The unbelievable in politics is getting ever more unbelievable, happening with increasing frequency.
Congressman Ronnie Jackson recently led a group of fourteen Republicans sending a letter urging President Biden to take a cognitive test. This is the former White House doctor who once released a glowing report informing us that Trump was “mentally very sharp.”
In his 2019 July 4th speech, Trump praised the Revolutionary Army that “took over the airports.”
During a private tour of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Trump asked his chief of Staff, John Kelly, “Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?”
During a military briefing, a nighttime map of Korea showed darkness between South Korea and Mainland China. Trump believed that black void to be the ocean, unaware that it revealed the nighttime darkness of North Korea. And he was surprised that the South Korean capital, Seoul, was within artillery range of North Korea.
But according to the doctor that informed us of Trump being “mentally very sharp,” it is Biden who needs the cognitive test?
Perhaps Trump’s most infamous moment was when he publicly favored Putin’s denial of Russian election interference over that of American intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA. It’s not that the CIA’s record is pure as the driven snow. But it’s a given that any disagreement between the president and his own agencies should not be aired publicly as favoring Putin’s spin on the matter, especially in Putin’s presence, enabling him to gloat over Trump’s obsequiousness.
To make this even more bizarre, House Minority Leader, Rep. McCarthy, and chief sycophant Lindsey Graham, have chastised Biden as not being “tough enough” on Putin during the recent summit.
Ignorance does not disqualify the unqualified from being elected. Wisconsin’s Senator Ron Johnson was escorted to safety during the insurrection during which the insurrectionists had already built gallows on the Capitol grounds while shouting “Hang Mike Pence.” Johnson now opines that he never felt threatened. Clearly, Johnson is striving to be a pro-Trump star, right up there with Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz. He’ll never make it. To use an old Marine Corps expression, he doesn’t pack the gear.
The House has its share of dunces, but none can rival Texas Congressman, Louie Gohmert. During a recent hearing, he asked a U.S. Forest Service official if they, or the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, could adjust the orbit of the earth or the moon to address climate change. The guy was actually serious, and he ostensibly has a law degree from Baylor.
This is neither to say that Republicans lack intelligent members, nor that Democrats always act intelligently — they absolutely do not. Intelligent members of both parties often act counter-productively.
Ted Cruz is bright enough to have achieved a Yale law degree. With his Cadillac education and God-given talents, he has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Not just any law school graduate can do that. Unfortunately, he uses his talent and debating skills for the wrong ends — to further his own power. He knows exactly what he is doing, which makes him dangerous. But even his supposed political acumen didn’t prevent him from heading for Mexico during last winter’s Texas power outage, and blaming it on his daughter. The heady elixir of power can cause even the most politically astute to blunder.
Another intelligent Senator is Missouri’s Josh Hawley who impressed his professors at Stanford with his academic abilities. He went on for a law degree at Yale. He is schooled enough in political science and government to know, for starters, that it is dead wrong for congress to overthrow an election that states have certified, and to not endorse the results. But he did his part to encourage the insurrection that was clearly intended to stop the congressional process of formally certifying the election. The highly respected former Missouri Republican Senator, John Danforth, endorsed Hawley over the capable Claire McCaskill in 2018. Danforth now considers his endorsement of Hawley a big mistake.
It’s not so much a matter of intelligence and education, but the values of a politician, and the effectiveness with which they use their power and whatever common sense they may possess. This is clearly demonstrated by the election of 2016 during which Democrats, including those with Ivy League educations, were outfoxed by Republicans.
Some Republicans who were turned off by Trump’s arrogance, bullying, and showboating realized that bigger issues important to them were at stake, namely Roe vs. Wade, and gun rights.
The death of conservative justice Scalia in 2015 and McConnell’s refusal to give Obama’s nominee a hearing should have woke the Democrats up. It didn’t.
Democratic leadership was asleep at the switch, as was the Clinton campaign. The Clinton campaign and its supporters, including Sanders, Warren, and the rest of them, who should have been more prescient, were all but silent on the importance of the 2016 election for the future of the court system. Meanwhile, Republicans pounded it home.
Too many Democrats through a combination of voter suppression and “lack of enthusiasm” for Hillary stayed home. It’s too late for these same voters who stayed home to now lament the direction of the Court.
Would results of the 2016 election have changed, that is, would enough voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, have been convinced to vote for Clinton had she and influential Democrats hammered home the importance of the court as an issue?
Who knows? But we do know that with Trump’s victory, McConnell stacked the federal bench and turned the Court’s 5-4 conservative majority to a 6-3 majority—and it could well be a 7-2 conservative majority if Justice Breyer doesn’t resign before the Republicans retake the senate.
The Congress will always have a few dunces like Johnson and Gohmert who don’t pack the gear. And it will have some who use their talent and power for selfish ends. The fate of the nation ultimately depends on the values held by the powerful, and how they use their talent and power.
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.
