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Way ahead of the curve …

Rarely can I boast about being ahead of the curve on political trends, as I mostly am wrong far more than I am correct.

As it involves the 45th president and his unfitness to hold — let alone run for — public office, well, I take a back seat to no one on that matter.

I made such a declaration long before he and his wife rode down the escalator in the office tower that bears his name. I noted that the future POTUS had zero public service experience, that his entire professional life was geared only toward self-enrichment. I argued vehemently on this blog that American voters must never let him near the Oval Office.

Well, as with most things, the voters didn’t heed my warning. He got elected in an Electoral College fluke, losing the popular vote by more than 3 million ballots, but being elected by pilfering key states and being awarded their electoral votes.

I truly wanted him to succeed. It couldn’t happen, though, because of that damn lack of public service background thing.

I said “I told you so” a time or three during his term in office. But again, the MAGA followers who happen to read High Plains Blogger were dismissive. I need to get over myself, some of ’em said.

Eight years later, the former POTUS is at it again. Only this time he has lost more than a step in speaking to the critical issues of the day.

He recently confused fellow GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley with Hillary Clinton, prompting Haley to declare — for the first time and way later than I ever did — that the GOP frontrunner is “unfit for public office.”

Well, no sh** Sherlock!

These missteps are going to chip away where his previous insults, gaffes and hideous pronouncements couldn’t.

Hold your applause if you’re so inclined to congratulate me. Hey, I was just stating the obvious. If only those MAGA followers would follow suit.

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Trump never learned how to be ‘presidential’

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Donald Trump’s pending exit from the presidency really shouldn’t contain too many surprises to go along with the outrage many of us are experiencing.

He once vowed to be “presidential” once he took the oath of office.

It never happened. Even when he spoke to us with restraint, many of us thought: You know, he seems so stilted, so stiff, so … not himself.

I’ll be clear. I disliked intensely the “real” Donald Trump that would present itself when he would fly off on one of those rants. And yet when he would read prepared remarks, he did so with a discomfort level that I could feel in my living room watching on my TV set.

Donald Trump proved to be a bad liar and a president who, when handed opportunities to say the right thing, would do so under seeming duress. He didn’t like the role he was forced to play when he took that oath of office.

What are we getting in place of this? We’re getting a president, Joe Biden, who at some level has been practicing for the role during his entire and lengthy public service career. President-elect Biden chaired Senate committees, presiding over sometimes controversial hearings. He behaved like a distinguished gentleman most of the time.

So I don’t expect a lot of on-the-job training for the new president when he steps into the Oval Office. At least, though, we likely won’t have to endure the sight and sound of a president who never learned how to act and sound like someone elected to the most exalted office in the land.

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Imagine this happening … now!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The picture you see here was taken in late 2008.

President-elect Barack Obama came to the Oval Office to meet with the man he would succeed, President George W. Bush, and three other fellows with intimate knowledge of the office: Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

President Bush 43 offered his support and good wishes to the new president. All of these men had lunch together that day and the former presidents shared with the new guy some of the wisdom they acquired while making difficult decisions.

I won’t belabor the point, but just try to imagine …

Donald Trump inviting the man who would succeed him, President-elect Joe Biden, to the Oval Office along with the four living former presidents, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

I know. It’s way beyond anything you could ever see happening.

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Can’t make the leap to attach title to Trump’s name

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Well, here we are. We’re about 100 days away from the next presidential election.

My hope springs eternal that Americans will have learned from the big mistake they made when they elected Donald John Trump to the presidency and that we will elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to succeed him.

If that is the case, then I likely will be able to declare victory in one of my campaigns against Trump. It will be that I might have survived the current presidency without ever placing the word “President” in front of Trump’s name.

I cannot make that leap.

I won’t apologize for it. I have believed since long before Trump took the oath of office that he didn’t deserve to occupy it. He is unqualified. He is unfit at every level possible. I want him gone far away from the Oval Office inside “my White House.” Thus, it is time to evict this imposter and Election Day provides us with the best chance we will have.

I say all this with plenty of trepidation. I do not relish expressing this form of protest. Nor do I express it with an ounce of disrespect for the presidency. I revere the office. I merely detest the man who sits at the Resolute Desk. Thus, I take no pleasure in refusing to attach “President” in front of “Trump,” to publish those words consecutively, with nothing between them.

Members of my family will acknowledge that I have spoken those words in that order. I just cannot write them down, to put it on the record in this blog.

What will I do if Trump somehow wins a second term? The same thing. I just will need to suck it up for another four years. I might not have the stamina right now. If it comes to pass and we are stuck with this disgrace, I’ll find what it takes to continue my protest to the bitter end.

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In love with the high office

High Plains Blogger critics ask me on occasion: Why do you disrespect the presidency with your constant criticism of our president?

The question comes in many forms, but that’s the crux of it. Those critics think I hate the office as much as I hate the man who sits in that big chair in the Oval Office.

I will set the record straight, clear the air and set the table for future discussion.

I do not hate Donald John Trump. I despise, detest and loathe the background he brought to the only public office he ever sought, let alone held. He is a huckster, a con man, a fraud, philanderer, sexual assailant, a phony and a pathological liar.

He just happens to occupy the most exalted office in the land. It is arguably the most important office on Earth.

I happen to revere the presidency. I adore the pomp and pageantry associated with the office. I love inaugural celebrations and the trappings of those events that surround them.

Accordingly, I want the individual who sits in that exalted office to treat it with the dignity it deserves and which it has earned over the 240 years of the world’s greatest republic. I subscribe to the notion put forth by the late Robert F. Kennedy, who said that politics “should be a noble profession.” Donald Trump does not treat the presidency or politics with the nobility that RFK said they deserve.

My criticism of Trump isn’t based on intense animosity for the man. I based instead on the intense love I have for the office he occupies. I want it restored. I want the individual who sits in that big chair behind the Resolute Desk to behave in a manner befitting the high office. Donald Trump is failing in that part of his job performance … not to mention damn near everything else he is doing.

I want Donald Trump removed from an office I believe he is unfit to hold. The office of the presidency is far bigger and more important than any individual who goes to work in the Oval Office. I simply want that individual to measure up to the majesty of that high office.

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Should he speak to us from the Oval Office?

There is word out of the West Wing that Donald John Trump might speak soon to the nation about race relations, police conduct and unity among Americans.

He’ll go on national TV, or so the reports suggest, to quell the unrest that has roiled in cities from coast to coast to coast since Minneapolis cops killed George Floyd while arresting him for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill.

The question one must ask is this: What good would a Donald Trump speech do?

Many of us out here do not believe Trump is sincerely concerned about the incidents of police conduct that have brought people into the street in protest. He seems much more concerned about the damage done by the rioters who have erupted. I understand that concern; that conduct troubles me, too … so on that score, POTUS and I are on the same page.

However, the issue goes way beyond that aspect and Trump hasn’t talked openly and sincerely about the concerns that have prompted the protests.

If we hear from Teleprompter Trump during an Oval Office speech, I doubt seriously whether he would move anyone to believe he finally gets it. That version of Donald Trump simply is not believable. He reads prepared text as if he’s being held hostage.

The other Trump, the one in which he is merely himself, well … that version of this con man is incapable of speaking to us about matters of the heart.

I have next to zero hope that Donald Trump is wired in a way that can deliver a heartfelt speech about race relations in this country. I mean, this clown is the Godfather of the Birther Movement, who sought to disparage the candidacy of the man who became the first African-American ever elected president of the United States.

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Love, not hate, fuels anti-Trump rhetoric

I am an old-fashioned fellow in many respects.

I love pageantry. I love singing the National Anthem. I enjoy military parades. I take pleasure in shaking the hands of World War II and Korean War veterans. I revere political tradition and decorum.

Thus, when I criticize Donald J. Trump, it is not out of hate — as some critics of this blog seem to believe — but out of love. Not for the president, mind you. But for the office he occupies and my love of the tradition he has managed to trash almost since the moment he pulled his hand off the Bible at his inauguration.

Critics of this blog purport to read my mind and delve into my heart when they accuse me of spewing hate-filled rhetoric. The thing is, they don’t know me. Some of ’em, though, do like referring to me by my first name, as if to suggest some form of faux familiarity with me. They don’t understand why I say what I do about the president.

One does not go to war for a country he hates. He does so out of love for the country. I got the call to go to war for my country in 1969. I didn’t do so gladly, but out of a sense of duty to the nation that ordered me to go far away and participate in a war that was raging when I arrived and was still raging when I left.

It’s my love of country that fuels my anger today at what I see happening to our political institutions, to our national mood, to the tribalism that has consumed so much of the dialogue between and among various segments of our vast and diverse population.

Who’s responsible for that? It has to stem from our national leadership. It comes from the very top of the political food chain. It starts in the White House, where Donald Trump now resides. It festers in the policies coming from the Oval Office, where the president makes command decisions.

Do I love what I see and hear coming from the White House these days? No! Of course not!

Hatred, though, is not the spark that ignites the rhetoric coming from this blog. It is a deeply held love of country. I want a return to the tradition that I grew up admiring and revering. It cannot happen until we get a change in the leadership at the top of the political chain of command.

I don’t expect to change the minds of critics who’ll continue to ascribe hatred to the rhetoric they will read here. However, it is how I feel. Take it or leave it.

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Yep, it’s personal through and through

I want to acknowledge what I am sure is patently obvious to readers of this blog.

It is that my intense opposition to the presidency of Donald John Trump is visceral. It is rooted deep within my gut. It roils constantly as I watch the president go through each sickening day of his time in office.

I wish I could identify a specific policy or set of policies that have angered me so intensely. I cannot. The man doesn’t govern on a metric defined by policy standards, principles, a core set of values.

I am not entirely sure why I am sharing these thoughts today. Perhaps I just feel the need to get a few things off my chest.

Donald Trump’s inability to acknowledge mistakes is one thing that troubles me deeply. He told us once he never has sought forgiveness, which according to the way many of us were brought up is a fundamental tenet of Christianity; yet the evangelical movement follows this guy through the wall, over the cliff, out the window … you name it.

Trump vowed to act “presidential” once he took office. He does not do anything of the sort.

He doesn’t exhibit a scintilla of compassion, empathy, human kindness, authentic sorrow even in the face of horrific tragedy. Wildfires destroy a California town and he blames it all on Democratic politicians and their “failed” forest management policies. Mass shootings destroy the lives of innocent victims and the president doesn’t say a word about how to curb the scourge of gun violence. The Earth rumbled under the feet just recently of residents of southern California and I have yet to hear a word from the president about helping them recover from the physical damage and the emotional trauma they are suffering.

Donald Trump cannot tell the truth. His lying is incessant, relentless and pathological. He lies when he need not do so.

He uses language to define his domestic political opponents one doesn’t normally hear from presidents of the United States. He recently referred to the San Juan, Puerto Rico as a “despicable” human being. OK, so he calls a fellow American citizen despicable but still kowtows to the come-on offered by a truly despicable tyrant, Kim Jong Un. I do not get that.

Donald Trump’s presidency has been a disaster at almost every level I can conjure up. I want it to end no later than Jan. 20, 2021. I want him out of “my” house. I want him to disappear from the public stage, although I am acutely aware that is far from likely to occur no matter when he walks out of the Oval Office for the final time.

Yes, it is personal.

Donald Trump

Trump’s boast about working hard rings hollow

Donald Trump’s brainless boast about being the hardest-working president in U.S. history rings as hollow as his many other such fits of braggadocio.

He has bragged about his wealth, how he has the “best brain,” how he knows “the best words,” how he attended the “best schools.”

Now in response to the revelations about the “executive time” he takes as president and reports of how he spends huge amounts of that time watching TV and firing off Twitter message, he has decided to brag about how hard he works at making America great again.

My life’s experience has taught me a lot about people.

I have learned that rich folks don’t brag about their wealth, geniuses don’t boast about their intellect, the well-educated don’t brag about the quality of the schools they attend.

I also have learned that heroes don’t brag about their heroic exploits and those who work hard don’t feel the need to remind us of the time put into the jobs they do.

The president of the United States appears to act like the most insecure man ever to hold that high office.

Sad.

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They call it ‘executive time’?

Axios is reporting that Donald Trump spends a lot of what is being called “executive time,” meaning time off the clock, in the White House residence, doing something I presume other than reading briefing papers and intelligence reports.

This really isn’t a huge deal to me. I’ve noted already many times that I don’t even mind the president playing a lot of golf. What irks me about all that golf time is that this president promised he wouldn’t do it . . . and then he reneged on that promise!

Presidents are never off the clock. They’re only a radio message or phone call away from being summoned to respond to a national emergency; by that I mean a real emergency, not a phony one such as what Trump says is occurring on our southern border.

As for the executive time business, I  wish Trump would spend more time studying how to be president. He ought to learn about what the U.S. Constitution lays out in terms of executive power, and how the framers established Congress and the courts as co-equal branches of government. He doesn’t seem to know any of that.

Then again, maybe he is spending his executive time actually reading. Do you think? Nahhh! If he was doing it we certainly would know about it. He’d be firing off Twitter messages informing us of all the brainy work he is doing behind the scenes.

See the Axios story here.

Axios suggests he spends a lot of time each day reading newspapers and watching TV before he heads to the Oval Office, or the Cabinet Room, or the Situation Room to do the things that presidents do.

Still, the Axios story does reaffirm what many of us have noted all along, that we have elected a bizarre, unconventional and, um, “unpresidented” fellow as head of state, commander in chief and chief executive.

It’s all kinda weird.