When I was a kid, my grandparents had all sorts of books and magazines dating back decades, including to the early sixties. I remember seeing all sorts of images of a young President John F. Kennedy during the "Camelot" days of the White House years. Here was a man on top of the world. He was seemingly young and handsome, witty and thoughtful, and had a beautiful family. He held the most powerful office that the world had ever known, yet seemed to handle it with grace and almost ease.
In short, it felt like he was, at that time, the very embodiment of how the United States wanted to see itself. Indeed, those days were idyllic for the most powerful nation in the world. The United States enjoyed the highest standard of living that the world had ever known, and was the envy of the rest of the world for other reasons, as well. After all, it was the leading superpower, by far, with a cultural, political, military, and economic influence that extended beyond what any country or empire had ever known before. On top of that, the nation had been regarded as playing a heroic role in both World War I and especially in World War II, when it had at least helped liberate much of the world from tyrannical military forces from Europe to northern Africa to Asia and the Pacific.
To sum up, the years when John F. Kennedy sat in the Oval Office marked a high point for the United States, on almost every level. Not only could Americans feel good about their past and their present standing in the world, but they could look towards a promising future boldly. After all, there was no indication that all of that was about to change.
Of course, change it did. Kennedy was shot, and wild conspiracies began to swirl regarding the rather bizarre circumstances surrounding his assassination. Even to this day, the official account of his assassination by the Warren Commission has never been believed by a majority of Americans. Lyndon Johnson scored some real victories during his presidency, at least domestically. He fought a war on poverty and made advances with his "Great Society" programs. Official racial segregation ended with sweeping civil rights legislation which Johnson forcibly made sure passed and became the law of the land. Still, the civil rights struggle had it's ugly side, and images of peaceful protesters being attacked by police with dogs and hoses did not exactly make Americans feel especially proud of what was going on.
Yet, the Vietnam conflict overshadowed all of that. That further eroded American trust of government and "official accounts" of the truth of things. There were antiwar protests, and some of those turned very violent, such as in Chicago in 1968 and at Kent State in 1970, and the whole world was watching. The Nixon campaign of 1968 promised "peace with honor" and Nixon himself had claimed to have a secret plan. Instead, his administration escalated the war before eventually drawing American military forces out of that country. Meanwhile, the Pentagon Papers revealed the five consecutive presidential administrations had lied about Vietnam. By the end of that disastrous conflict, it was probably no stretch to suggest that it was the biggest foreign policy disaster in American history to that point.
Then, of course, came the Watergate scandal. Yet more proof that a sitting president was lying and abusing his power. Plus, his swearing and private behavior seemed very unpresidential. So in just a little over one decade's time, the young and seemingly innocent, rather naive days of being able to regard the presidency as a "Camelot" worthy of Arthurian legend was replaced with far grimmer realities, and a nation more polarized than it had been since the Civil War.
There were artificial attempts to unify the nation. Reagan ushered in flag waving and nationalism like never before. Yet his "trickle down" economic policies actually set the nation on a course where inequality and growing economic uncertainty for a growing number of Americans have become the norm. His successor George H.W. Bush pretty much continued those policies, and Bill Clinton more or less continued many of those policies, such as deregulating the banks and privatizing the prison system, thus assuring that more and more people would be imprisoned for non-violent offences. Scandals under Reagan had allowed him to be dubbed the "Teflon President" because he seemed to survive them with hardly a scarcth politically, but then Clinton seemed to replace him when he survived scandals to such an extent that people now referred to him as the "real Teflon President."
Next up was George W. Bush. He ushered in a whole new wave of corporate scandals on a level never seen before, from Enron to Blackwater to Halliburton and "no bid contracts" in Iraq, the country which he initiated an undeclared war with. That war was based on lies and deceit and divided the nation arguably as much as it had been divided since the Vietnam era. There was Abu Ghraib and challenging the definition of what kind of torture could be allowed, and there was a seeming concentration camp on the Guantanamo Bay American military base in Cuba. Then, the economy was almost run to the ground from still more corporate scandals, which it seems Bush's lax regulations helped to facilitate.
Barack Obama came along and seemed to be the savior, calling for "hope and change" during his historical campaign. For once, there was seemingly unification and a good feeling prevailed in the nation. People even referred to his presidency as "Bamelot." However, all of that was short lived. The Republicans rose with the Tea Party, and soon criticisms of Obama seemed to veer away from policy and focused on his skin color, as he and his family were sometimes portrayed as a monkey or an ape. He was criticized for wearing a tan suit. Indeed, it felt like much of the criticism of Obama from the right was indeed fueled by racism. Yet, Obama's was hardly a dream presidency, even if those on the left were hesitant to criticize anything about it. In fact, he largely continued Bush's elitist economic policies, and also suspended habeas corpus, a constitutional right, in some cases. His surveillance policies towards allies got him in hot water with traditional friends. Let's not forget the drone strikes. Plus, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq dragged on throughout his presidency.
Then along came Donald Trump. He took all of these negatives to staggering new levels. The blatant incompetency of the Trump administration, both the first and the second ones, has become the stuff of nightmares. During his first term, Trump embarrassed the entire nation in front of the entire world, and was literally laughed at by world leaders when he mistook the United Nations General Assembly for a Trump rally. He had a difficult time condemning outright Nazis and white supremacists and referred to dozens of nations in Africa and Latin America as "shithole nations." His response to the coronavirus pandemic was an unparalleled failure, with the whole world watching.
Not surprisingly, he lost the 2020 election. Yet also equally unsurprising, he refused to concede. January 6th shocked the country, and Trump clearly was not as innocent as he claimed to be. He continued to spread the "Big Lie" of massive voter fraud. In 2022, he posted on his Truth Social that parts of the Constitution might need to be suspended. He seemed not to back down to charges that he was or aspired to be a dictator. Still, Americans rewarded all of this by giving him another four years in the Oval Office.
Now, it is mid-May. He has not been back in power even four months, but it feels much, much longer. The economy has tanked, much like it did during his first term. His tariff policy seems uncalled for and unnecessarily chaotic and unstructured, and most people credit it for damaging the economy to the tune of trillions of dollars lost. His fixations of trying to start fights - also unprovoked - with traditional allies, such as Canada and Denmark and the rest of the EU, as well as with Japan, South Korea, and China - and with almost every country in the world, in fact, with his recent across the board tariff policy - has once again compromised the image and standing of the United States. On top of all of that, he just accepted a $400 million luxury jet gift "of love" from Qatar, which shows the entire world how personally empty and blatantly corrupt he really is.
However, we Americans collectively put him in office for another four years, and there's still three years and eight months left of all of this nonsense. In short, there is no end in sight. So even though more and more Americans are coming to their sense and recognizing that Trump and his administration are bad news, it hardly matters. We're stuck with him for still almost four years. Frankly, I am not sure that he will not win another election and serve a third term. Wish I was kidding, but I'm not.
Polls show not only how unpopular Trump is, but also how little faith they have in the economy. Things have been growing more and more expensive. And while Trump promised, as a candidate, to lower prices of groceries and gas "on Day One," the prices have only increased, mostly again because of his tariff policies. The country feels more polarized than it has been in my lifetime, and this might be the most polarized the nation has been since the Civil War. In fact, there has been a lot of talk about the potential for yet another civil war.
So it seems undeniable to most people with any level of objectivity and intelligence that the United States has fallen considerably. It saddens me to think that one of the main symbols of this decline is associated with the name Kennedy, once associated only with a seeming youthful idealism and success. Now, when we think of a prominent member of the Kennedy family in the higher levels of government, it is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. But unlike his famous father, who was almost president, or his famous uncle, who actually was once president, this Kennedy is not young, and hardly seems to symbolize idealism or success. In fact, he has become a very symbol of Trump's tendency to pick seemingly exactly the wrong person for certain powerful government positions, who seem intent on destroying the agencies which they head.
Recently, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said something rather astonishing during a House Appropriations Committee hearing. He admitted that he did not believe that "people should be taking advice, medical advice, from me."
That's a rather astonishing thing for someone in his position. And it seems to me as much of an indicator of just how far the country has fallen in a surprisingly short period of time. Much like Trump has disgraced the country and compromised the once prestigious presidency, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has disgraced his family, which once seemed to embody the youthful idealism and success of a nation riding high on it's own successes.
Perhaps the most symbolic sign of all is that while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now ranks as the highest ranking member of a Whit House administration since his own father back in the mid-sixties, many members of his family are speaking out against him. In fact, some of the most discrediting information about RFK Jr. has come from his family. Even the Kennedy clan is divided as never before.
Things just keep getting worse.
Unfortunately, that's something which this version of the United States has grown far too used to. Isn't it?
Below is the Facebook post by NJ.com from May 14, 2025, which got me on this particular topic:
NJ.com Facebook post, May 14, 2025:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1108677284636056&set=a.373809851456140
No comments:
Post a Comment