Eisenhower v. Trump & Biden
To understand how far the modern Republican Party has fallen, please read this famous speech by President Dwight Eisenhower. Ike’s thoughtful reflection is a breathtaking contrast with the bombastic idiocy of the most recent Republican to live in the White House. (Eisenhower would likely take Joe Biden to task, too, for the current president’s strike in the Middle East, and for the escalation of violence in a region already suffering from reckless, costly, and inhumane militarism.) For context, compare this short excerpt with anything you’ve heard said by Donald Trump:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
“It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Chance for Peace
Eisenhower was a general who understood the need for diplomacy, and he was the last great Republican president. The steady decline in that party began with Richard Nixon and reached its nadir under the regime of Donald Trump.
The link to Eisenhower’s speech came to me via Jason Kottke
Posted 9 January 2024 by Mark ·