YOU CANNOT CHANGE YOUR STRIPES

 

YOU CANNOT CHANGE YOUR STRIPES

 

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© November 6, 2020

 

 

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 – 1963) was 12 years old when Wall Street collapsed and The Great Depression commenced.  Joseph Kennedy his father, always thinking ahead of the economic curve, managed to come out of the sharp decline unscathed. 

Richard Milhous Nixon (1913 – 1994), a son of a father of much more modest circumstances, felt the full impact of the The Great Depression and was a contributing factor to how he embraced his life.  He was 16 at the time of the Wall Street crash.

JFK in a moment of brutal candor was once asked by a reporter if there was anything in his life he would have liked to change.  Kennedy responded that if he could he would have liked to have changed his religion, his parents and his wife. 

Nixon, small and frail as a youth, still played the big guy sports such as football in high school with a gusto.  He also embraced his studies with the same vigor, graduating with honors from Whittier College in California, and third in his class at Duke University in North Carolina.  At Duke he was known as “iron butt” for his ability to study for hours at the library without getting up once to take a pee. 

Always anxious to the point of paranoia, Nixon with law student colleagues broke into the Dean’s Office to see his grades before they were posted and they were caught.  Watergate, the scandal that would humble his presidency, revealed the same anxiety and paranoia he displayed at university, although he would win reelection with a decisive majority of the Electoral College Vote as well as of the popular vote.

Nixon, a Republican and Kennedy a Democrat were friends in the US Senate.  They would run against each other in 1960 for the presidency, which Kennedy won.  However, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was alleged to have stuffed the ballot box with thousands of suspect votes necessary for Kennedy to carry the State of Illinois which he needed to win the election.

Republicans pleaded with Nixon to seek a recount which he refused.   

Kennedy and Nixon were Great Depression children at opposite ends of the food chain but equal in decency and maturity.

Now, we have President Donald J. Trump (born 1946) and his people pointing to outrageous larcenies in the counting of ballots in many states.  No doubt this is true but it is academic.  

The president has lost the election, and he lost it many months ago by his “spoiled brat” behavior.  Yes, he was one of my “spoiled brats” born between 1945 and 1965.  That generation has created the legacy that is now endemic to our American society, which is so because ethics no longer matter; what is of concern now is only what is legal. 

When I was a chemist, I learned that one of the protocols of research was to find ways to circumvent the patent restrictions of a product of another company’s patent, whereas in business, and yes, politics, too, it has been a cadre of lawyers whose primary function is to keep a company in business by staying within the perimeters of what is legal but not necessarily ethical no matter how absurd that might be.

Now, back to the “spoiled brat” in terms of the present political climate.  If anyone has worked with or for a person who can be so described as a "spoiled brat," they know that that person’s behavior resembles much of the behavior of our president over the past four years.  

Yes, President  Trump has done some significant good things, but he has never been in control, not of himself, not of his emotions, and certainly not of the situation, most recently of the coronavirus.  He constantly played into the hands of his distractors as if he were a puppet on a string, and that includes the scientific community of the CDC and beyond, professionals who have been as ambivalent as the president has been erratic.  

President Trump has obviously not understood that presidential leadership is largely symbolic, and that whatever a president says, no matter the medium or the context, has telling consequences.  

The Executive Office of the President of the United States is never about the holder of the office, never about his private agenda, and certainly never meant as a bully pulpit for him to say whatever comes into his mind to say including how lucky we all are to have him as president.  It is an office for the voters to cue in on what is best for the country by how they behave as workers, citizens and members of their community.

The president’s supporters may raise $60 to 100 million to contest the election results, but that will change nothing.  President Trump lost a second term a long time ago with his tweets and bombast, and I voted for him.

“Spoiled brats” don’t understand that we can think for ourselves; that we can tell when the other side is lying; when they are promising everything including the kitchen sink and it is at the expense of our liberty and individualism; and we can see through the rhetoric of a candidate who says, “this is not about me, this is not about you, this is about us.” 

Both Republicans and Democrats have been irresponsible and engaged childlike in gridlock and perennial polarity you might say since WWII, when capitalism got drunk with its power and has had a hangover ever since.  Eric Hoffer has got it about right.

Hoffer writes:

Capitalism is in trouble because of its belief that everyone can take care of himself. It does not know how to help those who cannot help themselves. On the other hand, socialism is in trouble because it believes that no one can take care of himself (Before the Sabbath, pp. 79-80).

This election has revealed our mortal and venial sins.  Let us hope we will get beyond our “spoiled brat” culture and find absolution.