news: war of the worlds: Move Over Hoover, make space for Donald Trump

news: war of the worlds: Move Over Hoover, make space for Donald Trump

Herbert Hoover was often mentioned in my family as I grew up in Savannah, Georgia, within the 1940s and 1950s. Grandmother Simmons had a picture of Roosevelt during an area of honor within the living room despite Grandfather's raging against FDR's encouragement of African-Americans (a term, by the way, my grandfather would never use). Grandma kept reminding us that Roosevelt saved them after they lost the family farm, moved to the town, and took my father out of college within the fourth grade to visit figure on a wagon delivering blocks of ice for quaint iceboxes. Hoover's name was never mentioned except to remind us that "he caused Depression ."

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I heard the same message from my mother whose family managed to remain their farm as her older brothers supported her and their widowed mother through adversity. Blaming Hoover was one of the few items on which Mama agreed along side her chief rival, my Grandma Simmons.

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That's why I started a family crisis in 1956 by coming home from school and reporting what I learned in social studies in my sixth-grade class. "I lived through it," she yelled at me.

That was the day I made a choice history was my favorite subject and commenced to urge why feelings were so strong in my family. In matching the family oral accounts with the history books, I came to understand why they were "yellow dog Democrats," which meant they could vote for Lassie over any Republican.

news: war of the worlds: Move Over Hoover, make space for Donald Trump

My life experiences are very different from my parents and grandparents. Most notably, public expectations of presidents changed radically thanks to the great Depression, Second war, and thus the conflict. Under Truman, American law eliminated the old laissez-faire restrictions that Hoover and his predecessors had considered moral imperatives. The president was made responsible for the economy and national security. Since then elections have often hinged on the state of the economy because the American public graded presidents by its performance. Two groups of executive advisors - the Council of Economic Advisors and thus the National Security Council - played a crucial role because the president made emergency decisions without having to endure slow congressional processes. However, emergency actions had to be followed up with congressional deliberations because the separation of powers wasn't eliminated even during crises.


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The near-dictatorial powers of the president during emergencies were extended to include response to natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. International trade and tourism also brought awareness of contagious diseases as emergencies that might develop remarkably fast. The National Security Presidency gave our chief executive temporary dictatorial authority to mobilize and direct federal agencies and even industry to reply quickly to any real emergency.

Bush was president at the beginning of the recession of 2008. Many presidents since Hoover have stumbled during emergencies, but none are complete failures until Donald J. Trump. Will people who grow old under this crisis be justified in following the instance of my parents and grandparents in blaming Trump for all the bad things our country is starting to experience?

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Hoover, the Hapless President. Intelligence isn't an honest predictor of presidential success. Few presidents are smarter than Hoover, who was a superb engineer, philanthropist, and advocate for world peace yet failed as an official amidst a national crisis. In my view, Hoover deserves more compassion than judgment thanks to the relative inexperience of the Federal Reserve System System System ( created in 1913), and thus the tenacity of outdated ideas like staying on the gold standard and therefore the laissez-faire principles that hampered government intervention within the economy. Many of Hoover's errors came while holding to what he thought were important principles even within the face of accelerating national desperation. He wasn't an insensitive person, as he proved in some ways after his presidency.


The boldness of Roosevelt set a replacement standard for presidents. Not all his initiatives worked because flexibility and experimentation in time of emergency were emphasized. The combined experiences of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations led to insights which may help later presidents in making better decisions to avoid economic catastrophes. When the state found itself during a war after the Pearl Harbor attack, Roosevelt guided us through an unprecedented mobilization of industry and public energy to astonish the earth with our industrial capacity and eventually end the great Depression. From that have emerged support for the National Security Presidency under Truman.


news: war of the worlds: Move Over Hoover, make space for Donald Trump

Bush, the Stumbling President. Despite the circulating jokes throughout his presidency, George W. Bush was intelligent, well-educated, and a much better leader during a crisis than Hoover. The beneficiary of a tainted election, Bush was unpopular until the state rallied around him after the attack on the twin towers in September 2001. After performing well in responding to a replacement Pearl Harbor , he undermined national progress with an unnecessary pre-emptive war in Iraq that destroyed his credibility and have become a repeat of the Vietnam experience.

Economic policies further divided the state as he ran up the deficit through two expensive wars while using tax cuts for the rich as an economic stimulus. To his credit, he courageously made difficult decisions that improved things in Iraq and to start out addressing the financial crisis in 2008 as banks were on the brink of collapse. His policies played an enormous role in bringing about the recession and near depression at the highest of his second term, but he performed better than Hoover by casting aside party orthodoxy to urge a foundation for recovery under the next president.


President Bush had an uneven record during emergencies. The initial response to 9/11 was admirable. Unfortunately, he launched an unnecessary war in Iraq, embarrassed himself by claiming victory prematurely, and failed the people of Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. Yet he demonstrated a capacity to seek out out on the work. He showed courage and determination in supporting the surge in Iraq. At the highest of his term, he bucked party orthodoxy as he confronted the reality of the growing financial crisis and took action to travel off economic collapse. His party rejected him because the party faction emerged under Bush's successor to undermine national cooperation on economic issues.


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Trump, the Unfit President. nobody can deny the cunning intelligence of Donald Trump, yet his incompetence and unfitness for completing the essential responsibilities of the presidency are magnified by success in bringing a dwindling Republican Party under his control. After all, Republican conservatives stood for old-time family and nonsecular values. approximately it appeared until the rise of Trump.


The failings of Donald Trump as president are easy to identify because they're found in claims of great accomplishments that did not occur. Leadership wasn't shown in legislative accomplishments, but in executive orders undermining reforms and policies instituted by President Obama. He promised to "drain the swamp" in Washington to throw out lobbyist influence, yet nominated a cabinet qualified for the foremost part by their experience lobbying against the agencies they were nominated to steer. He promised a superior kind of healthcare by "repealing and replacing Obamacare," yet only proposed ways of undermining healthcare guarantees most valued by the American people. A tax cut for the middle class was promised which may cost his close corporation , but what happened was an enormous tax giveaway to rich individuals, corporations, and his business interests.


One promise he kept was the fear campaign against all immigrants of color. When a Congress with Republican majorities in both chambers refused to fund a border wall, Trump manufactured crises on the border during the election campaign of 2018. When the state soundly rejected the false crises, Trump went further by declaring a national emergency then illegally moved funds and ordered the military to undertake to assignments forbidden by law. Court orders seeking to remedy injuries to innocent families wanting legal asylum were evaded or ignored as human rights violations became standing operating procedure on the southern border.


news: war of the worlds: Move Over Hoover, make space for Donald Trump

All efforts to hunt legislative accomplishments went out the window when Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and cranked out many bills. Bragging about the economy as a personal accomplishment became the centerpiece of his re-election campaign alongside blaming Democrats for love or money his supporters didn't like. The emergence of Covid-19 in China and South Korea was handled as were other issues he saw as a political threat - by claiming it had been a hoax perpetrated by Democrats to harm him politically. Months gone by because the virus spread across the planet and internal experts were calling for action to prevent a plague . because the states of Washington, California, and lots of were engulfed in emergency conditions, Trump finally listened to pleading governors to declare a national emergency, use legal emergency powers he grudgingly dragged his feet in taking key emergency actions, all the while trumpeting what a superb job his administration was doing.


How can someone who brags about being a superb leader each day - who gloried in executive actions striking down achievements of his predecessor - fail to determine a true crisis demanding urgent presidential guidance? He was so busy manufacturing false crises as he focused totally on re-election that he didn't guarantee re-election through foresight and determined leadership in one of the simplest crises ever faced by the us. Even worse, he's focused on the performance of the stock market as essential to his reelection to the extent that he shows complete insensitivity to the welfare of people whose lives are in peril because he refuses to put the entire power of federal authority to work making life-saving medical equipment and supplies available. Heartless could also be a light description of the ineptitude and unfitness demonstrated daily by this narcissistic president because the pandemic worsened within the spring of 2020.

Who to Blame? because the pandemic undermines a thriving American economy and plunges us near depression levels of unemployment, it becomes clear that Americans will probably blame Donald Trump as many of them blamed Hoover once i used to be growing up. Will that be fair? He didn't cause the viral epidemic that began in China. He also didn't originate from the Republican attack on science that demonized evolution and rejected warnings of environmental and climate catastrophes. But federal agencies with extensive experience in handling all types of natural disasters were under incompetent Trump appointees. The experts within the National Security Council that planned for disease outbreaks were eliminated. Many agencies removed scientific data from agency websites because science wasn't supporting Trump's statements. Trump's attacks on science amounted to unilateral disarmament that disregarded the inevitable rise of the newest diseases. For destroying national ability to combat pandemics and for wasting months of opportunity to urge prepared, President Trump is responsible.


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Even worse, because the results of ignoring a mounting crisis became clear, Donald Trump demonstrated an accelerated inability to manage the overall public health emergency. Advice from doctors round the world was clear, as could be seen within the experiences in China and Italy. But reelection politics and his ego were always Trump's first priority - as increasingly demonstrated in daily briefings that became his substitute for the rallies he wasn't holding. His behavior because the crisis mounted increasingly proved his unwillingness to concentrate on reality as he insisted that reality must conform to his preferences.


Herbert Hoover didn't cause the great Depression; he just mishandled it supported flawed principles. George W. Bush contributed to the problems behind the recession of 2008, but he showed resilience and courage in preventing a financial collapse. For Donald Trump, each day of his campaign for the presidency and every day of his term of office has proved his unfitness for the National Security Presidency. the price of his incompetence came due as a replacement virus threatened the earth and made all Americans to affect a harsh reality. Still, polls on his approval rating still show a minimum of 40% of USA citizens support a transparently inept president.


news: war of the worlds: Move Over Hoover, make space for Donald Trump

How did we come to possess a president who is incapable of recognizing a catastrophic crisis? Most voters knew he was a liar and charlatan yet voted for him anyway. Too many voters ignored warnings by national security officials from both parties. Have American voters realized the necessity for an efficient National Security President as they live out deadly consequences of the election of 2016? The election in November 2020 may be a chance to hunt out out if lessons are learned about the importance of competent and fit national leadership.


Dr. Edward G. Simmons could also be a graduate of Mercer University and earned both an M.A. and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. After a career of service for the Georgia Department of Human Resources, he returned to his original career by teaching history part-time at Georgia Gwinnett College and Brenau University. Noted for energetic and challenging presentations, he's the author of Talking Back to the Bible: A Historian's Approach to Bible Study.

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