JFK's Inspiration & Trump's MAGA Legacy
61 years later JFK still inspires; Trump/MAGA damage will take decades to repair
In October 1962, my family lived in Van Meter, Iowa, a small farm town then, population about 300, just west of Des Moines. It would eventually grow into a sprawling, virtual suburb of Des Moines, but it wasn’t that yet in October 1962.
I attended the Fourth Grade in Van Meter’s elementary school that year. Elementary classes met in the same red brick building as the junior high and high school. A grand wood and glass trophy case - a gift of the school’s most famous alum, pitcher Bob Feller - who had just been inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame that summer - proudly displayed the school’s athletic trophies in an upstairs hallway.
John F. Kennedy was the President of the United States and was nearing the completion of his second year in the White House.
I had just discovered politics during the 1960 Kennedy vs Nixon election campaign, at about the level most other 7 year olds notice campaigns. To me, they were mostly about campaign jingles on TV, brightly colored buttons, balloons, bumper stickers and parades.
In October, 1962, however, my education about politics and government rapidly reached a deeper level. I watched the winer of the 1960 election - Kennedy - govern in very difficult times. I didn’t know about, and certainly didn’t understand, everything but one thing I did understand was that America was in big trouble in October, 1962.
The Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Soviet Union and the United States faced each other - “eyeball to eyeball,” in the words of the Secretary of State at the time, Dean Rusk - on the brink of nuclear war.
I was terrified the world was about to end in a giant nuclear fireball, but also amazed and comforted by the calm, cool, decisive leadership Kennedy showed in dealing with the crisis.
I watched Kennedy address the nation on national television, the speech where he announced a military blockade of Cuba, where Russia was placing nuclear missiles.
When he was done, I immediately went to my room, sat down, and wrote him a letter.
I told him I knew he had a “big problem on his hands,” and I wanted to help. I offered to go to Moscow to talk to “Mr. K” - I didn’t know how to spell Nikita Khrushchev - Kennedy’s antagonist in this crisis and the Premier of the Soviet Union. I figured, however, that the President would know who I meant.
I volunteered to tell “Mr. K” how deadly nuclear war could be to the whole planet and that no one should want a nuclear war. “Maybe he’d believe it if he heard it from a kid,” I advised the President.
When I finished the letter, I asked my Mom for an envelope and a stamp. She gave me both without asking why I wanted them. I carefully folded my letter, slipped it in the envelope, affixed the stamp, and then ran “uptown” and dropped my letter in the mail box at Van Meter’s post office that same dark night.
I was back from the post office before my Mom missed me, which allowed her to remain blissfully unaware that her Fourth Grade son had just written to the President, volunteering to go to Russia to solve the Cuban Missile Crisis.
That letter to JFK is actually a longer and bigger story. I’ll save it for another day, but I one thing I will share is that I did get a letter from the White House in response, written by a member of the President’s National Security staff - on the President’s behalf no less. He thanked me for the offer, and graciously let me know that I didn’t actually need to go to Russia. This was a big relief. I had seen enough World War II movies and TV shows to know what happens to people caught behind enemy lines in wartime. That could be me if my mission didn’t go well and war broke out.
That experience - watching the world teeter on the brink of nuclear war; watching the President wrestle with that crisis; volunteering to help him solve it. They all left lasting impressions on me.
First, deep admiration for the President and his staff who got us out of that crisis - keeping us all alive, and the Earth intact.
Second, the importance of public service. Public servants are the folks who figure out how to solve real problems. Sometimes giant problems, I now realized.
Other kids in Van Meter may have wanted to grow up and be the Pope, play for the New York Yankees or Bob Feller’s Cleveland baseball team.
I now wanted to grow up to be President.
Kennedy’s skillful handing of the crisis filled me with pride, gratitude and most importantly, inspiration for public service.
Two years later, I was inspired again. The nation was struggling with the issue of civil rights. There were deep divisions throughout the country, and between the two parties. Even within the two political parties. But I watched slow but steady progress on the evening news as Democrats and Republicans came together and enacted major, landmark civil rights reforms. Sure there were deep differences between them, but President Lyndon Johnson, Senate Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey, and Republican Senate Leader Everrett Dirksen found a path to pass those bills, making the country both more just and more strong.
They got it done. Together. Both parties working toward the greater good, even if they had different definitions of what the “greater good” was and different opinions on how to get there.
It was deeply inspiring to watch all this as a kid.
That is the world of politics and government in which I grew up.
What do kids growing up today see? Kids like that little boy in Fourth Grade, in Van Meter in October 1962? They see this:
A sitting President (Trump) who tried to overthrow our own government, told 30,000+ documented lies in office, and lined his pockets by grifting millions of tax dollars.
A former President (Trump) who stole and hid classified documents; has been criminally indicted 91 times in four jurisdictions; and who jams so much inaccurate name calling into most sentences that he sounds like a junior high bully.
TV news shows choked with updates on the crimes and pending trials of not only the former President (Trump) but much of his staff, including his Chief of Staff (Mark Meadows) and a laundry list of others.
A Republican Party that no longer even pretends to govern or support democracy but has taken a hard turn toward authoritarianism and fascism; and regularly threatens violence or government shut downs to get their way.
A Republican Party that now focuses on its own resentments, race baiting, destabilizing the institutions of democracy, attacking education, bullying school kids with policies that put them in danger, corrupting the courts, lies and impeachment for sport to the exclusion of virtually everything else.
A Republican Party base that now routinely threatens violence against people with whom they disagree, even their own party’s elected officials.
Of course there is much more Republican rot and corruption. I could fill up ten entire columns with an accounting of it and still not get to even half of it.
The tragedy of Donald Trump and the Republican Party that has gathered around him - at all levels - is that this is what now passes as normal for them. This is how their leaders - and increasingly, party members, behave. This is what leadership - the trust of public office - is now all about for them.
An entire generation, maybe two, of young people who one day will be running our government are getting a very warped idea of what is expected of, and acceptable from, public servants.
This is going to take Republicans years - decades likely - to reverse and repair, if that is even possible and if they even want to fix it. There’s precious little evidence that today’s Republicans do.
Thi is Trump’s legacy. This is the MAGA crowd legacy. This is the legacy of today’s Republican Party.
It is also the legacy of cowardly Republicans who won’t speak up and fight to save their own party.
Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) - the Republican nominee for President just 11 years ago - said this week, essentially, that he’s had it. He won’t run for re-election.
He also told a biographer that a “large portion” of the Republican Party “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” And that some Republican Senators fear for their life and safety - and that of their family as well - at the hands of the base of their own party, even though they know full well, and admit in private, that their party has gone off the rails and is now in dangerous territory. Big time. They still don’t speak up. They still don’t fight to reclaim the soul of the Republican Party.
Welcome to the new normal for future Republican leaders.
Because, at least among today’s Republican leaders, there’s not a JFK, LBJ, a Humphrey or Dirksen among them. Maybe Romney could have been, but his party ran him out of town just like it did Liz Cheney (R-WY).
The leadership and record of President Biden and Democrats in Congress hasn’t been perfect. It should be noted, however, not many in politics or government ever get to perfect. Judging by historical standards, however, their work - and results - have been pretty spectacular.
It certainly measures up quite nicely against the destruction of democracy, the sabotaging of America, the politics of resentment and a new fatherland for fascism which seems to be what today’s Republicans have in mind.
Any reason for hope or inspiration in that?
Thanks, Barry. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and the fear we all had. I remember the calm in President Kennedy's voice. That was leadership - he was surrounded by good and thoughtful people who led. I cannot tell you how impressed I am that your wrote a letter offering to go to Russia to help - budding leadership!
I also remember the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the hope that Act offered. But LBJ warned us that the Democratic Party had lost the South for at least a generation and that has become the reality of today. Nixon had his "southern strategy" to stoke the anger. During his first campaign Reagan gave a speech about state's rights at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi which is near the site of the murders of the young men who were trying to register Black voters to vote in 1964 - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Another "soft" stoking of the anger, and then George HW Bush had Lee Atwater, 'nuff said. The Reagan administration went on to pass policies that espoused "trickle down economics" which began the rapid transfer of wealth to the top and the destruction of the middle class. In spite of all of the good things these presidents did in total, which included honest efforts at immigration reform, the fuse of resentment was lit by this republican party and Trump unapologetically started the dumpster fire that haunts our country to this day. And no one, no one, in the leadership of the republican party has tried to rise above any of this. Mitt Romney? I wish, but the truth has, to date, not set any of these people free.
The politicians who have tried and succeeded to make a difference in the lives of the people who need a hand up? Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. The work of Presidents Clinton and Obama was undone by republican administrations that followed their terms and the undoing of President Biden's work to help people who need a hand up is currently being undone by a pack of local yokels in the House. Are these perfect men in a perfect party? Hardly, but it is amazing what can be accomplished when you aren't trying to convince the public that you are a perfect "christian" person who talks constantly about family values. When will the people who work so hard and have so little to show for it understand that the republican party no longer exists to help anyone but rich people, corporations, and the NRA. Someone once said the "genius" of Karl Rove was that he could get the people who live in the trailer parks to vote for tax cuts for the millionaires. More's the pity.
I too grew up with the threat of nuclear war and the fear it left me with, being poor, although I didn't really know it until much later, it appeared we were in for a wild ride and there was nothing we, as citizens could really do, beyond stick our head between our legs and kiss our asses goodbye! That really hasn't changed much over the years that I have been alive. I appreciate your awareness of the situation as you saw it then, but I was slightly older, and Vietnam colored my view point completely in short order. I honestly will admit I hated the military and the fastest way out was an early out from Vietnam. So once I was sent there, I stayed till I would never have to return. What I saw was what Eisenhower had feared, the military/industrial complex gone mad! At the time, Vietnam was America's longest war, but has been sub-planted by even more horrific war in the middle east that I am still not sure we had any business going there in the first place. To be honest, I certainly am not convinced what happened in New York wasn't a false flag operation that killed 3,000 people needlessly.
At the moment, it would seem, Democrats are less guilty than Republicans for the ciaos in government, but they too are just as guilty of similar atrocities that are less apparent, but equally bad. Obama suddenly changed his mind about closing Guantanamo, he quickly put an end to even more report of misconduct by interrogators and CIA people when even more photos were about to come out and finally the bombing of Libya which set back what little progress there was in North Africa by doing away with Kaddafi. We are ruled by greed and money, and especially Corporate money, which finds ways to make money at everybody's expense, simply because their only reason to exist is to do just that, make money. Campaign contributions are simply the cost of doing business, and no party can help themselves to not taking this cash and doing these peoples business for them and with them. They have gotten so used to it, having the government fund elections is not even a point of discussion, it would be like trying to talk and addict into going cold turkey for his or her own good, it just doesn't happen! So just watch and see if Biden doesn't approve of CO2 pipelines, and give millions away to these bastards that are simply going to push out more oil for the effort and continue making more CO2 that won't be captured! They simply don't care what happens so long as they make money and they can afford a few politicians on the legal take to get it accomplished, they don't care who they are or what party they are from.
People are so fed up with what they see (you can thank Fox News) they would flush the whole mess down a toilet and simply want to start over. Unfortunately if that happens we are in for a real surprise and it won't be good! The little things that have happened to set this in motion have been on the Democrats watch and they didn't stop them in their tracks. Requiring news to simply tell the truth, that law was dumped! Now the news tells us all kinds of things that are often at best half truths and many times out and out lies! When GNP grows, it grows fastest for the richest people at the expense of those who made it happen. Watch and see how long these strikes go on, that will tell the real story on who has to cry uncle first and it won't be the corporate heads, not by a long shot!
There are a thousand different ways this happens and what used to be called "democracy" is such a fairytale! People genuflect over the flag and the Pledge of Allegiance, they stand for the Star spangled Banner at football games like all this is important, but can't get out from behind their TV to vote! Even if they do vote, they had little to do with picking who really is running once you get beyond the School Board and the city council. So who really is the person they are voting for and can he be trusted? Nobody knows!
So the story you started with continues unabated. We are still fearful of not being able to afford a place to live, or the money for food, or keeping our job, or a million other things that will do us much more long term harm than an atomic bomb that takes out everyone, rich and poor alike! As if the rich would stand for that!