as impossible to be precise on figures:

American Revolutionary War 4,435

War Of 1812 2,260

Indian Wars (1817-1898) approx 1,000

Mexican War 1,733

Civil War both Union and Confederate 750,000

Spanish American War 385

Philippine-American War 4,196

World War I 116,000

World War II 405,000

Korean War 54,000

Vietnam War 58,000

Persian Gulf War 383

Iraq War 4,500

Afghanistan War 2,200

This adds up to 1,404,092 as rough figures, so over 1.4 million deaths.

Now we are told by Donald Trump and others, if we are “lucky”, we will lose “only” a range of 100,000 to 240,000 people, meaning greater than all wars except the Civil War and World War II!

But the dire prediction is that America could lose up to 2.2 million people, worst scenario, more than 50 percent higher than all wars combined!

The higher estimated figure would mean about two thirds of one percent of Americans could die in 2020, higher than all wars, except the Civil War, where it is estimated that 2 percent of Americans died.

And realize, this loss of life is within one year, not multiple years of war!

The Civil War created, no joke, a man shortage compared to women that was not overcome until immigration numbers promoted a balance of men and women. Many women never married as a result, and became, instead, teachers, social workers, nurses and other occupations that put them in contact regularly with children, just not their own..

Another statistic is deaths per day in wartime, with the highest estimate being 520 in the Civil War, 297 in World War II, and 279 in World War I. We will sadly surpass these numbers as this pandemic rages!

Donald Trump’s Insecurities And Ego Preventing Stable Leadership In Crisis Times!

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Donald Trump’s insecurities and ego are preventing him from acting and speaking in a stable manner, so is endangering the United States reaction to the CoronaVirus Pandemic sweeping the world, and having its most deleterious effect in America!

If President Abraham Lincoln, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, or President John F. Kennedy had conducted themselves in a similar manner in their moments of crisis, the US would have lost the Civil War to the Confederate States of America; the US would have been unable to prevent the rise of Fascism in the Great Depression and World War II; and the nation would have likely had a nuclear war with the Soviet Union in the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, slaughtering tens of millions of its citizens!

With 2,000 dead, doubling in two days, and having the most deaths of any nation, we are hampered by an inconsistent and dangerous President, who has no clue how to deal with this health crisis, the greatest since the Spanish Flu epidemic of a century ago!

One would have to believe that this sad demonstration of weak and unstable leadership will cause the defeat of Donald Trump in November. If somehow he wins, the nation would be in doom, as far as any progress toward reversing the tremendous damage done by this maniac, this disgrace of a human being, with no positive points to be made about his personality or policies!

America On The Road To Massive Loss Of Lives, As Trump Promotes “Return To Normal” In Midst Of CoronaVirus Pandemic, Which Is Unabating!

Ronald 8 Comments

President Donald Trump will go down in history as having incited a massive loss of life by his stubborn insistence that America “return to normal” and go back to work by Easter Sunday.

Every scientist and other experts makes it clear that the CoronaVirus Pandemic will continue to escalate, and that promoting a return to normality will be totally disastrous!

Trump is putting the economy ahead of human life! State Governors of both parties are doing a great job while Donald Trump falters in a moment of crisis!

This is unconscionable, when really, what Trump should do, is resign and let Mike Pence, who at least is handling himself quite well at the moment, deal with the crisis, as Trump does not have a clue on how to deal with this!

Trump only wants success for his ego, not what is good for the nation!

He will preside over a greater loss of life than since World War II, and possibly the Civil War!

The Self Styled “War Time” President: Greatest Economic Collapse Since 1929, And 32 Percent Drop In Less Than A Month, Back To When Barack Obama Left Office!

Ronald 18 Comments

So here we are in mid March, less than a month after the all time high on the Stock Market, and we have just witnessed the greatest collapse since 1929, a 32 percent drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other measurements of the stock market.

So now we are back to what the stock market was on the day that Barack Obama left office, after the greatest economic recovery in American history, greater than Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had to count on World War II to end the Great Depression totally!

Obama presided over a 250 percent increase in the stock market, and an unemployment rate left to him by George W. Bush and the Great Recession of 10 percent unemployment, which was lowered to 4.7 percent when he left office.

But of course, Donald Trump would never give credit to the “black man” for anything, so it is just desserts that his raving about the great performance on the stock market and in the unemployment rate, added on to what Obama had accomplished, is now totally gone!

And now, Donald Trump has the gall and nerve to call himself a “wartime President”, when he evaded the military draft with a fake medical letter claiming he had “bone spurs”>

This was Trump’s major argument for his reelection–the “great, fantastic” economy, and now it is gone! Meanwhile, Trump has done tremendous damage in a multitude of ways, and he is insured of being the absolutely worst President in American history!

There are now projections that the unemployment rate will skyrocket, maybe to an unheard of 20 percent, which would be by far the worst since the 1930s!

If Trump had any principles and decency, he would resign today as a total failure, and the only reason he will not do so is that he would face prosecution for his crimes, and hopes to avoid that.

America must defeat Trump, and send him as an indicted felon into a court of law, with just desserts being imprisonment for the rest of his natural life, but not stop there, but also go after his children and son in law, and all of the crooked people who worked for him and brought about the disaster, ongoing, of the Trump Presidency!

We Are Now In The Greatest Crisis Since World War II!

Ronald 22 Comments

It is time for all Americans to reckon with reality!

America, and really the entire world, is immersed in the greatest crisis since World War II!

Since there are very few Americans or human beings who can recall in detail what World War II did to the world, this is for almost all people a unique situation.

What we need now in America is a Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, but instead, we have Donald Trump and “Make America Great Again!”

How America and the world at large will deal with this, short term and long term, is still unsettled.

At the least, all of us need to recognize sacrifices will be necessary, and the basic one to start with is to stay home, hunker down, as we try to flatten the curve of the ultimate rise in Covid-19 cases!

Donald Trump Insured Of Being Ranked Worst President Ever, As He Totally Fails In Crisis Management!

Ronald 21 Comments

The issue of Crisis Management is a crucial one in judging Presidential leadership, as what matters more than that in judging a President, or a governor of a state or a mayor of a city, all executive positions where the population depends on the abilities, skills, compassion, and empathy of such leaders.

So on that factor alone, Donald Trump is insured of being ranked the worst President ever, as he totally has failed in the present CoronaVirus Crisis, which may end up considered the greatest crisis since the Great Depression, World War II, and the Civil War!

Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan were unable to handle the issue of division between the North and the South over slavery in the 1850s, helping to lead to the Civil War.

Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding were totally incompetent in dealing with the issue of political corruption in the 1870s and the early 1920s.

Herbert Hoover was unable to resolve the crisis of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, as economic conditions worsened every month.

Andrew Johnson in the 1860s, Richard Nixon in the 1970s, and George W. Bush in the 2000s presided over governments that were highly inept and corrupt in so many ways.

But Donald Trump has been horrendous in all these way—inability to unite the nation in a crisis as with Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan; personally engaged in corruption in a wider way than Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, and Richard Nixon; disastrous policies on so many issues as with George W. Bush; and total ineptitude in a difficult time in national life, as with Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover.

So Trump, without any debate possible, will rank as the absolute worst President we have ever seen in American history! Let us hope that the nation will overcome the CoronaVirus epidemic in decent shape, without too much loss of life, and that no foreign foe takes advantage of our weaknesses to present a threat on the scale of September 11. 2001 or December 7, 1941!

Nine Months To The Most Urgent Election In American History!

Ronald 9 Comments

Nine months from today, November 3, is the most urgent election in American history, as America will never be the same if Donald Trump is reelected to a second term in the White House!

Yes, there have been other crucial elections, including 1860 (Abraham Lincoln); 1932 (Franklin D. Roosevelt); and 1940 (FDR).

These elections centered around the upcoming Civil War; the tragedy of the Great Depression at its lowest moment; and the upcoming US involvement in World War II.

But while the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II were all massive crises for America, we now face a true demagogue out of control after an impeachment trial in which much of the evidence and essential witnesses to the wrongdoing of Donald Trump were not permitted to be included, due to the corruption and abandonment of the oaths taken by Republican Senators to uphold the Constitution and rule of law.

The Republican Party has besmirched the historic reputation of the US Senate for all time, and have lost all credibility as a viable political party.

It is essential for the party to be soundly defeated in as many House and Senate races as possible, and for the total repudiation of Donald Trump, who will go down in history as the worst and most dangerous President we have ever had, having abandoned all common decency and respect for the law!

Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his transgressions, and for accountability under the law when he leaves the White House, having worsened the lives of tens of millions of Americans with his vindictive, lawless, and uncaring agenda!