In the summer of 1960 I was 22 and told I was the youngest reporter to be issued a Senate press card. I would sit for hours in the Senate gallery absorbing the nuanced give-and-take unfolding below me. Eisenhower was in his final months as president. Young John F. Kennedy was already the Democratic nominee to succeed him despite still trying to make his bones in the Senate.
Salons, so nicknamed for their courtly demeanor, chatted amicably with their neighbors across the aisle that divided the two parties. And when one rose to speak, it would be something like, “I respectfully disagree with the distinguished gentleman from the beautiful state of” (wherever).
One such snapshot still sticks in my mind. Kennedy is floor managing a bill to raise the minimum wage to $1.25 an hour. Leading the GOP resistance is Barry Goldwater, whose family owns department stores in Arizona. The debate is getting a bit testy when Kennedy jabs a zinger at the man who was already known as “Mister Conservative”.
“Surely your department stores already pay your people more than a buck and a quarter,” he says.
Goldwater sputters and stutters. Finally he answers, “Well of course.” But it’s already Game Over. Everyone in the chamber knows they don’t.
Now for my “snapshot.”
Minutes later Goldwater and Kennedy are standing just outside the Senate cloakroom door, laughing at private joke. Kennedy reaches inside of Goldwater’s suit jacket and produces a pack of gum. He unwraps one, starts chewing and tucks the package back in Goldwater’s pocket with a thank-you pat on the chest.
You had to be a friend to know where the gum was.
The hallowed tradition of dignity, decorum and civility flowed directly from the White House. It was simply expected. In 1947, when Harry Truman wrote an angry letter threatening to punch an entertainment critic who panned his daughter Margaret’s operatic arias on stage, it ignited How Dare He? headlines that took weeks to die down.
Now we slow forward to Trump. During his strut on the political stage, centuries of civility and collegiality have been shattered to the point where I worry that they can never be patched together.
Let’s set aside the convictions and pending court cases for now and take inventory of the many other assaults on America tradition:
1. The schoolyard taunts, the name calling – such a withering barrage that they’ve become impossible to count. You all know them, so let’s move on.
2. A president of the United States who woos a porn star, assaults a woman in a department store dressing room and brags about groping Miss America candidates backstage. They “don’t mind” because “I’m a star.” But you know all about this, too.
3. As a candidate Trump promises to disclose his tax returns like every other presidential hopeful before him. Eight years later, he still hasn’t.
4. Once elected, he eschews the blind trust tradition in which other presidents have placed their assets. Instead, he runs the Trump Organization from his living quarters above the Oval Office.
5. He puts his family on the government payroll. Illegal? Apparently not. Kennedy himself broke tradition when he made his brother Bobby attorney general. But Trump doubles down by making daughter Ivanka and husband Jared top White House staffers.
6. He operates a hotel right down Pennsylvania Avenue and lets it be known that it would be a fine thing for lobbyists to book events there. If you feel a need to get chummier,
you can pay $200,000 to join his Mar-A-Lago club in Palm Beach. Illegal? Don’t know. Tacky? Absolutely!
7. Speaking of tacky, he hawks products that line his pockets while demeaning the presidency. Step right up folks and Donald Barnum Trump will sell you golden sneakers, the Trump Terminator bobblehead, coins stamped with his Nero-like profile, and trading cards with the portly 78-year0old as an absurdly caped crusader. Need to feel nearer thy Trump to thee? You can fork out $46 for the Trump Bible with some special messages tucked between the Old and New Testaments. (There are many online sellers of Trump stuff; one of the busiest is The Trump Store, run directly for profit by The Trump Organization.)
8. After the 2020 election, Trump again shattered a hallowed bipartisan tradition when he refused to concede and then boycotted the Biden inaugural. Instead, he orchestrated a scam to “recount” electoral college votes and incited a mob to a riot at the Capitol that claimed human lives as it clambered to “hang Mike Pence.”
Does anyone truly believe that this unhinged megalomaniac will behave differently if elected again? We’ve already heard him vow to launch a military invasion of Mexico, round up illegal immigrants into mass detention centers and “drain the swamp” (which vaguely seems to mean federal employees who don’t follow his orders).
Here are two more public promises:
Trump is already vowing at his rallies to get on the phone with Vladimir Putin and “end the war in Ukraine” even before he takes office. In fact, he’s already bent the ear of Israel’s Netanyahu about how to stop the war in Gaza.
Has he forgotten that candidates are barred by law from meddling in government affairs before they are sworn into office? Apparently yes, because Michael Flynn, his newly-named national security director in 2016, had to resign after being caught negotiating with the Russian foreign affairs chief well before the inaugural.
Second clue: watch closely how a President Trump 2.0 would use Truth Social. For the first time, we have a candidate who owns his own social media platform. Until now one of America’s most inviolate traditions is that the independent press is the “Fourth Estate,” rigidly firewalled from the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. Vladimir Putin may control the Russian press with a heavy hand, but even he does not personally own a mass media outlet.
It’s scary that Trump is already using Truth Social to make major campaign announcements. As president, would he use his captive platform to issue important decisions while dozens of professional journalists are left to beg for scraps like dogs under the master’s feet?
We shouldn’t have to wait to find out. The best way to make America great again is to soundly trounce the one who has done more than anyone to drag us down by destroying our traditions of decency, dignity and civility.
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