So What if President Trump is a Jerk?

President Trump is under fire and we're all "shocked" that his s---hole mouth called the (predominantly black) nations of Africa "s---holes," helpfully comparing them to (predominantly blonde) Norway to make sure nobody missed the point. To drive home just how angry people are about this (and rightly so), Trump's comment overshadowed news that the government accidentally told the citizens of Hawaii they were about to get nuked. As George W. Bush would say, "that's some weird s---."   

This is a big deal unless you're reading this more than a few days after this writing, at which point Trump will have raised more hell with some new idiotic utterance that makes us forget about this one.   

Speaking of hell raising -- I managed to raise a few social media hackles recently when I posted the following: "I honestly don't understand why people are so depressed about Trump. Policy-wise, he isn't much different than Obama. Trump is truth in advertising: he is a jerk, our country acts like a jerk. No need for phony smiles, PC rhetoric."   

This led to a discussion comparing Trump not just to Obama, but to other American presidents. There were lots of great comments. Still, I was struck by something that few people seem to be aware of -- America's rich history of presidential contemptibility. Given how wicked smart my readers are, I was surprised to hear some of them refer favorably to Trump's predecessors.   

Trump is a lying turd. In that respect, he is as presidential as it gets. Going back to day one, the United States has been led by white males behaving badly.   

Trump gets attacked for using the presidency to line his pockets, and rightfully so. Yet The Donald has nothing on the Father of Our Country.   

George Washington was worth more than half a billion in today's dollars -- riches he accumulated in large part by exploiting his political influence to loot federal coffers. He joined the Masons, married well, scored a few lucky inheritances and invested the loot in real estate along what was then the Colonies' western frontier in Indian territory that he came across as a young land surveyor.    

GW's acreage was on the wrong side of the Appalachian mountains -- but not for long. Talk about conflict of interest: as commander of the revolutionary army and president, he promoted settlement of the west by whites that pumped up the value of his early investments. The fact that those whites were engaged in genocide bothered Washington not one bit.   

Even on the Left, some Americans point to Lincoln as a pillar of moral rectitude. But Honest Abe suspended the ancient writ of habeas corpus; in 2006, a militaristic jerk named George W. Bush relied on Lincoln's 1863 precedent to abolish it altogether.   

Since nothing in the Constitution bans secession, Southern states enjoyed the legal right to leave the Union. Defying the Constitution, Lincoln went to war -- illegally -- to bring them back. Not only was the Civil War a bloodbath, it left us with a nation that remains politically and culturally fractured to this day. Blacks were 13 percent of the population of the Confederacy. Had Lincoln chosen peace, a slave uprising might have brought down the Old South -- and killed a lot of racists.   

Lincoln cheated in the 1864 election by playing both sides of the secession. To justify the war, he claimed the breakaway states were still part of the Union, yet didn't count Southern electoral votes because they would have cost him reelection.   

You name the president, I'll name at least one unforgiveable sin.   

FDR? The New Deal was a grand achievement. But if trying to stack the Supreme Court isn't impeachable, what is? When World War II broke out, Roosevelt played footsies with Vichy France while snubbing the Resistance. He turned away Jewish refugees and refused to bomb the Nazi infrastructure used to murder Jews. He dragged his feet taking on Hitler so that the Soviet Union would take the brunt of Nazi savagery.   

Folks are already saying: "Barack Obama will be inducted into the league of Great Presidents." Obama, most Democrats have already forgotten, broke his promise to try for a "public option" in the Affordable Care Act. He went on languid vacations while the global economy was collapsing, handed trillions to bankers no strings attached and did nothing to help the unemployed and people whose homes were stolen by the banks.    

If that's a great president, give me a bad one.   

Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall) is co-author, with Harmon Leon, of "Meet the Deplorables: Infiltrating Trump America," an inside look at the American far right, out now. You can support Ted's hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.

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