My Presidents, I

My Presidents, I

   I’ve just come to realize that Donald Trump may well be the last president of my life. That’s something of a shock, but plausible, alas. I’ll be 94 when he steps down, assuming, as I hope, he doesn’t run for a second term or doesn’t achieve it if he does.  Therefore, the odds are that Trump will be “my” worst president, even beating George W. Bush, though that may be not giving enough significance to the war with Iraq.
   On the whole, I’ve been pretty fortunate with my presidents. I arrived in America in 1939 (age 12) and really didn’t become aware of FDR until that Sunday in December 1941, when he announced that his response to Pearl Harbor would bring the US into the WW II.
   My second president was the first one I voted for; by then I was politically quite alert. It was not until I was in the voting both that I decided to cast my vote for Harry Truman. My alternative was not Dewey---I have never voted for a Republican—but Norman Thomas, the Socialist. I had eliminated Wallace as being in the pocket of Stalinists; my views were liberal or even to the Left of that, but I was never attracted to communism with its Marxist’s doctrine. But not voting for Truman would have been throwing away my vote, making this an occasion where I opted for what I took to be the realistic rather than the ideal solution. A purist I ain’t.

   Next came Eisenhower. I was, like many intellectuals, enamored of his opponent, Adlai Stevenson’s, eloquence; I twice voted for him, but the country thought otherwise. I was not a fan of Kennedy before he became president, but of course much regretted his murder. Of the next batch, only two stand out in my memory: Reagan and Nixon. I disliked both, with Reagan already in my sights when he was governor of California and a meddler in the affairs of the State Colleges, when I was active on the faculty of San Francisco State. I underestimated his accomplishments in foreign policy, but probably correctly disapproved much of his domestic policy.

  Nixon is the complicated one in the role of my presidents. It was de rigueur for us liberals to detest him, with me aboard. In retrospect, however, I have become more favorably disposed. There is not only China, but the two Endowments—of Arts and Humanities—and other good things, most of them probably initiated for purely political reasons. Perhaps I did not take his Watergate sins seriously enough—see my comments about President Clinton in the next installment.