Ike (Who He?) Was Right On in Predicting the Sad Fate of American Politics
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was General of the Army during World War II, succeeded Harry S Truman as U.S. president when the haberdasher from Kansas got mired in war in Korea and couldn’t find a way out.
In a way, Eisenhower — known affectionately as Ike — set the example for his vice president, Richard M. “Tricky Dick” Nixon, when the latter became president and inherited a war that Democrats had started but could never stop, this time in Vietnam.
Eisenhower oversaw a basically peaceful and tranquil period in U.S. history from his becoming president in 1953 to turning over the office to John F. Kennedy in 1961. Ike loved golf, but his time in office was marred by two mild recessions, along with an economic slowdown right before JFK settled in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Democrats — who were not yet so fiendish in their politics as to be labeled Demofiends — criticized Ike for playing golf while the economy took a nap, much like Nero historically played a fiddle while Rome burned.
Eisenhower, however, proved prophetic in his farewell address, warning the nation of the burgeoning “military-industrial complex.” Indeed, since his time, the country has seen endless military entanglements, with wars declared and wars undeclared.
Two unwinnable wars were supported and cheered on by Democrats since Ike — Vietnam and Ukraine — the first, as mentioned, being settled by a Republican, and the second being refereed to a hopeful end by another Republican, one Donald J. Trump.
Now, having a government and economy tethered to military supremacy and global operations is just the tip of the iceberg about which Eisenhower spoke. In his address, he warned against “grave implicatons.”
Pertinent excerpts follow:
“Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”“A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, (each possibly promising in itself,) may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.“BUT EACH PROPOSAL must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy; balance between cost and hoped for advantage; balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.”“As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.”“DOWN THE LONG LANE of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”
Notice the phrase “so that security and liberty may prosper together.” Take that, you domestic terrorist parents for daring to attend school board meetings to voice your concerns, counter the Demofiends.
Notice his prophetic doomsday vision of the country’s becoming “a community of dreadful fear and hate.” Take that, you MAGA Nazis for spreading fear and hate, counter the Demofiends.
Touché.
