Marine One lands on the White House lawn. Trump emerges in his signature blue suit and long red tie. For a moment he stands with a stern posture eyeing the small gathering awaiting his arrival. He smooths his tie and adjusts a button on his jacket and then offers a wave.
I have seen nine presidents repeat this entrance in my lifetime. In my youth watching Marine One touching down on the front lawn invoked awe. It was James Bond cool. I did not give any thought to the President, or what he stood for. In time, however, I did come to understand these men as leaders of the free world who bore the burdens that came with such responsibilities. And I noted how these men aged under the strain.
Now, I no longer see a leader of the free world before me on the steps. Someone wise and advised by wise council. Someone who has come to ease my burden.
Standing before me with his hair coiffed and fragile, now grinning, flashing big white teeth, is a grifter, a huckster on the take. A man, if I had spied across a poker table, I would have preferred his shirt sleeves rolled up. The man on the steps is a man who makes me weary.
His exit signals something deep inside me. I brace for the sales pitch, a steady stream of hucksterism. Before me, I see a man who sold false dreams to students in my hometown of San Diego. Whom buying into his dream of success, into his façade of wealth, into his business savvy, into his genius and his man of substance, found nothing but a man of smoke and mirrors; a man of shadow who left them with nothing but dashed ambitions, and empty pockets.
I gaze a man that stole from his own charity and lied to veterans. I gaze a man who began scheming on his inaugural day.
Cautiously he descends the steps. And I do not see a man contemplating, perhaps, a future summit with world leaders as if he were Richard Nixon, or George Bush: men seeking a steady hand, a steady path forward. Before me is a man of turbulence.
My thoughts turn to President Ronald Reagan and his devotion to his wife. Then I gaze an adulteress man whose scandal and deeds put his personal attorney behind bars. I see a man with the (inauspicious) name of Individual 1.
More importantly, my weary eyes no longer see a man of world importance descending the steps. My idealistic vision has been stolen, supplanted by images of this man cavorting with a pornographic film star. What have I lost?
He nears the bottom of the stairs and again I recall Reagan as he stood at the Berlin Wall and told Russia to “tear down the wall.” I have sat with men and women of the Czech Republic and heard their stories of life under Russia’s communist oppression. I know what those words meant to them. Although I disagreed with almost all of Reagan’s policies, I knew he was an American President carrying the weight of the free world on his shoulders, and he had my respect.
Before me now is a man who welcomed with open arms the assistance of Vladimir Putin, our adversary, to interfere in our free and fair election: the foundation of a people’s right to govern in a democracy “Russia if you’re listening.”
He salutes the Marine at the bottom of the stairs and begins his walk across the White House lawn. In the past I have disagreed vehemently with how Presidents have governed. However, I never questioned their loyalty to country and Constitution: the American way.
Not every President has been honest, or without flaws. Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton come to mind, yet I believe America was in their heart.
Now I see a man impeached for putting his self-interest before those of his country. A man who tampers with witnesses and pardons cronies. A man who lines his pockets with taxpayer’s money all the while refusing to release his own taxes.
Marine One lands and I try to see in my mind’s eye the man walking across the White House lawn as representing the Presidential office of the United States and to respect it, but all I see is criminality walking.