BLOGGER’S NOTE:  The direction and content of many of the posts on this site begin with the title.  As you know by now, I am always looking for a play on words which compel the reader to ask, “Where the hell is he going with this one?”  My task is then to put together the facts which support the premise or suggest we need to take a second look into what at first seems obvious. The original subject line for today’s entry was, “Rat Place, Rat Time.”  Why?  Because I’m sitting in a row house in Baltimore, Maryland  What better location to reflect on the quickly evolving events which will determine the future for Donald Trump, than the place he described as a “rodent and rat infested mess.”  But as I was organizing my thoughts, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, announced the committee would be working through the two-week recess scheduled to begin today with hopes that the panel could provide the Judiciary Committee with corroborated evidence to support articles of impeachment, if warranted, by Thanksgiving.

Much is being made of comparable situations in American history as Donald Trump faces the increasing momentum toward impeachment.  I must admit, I wondered, “How does this compare to the cases involving Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton?”  I intentionally chose to omit Andrew Johnson from any such inquiry for two reasons.  First, he had never been elected president, ascending to the position following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination thus the issue never involved overturning a voter referendum.  Second, the forces behind his impeachment were members of his own political party who disapproved of his plans to quickly repatriate the confederate states with minimal punishment.

However, insight does not come from jumping to answers, but by asking better questions.  And the question I realized had not been asked was,  “To fully grasp the scope and import of current events, why would anyone limit comparisons only to two chief executives of the United States?  What about the other 42 predecessors who held the office prior to January 20, 2017?”  That is how my thoughts shifted from WHO and WHAT to WHEN?  And one answer emerged when New York Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney suggested, with the documentation already at hand, Americans have a pretty good idea of WHO was involved and WHAT happened between Trump and the newly elected president of Ukraine and which closets hold the skeletons.  All that is left to do is corroborate and verify actions by Trump, his accomplices and his enablers.  He closed by suggesting Congress should be able to complete the task by Thanksgiving.

Imagine, the fate and legacy of a president of the United States being determined by Thanksgiving of the third year of his first term.  What are the odds of that happening twice out of 45 opportunities or within the span of 56 years?  According to Representative Maloney, more likely than anyone could have contemplated a month ago.

I know what you’re thinking.  Dr. ESP, surely you’re not going to suggest there is any resemblance between Trump and John Kennedy.  Of course I am.  But not solely due to the coincidence in time in office before their fate is sealed.  Nor does it have anything to do with the ironic and eerie coincidence the names Kellyanne Conway and Lee Harvey Oswald both contain 15 letters.

Writers of fiction and non-fiction write best when they know their subject matters.  And, as many of you know, I am currently drafting a political novel which offers a different and highly improbable twist on the Kennedy assassination.  My focus is on the still unanswered question, what was the motive for killing Kennedy.  To make the incredible just a bit more plausible, I have spent the past two years researching every aspect of the lives of JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and other true-life individuals tangential to the story before injecting my fictional characters.  It has been an educational and highly enjoyable exercise in the art of manufacturing a conspiracy by finding the dots to fill in the manufactured connections.

In the end, both my novel and the real time saga of the Trump/Ukraine affair are not about conspiracy.  They are about legacy.  Having pored through every one of Evelyn Lincoln’s entries in Kennedy’s appointment calendar from December 1962 to November 22, 1963, one obtains a clear understanding of the interests and priorities of our 35th president.  And, in a limited number of cases, an appointment or a gap in time raises suspicions Kennedy’s closet may not have been skeleton-less.  I wish I could tell you more, but you’ll just have to read the book when it comes out.

So, this morning I wondered if I could gain a similar understanding of the 45th occupant of the oval office if I had equal access to his appointment calendar.  That assumes, of course, it has not yet been transferred to a code-word protected server.  The value of real-time observation in the age of 24/7 presidential news coverage is you no longer need to scour the archives of a presidential library to follow the chief executive’s movement.  Cameras document how he foregoes a trip to Poland on the premise of staying home to oversee the federal response to a pending Category 5 hurricane, bearing down on the Florida coast, but spends the majority of those days golfing.  You watch a man who has violated every one of the ten commandments leave a United Nations session on climate change to discuss religious freedom with evangelical christian leaders who oppose secular freedom for those who adhere to any religion but their own.

Bottom line?  One’s fate can seal one’s legacy. Sometimes, it takes an individual’s complete life time to grasp who they are and solidify their place in history.  In other cases, it only takes a thousand days.  And I will leave it to an historian as talented as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to publish a sequel to his 1965 tribute to a fallen president, perhaps titled, “A Thousand Days Later.”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Joe McGinniss showed America that politicians are sold like products.  And we loved it.

~David Greenberg, Politico Magazine, 2014

In The Selling of the President 1968, McGinniss documents how a team of media advisers used television to convince America there was a NEW Richard Nixon.  Among them was Harry Treleaven, a Madison Avenue guru who came up with “Nixon’s the ONE!” and devised a campaign strategy based on image, not issues which he claimed just bored voters.  And Roger Ailes, a relatively unknown local television producer in Cleveland, was responsible for the television spots which portrayed Nixon as the calm in the storm of Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and the Chicago riots during the Democratic convention.

There is just one problem.  Money and PR can, as they say, “put a shine on a turd,” but it is still a turd.  And eventually the consumer recognizes that fact, and no amount of subsequent marketing can produce repeat purchases or referrals.

Dr. ESP, how can you say that? If you are correct, Nixon should not have won again in 1972.  True in theory, but that year both major parties offered their respective flawed candidates.  And as they also say, “Better the turd you know than the one you don’t know.”  And a few dirty tricks did not hurt Nixon’s cause.

I share this moment in political history because the analogy of candidate as product explains both Trump’s electoral college victory in 2016 and his inability to expand his base since then.  Consider the following business case I wrote during my tenure at Miami University based on a friend’s experience with a new product line.

In 1997, his company licensed the Chuck E. Cheese brand to produce and sell frozen foods in grocery stores, not unlike Boston Market or P. F. Chang.  He hired a marketing consultant to conduct mall intercept surveys of women who were observed shopping with children ages three through twelve, the target market for the branded items.  Seventy one percent of the respondents said they were extremely or very likely to purchase the product.

Initial sales exceeded projections.  However, there was an immediate drop-off, particularly in repeat purchases.  It was not the quality of the products.  Or ease of preparation.  The primary issue was family disruption.  Many parents reported older children had no interest in the product and often made fun of their little brothers and sisters.  You can just hear the sing-song teasing.  “The little baby has to have Chuck E. Cheese.”  The product could have been the best thing since sliced pizza, but it was still not worth the ensuing sibling altercations.

Is that not what the product called Donald Trump has done to America?  During the campaign, his mall intercepts with targeted consumers were arenas with supporters in MAGA caps.  But now he is constantly present in our homes, our extended families and our communities.  And the back and forth cacophony between supporters and resisters is the equivalent of sibling teasing.  It gets old very quickly and continues to irritate over time.

In the aftermath of every era of disruption, Americans yearn for a “return to normalcy,” a phrase coined in a 1920 speech by Warren G. Harding in response to World War I.  Some pundits refer to the recent decline in Trump’s approval rating as the result of “Trump fatigue,”  something it took the Bushes and Clintons decades to achieve.  Colorado Senator Mike Bennett even promised if he becomes president there could be weeks without our hearing from him.  He, like many of us, look forward to a day when we no longer need Frank Costanza’s relaxation cry “SERENITY NOW” as our mantra.

America may have been born by revolution, but it survives and grows through evolution.  Take Medicare for All as an example.  Some day America may have a national health system.  But not tomorrow.  Universal coverage is a worthy goal toward which we were making uneasy progress.  Less than a decade ago Republicans made repeal of the Affordable Care Act a winning campaign theme.  Today, a majority of voters support it.  Maybe we take the next step by adding a public option to reach those still without coverage.  I understand the arguments against the for-profit insurance industry.  But you do not change the world campaigning.  You change it when you govern.  And to govern, you must first get elected.

Which brings me to a final point.  Jill Biden was on the right track, but the way she raised the specter of her husband’s electability makes me wonder if she’s been spending too much time around Joe.  Last month in New Hampshire she urged voters to back her husband even if they consider another candidate to be “better” on the issues.  It would have been more appropriate to present a vision of the policy process in a Biden White House.

We have exceptional candidates running for the nomination and they have presented a range of ideas to improve the lives of every American.  And no one should expect them or their perspectives to disappear if they are not the nominee.  The difference is that when Joe is president, all of those same people will still have a voice.  Because we all agree on the goal whether we are talking about economic opportunity, social justice, health care, climate change or making our country and cities safe.  And Joe knows the way to get there is by bringing more people into the conversation.

Which brings me back to 1968 and Harry Treleaven who I believe misread what was happening.  Issues do not bore voters.  They care a lot about issues but in the abstract.  They want better schools for their children.  Or lower drug prices.  Or assurances they will still have their jobs.  They respond to the vision not to detailed solutions.  Take immigration as an example.  If you believe illegal immigrants are taking your jobs and terrorizing your neighborhoods, you do not care if Trump steals funds from projects that benefit service men and women to build his wall or that he inhumanely separates infants and children from their parents.

Tomorrow night, when 10 candidates again take the stage, they would be wise to play to the voters and not to the pundits who do not view the election with the same prism as the general electorate.  When asked about health care, I hope they remember you cannot make a case for any specific solution in 90 seconds.  Remind voters, those without insurance AND those currently insured, why universal coverage is important to both.  Whether the answer is ACA 2.0 or Medicate for All is not important.  All that matters is that today the financial burden of health care for the uninsured falls largely on subsidies embedded in premiums paid by the insured.  That’s not right and we will fix it.

Then use the four years we give you to convince us of the best way to get there.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP