Tuesday, August 29, 2023

The Curious Case Of The FORMER President

Barack Obama is PRESIDENT Obama.
George W, Bush is PRESIDENT Bush.
Bill Clinton is PRESIDENT Clinton.
Jimmy Carter is PRESIDENT Carter.
But as far as the media and the self-appointed intelligentsia are concerned Donald J. Trump is simply “the FORMER president.” For the most part he isn’t even “former President Trump." No, it’s simply (and almost always) the former president.
Hey, for all the trouble he got into (and as hated as he was by many) Richard Nixon was always President Nixon. And let’s not forget that Bill Clinton was impeached (the first elected president ever to be impeached) yet he was still accorded the presidential moniker. 
People of my parent’s generation positively hated Herbert Hoover, blaming him for the Great Depression. But till the end of his exceptionally long life he was always President Hoover. President Johnson? He was hardly a hero to my generation — the generation that bore the brunt of the Vietnam War — but he was President Johnson.  Harry Truman? He left office with one of the lowest approval ratings of any president up to that time but he was President Truman. The same could be said for President George H. W. Bush. And, of course, the title also remained with the martyred President Kennedy, the military hero President Eisenhower and even the unelected President Ford.
But this is not the case with the former president, often referred to as the controversial former president, the disgraced former president, the polarizing former president and now, the indicted former president.
Okay. He may be all of those things. But he was, and he remains, the 45th President of the United States duly elected by the people of the United States. Toqueville, a great political philosopher and student of  American democracy, called the President of the United States "the tribune of the people" because the president is the only official elected to represent  the people of every state. As such, the distinction and the title remain with the person elected to the office.
So it’s now time for everyone, out of a sense of simple decency and common respect, to call the 45th President of the United States PRESIDENT TRUMP. 
That’s what we do here —always. That’s what we’ll continue to do and what you should do as well!

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