Robert Redford, I like your movies and you seem like a nice guy.

However, I have material disagreements with the main premise and supporting arguments in your article attached to the end of this blog post.

If we citizens of the USA are all willing to listen respectfully to each others’ arguments, I believe we can become united again. Of course, we’ll never agree on every issue. But, it is the striving together, respecting others’ opinions, willingness to compromise, and willingness to agreeably disagree that ultimately produce an outcome that is the will of the majority and at least recognized by the minority as a legitimate outcome.

Now that is a healthy democracy.

A healthy democracy is the solid foundation on which this great country has been built. However, as you described in your article, we are not really a healthy democracy today. In my opinion, in the past three decades, we the people of the USA have been inching toward a tipping point that divides us seriously enough to materially and permanently damage the core values of the USA.

Robert, you expressed hope for the future in your article, “I see much of the country beginning to reunite again, the way it did when I was a kid. You can see it in the peaceful protests of the past several weeks.”

You wrote your article over a month ago (July 8, 2020), so I’m curious if today you still have that same attitude about “peaceful protests” as agents of unification. I ask this in light of the nightly (August 19, 2020) riots, burnings, and destruction of property and life in the USA’s largest cities by the night-time supporters of the day-time peaceful protestors.

Notwithstanding, I appreciate your hope for a positive outcome for the country we both love based on your recollection of the feeling you had for President FDR’s moral compass and strong leadership abilities, “For me, the power of FDR’s example is what it says about the kind of leadership America needs — and can have again, if we choose it.“

You seem to think we as a nation are getting close to a turning point to peace and prosperity for all if only we vote for Joe Biden as USA President.

It is at this point in our “conversation” that I believe you and I start to disagree on the solution for the sickness that we currently have in the USA today.

Twelve years ago I could have seriously considered your request to vote for Joe Biden as President.

Not today.

Twelve years ago (2008), Joe was a seasoned, thirty-six year US Senator with a strong and vigorous voice of his own. For those years as a US Senator, Joe was a centrist Democrat who used his voice and position to build up our nation for all citizens and legal residents.

However, in my opinion over these past years as Vice President to Barack Obama’s Presidency and then as a candidate for the Presidency, Joe has been forced by the radical left of the Democrat party to support their complete platform or “else” — e.g., abortion on demand; annual payment of USA citizens’ tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the USA (345,000+ abortions in 2018); full funding for the Green New Deal; open borders immigration policy leanings; reinstatement of President Obama-era extreme business regulations; dramatic increase in taxes on private businesses of all sizes; wealth redistribution via large tax increases on wealthy individuals; dramatic reduction in financial support for already underfunded law enforcement departments fighting crime and insuring citizens’ safety via community policing; redirection of the funds cut from police budgets to community services other than police; no financial support for parental choices for their children other than public education; Bernie Sander’s free college for everyone; mandated federal buy-back for certain private owner guns (I don’t even own a gun, but I don’t think this is constitutional); governmental (we the people) reparation payments to descendants of black slaves in the USA; in my opinion, before election day Joe Biden will be forced to support Bernie Sander’s version of governmental, single-payer, universal health care in the USA; and the list goes on.

While I support the general intent of some of these planks in the Joe Biden platform, they would have to be moderated considerably for me to support them. Others such as Abortion on Demand and paying for abortions with tax dollars from USA citizens opposing abortion are DOA for me.

Joe Biden just doesn’t impress me today as having the strength, vigor, endurance, and passion that he had in years past to be able to push-back on the growing number of radical Democrats on policy decisions.

At heart, I think Joe probably is still a centrist and thinks he can regain his voice if elected. However, I think his time has passed to be able to do that.

My solution and hope is in the Silent Majority of years past – conservative, independent, and liberal. I think it is still there, just silent at this time as is the norm for this group. It needs to find its voice again! Soon!

Today, I think the Silent Majority of the citizens of the USA must make a significant attitude adjustment. We all need to earnestly focus on “uniting and uplifting” each other, not literally destroying each other socially, financially, and politically. Current day social media platforms such as Twitter seem to be the choice du jour of “verbal weapons of destruction” in the USA (and world).

Sincere efforts to “unite and uplift” must be accomplished across tribal boundaries, not just within one’s own tribe as is the case today.

Robert, you made reference in your article to FDR’s ability to “unite and uplift.”

You also stated that President Trump has been and is doing just the opposite, i.e., “Instead of words that uplift and unite, we hear words [from President Trump] that inflame and divide.” You also stated that “Instead of a president who says we’re all in it together, we have a president who’s in it for himself.“

On the one hand, I agree President Trump has a huge ego that requires a lot of feeding, but I don’t view him that much differently from the typical celebrity politician today in both political parties. I believe this modern day version of a politician has its roots firmly planted twenty-eight years ago in Bill Clinton, who by the way I think was a good President, notwithstanding his exhaustively chronicled character flaws.

With steadfast care and cultivation, this current version of politician, as compared to statespersons of years past, is at a point where too many politicians care more about winning the next election cycle and fundraising millions of dollars for election campaigns than doing the work of the people.

Every President has his own (one day, her own) idiosyncrasies, ego, and failings. Lord knows President Trump has his and they are very well chronicled over the past several decades.

I don’t like his tweets, the way he plays fast and loose with the truth, and the way he rudely treats people who disagree with him.

I certainly don’t like the way he mocks and makes fun of people who irritate him.

I’m really just totally exhausted with his huge ego that publicly declares everything accomplished by his Presidency to be the biggest and best by far in the history of the whole universe.

Wow! That describes a sizable number of the politicians in Washington D.C. today in both parties after twenty-eight years of steady devolvement from the average statespersons of years past.

On the other hand, I do like the way President Trump daily gives direct and impromptu answers to real-time questions from news reporters rather than answers from a list of tribal talking points that don’t even attempt to answer the questions asked.

What you see is what you get with President Trump.

I do like that he brought business skills, honed over many decades, to the Oval Office so he doesn’t just address every problem from a political perspective.

I like that he is not afraid in a deal negotiation to ask for what he thinks is best for our country. He then seriously considers all counter-offers with input from his cabinet/advisors. And then, he compromises with the parties in the deal by making the best deal he can for the country.

In this give and take manner, each party (US Citizens, US White House, US House, US Senate, foreign countries) in the deal should be able to walk away with something positive from the final deal.

Of course, every party of the deal must decide if the “price” paid to close the deal is worth the return. If it is not, I like that President Trump is willing to walk away from the deal and try again later.

He is a natural politician, so not much to say here other than he didn’t require a steep learning curve on politics when he got to the Oval Office.

On how the USA government operates, that’s a different story. He is still a work in progress on that front.

I do like that President Trump runs the presidency like a CEO — hires good people, listens to everyone, after listening makes a rational decision based on the input received, and follows through with prompt action.

I don’t agree with all of his policy decisions, but in general, I like the conservative thinking that he has revitalized in Washington D.C. after eight years of President Obama’s politically progressive policies.

To make the best decisions, bipartisan input from both the liberal and the conservative points of view need to be in the mix. Not a lot of that going on today, nor was it in President Obama’s time in the Oval Office, just a different political party in power. Same pettiness in congressional oversight and policy negotiations.

Unfortunately, over the past three decades or so, bipartisanship has been a rarity.

What an understatement.

Robert, one other point about “…[President Trump is] a president who’s in it for himself”

My observation over the past three years is that President Trump has a big heart for the USA nation itself and its people, e.g., working-class people, regardless of color or ethnicity.

After all, he was raised as a very young man with extensive life skills and values materially shaped by the working men and women on his father’s construction crews in Queens, NYC.

At age twenty-five, he became President of his father’s construction and real estate company, renamed it The Trump Organization, and continued his life skills education by managing construction projects and crews in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

Through these experiences he obviously honed his life skills in the rough and tumble world of labor union bosses, construction crew skilled workers, Teamster union workers, construction supplies vendors, city leaders and inspectors, and on and on, as well as high finance capital bankers and business deal makers.

It’s virtually impossible to “handle with kid gloves” the people working to complete a construction project in New York City if you want the project to be on-schedule and on-budget.

The end result is the President Donald Trump we see today, which came as a cataclysmic shock to the faux political diplomacy of Washington D.C.

Just imagine, someone who says what he is thinking and actually does what he says he is going to do.

Now, that’s radical!

He is not a religious giant, but then again, who really is?

We are a fallen human race, but because of the grace and forgiveness from God who is the creator of the perfect moral compass, we can all get up after a fall and keep moving forward with God in our hearts as our moral compass.

Robert, I have little doubt that you vehemently disagree with all the positive comments I have just made about President Trump and his Presidential team.

In fact, I suspect you might have some very colorful words to describe how you feel about my comments. That’s okay, since we both believe in free choice and free speech. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I’m pretty sure you feel the same as I about free speech.

On that note, I do agree with your comment “President Donald Trump didn’t create all of our divisions as Americans.”

I think this current wave of political distrust between the Democrat and Republican parties began with Bill Clinton’s Presidency and Speaker Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. This happened after Republicans wrestled the majority from Bill Clinton and the Democrats in the US House of Representatives in 1994, two years into Clinton’s presidency.

Strangely enough, Bill and Newt actually did a decent job of getting the House of Representatives and the White House to work together to accomplish some good things for the people.

But the divisiveness and infighting between political parties in our USA has intensified and calcified over the years to its current state of distrust, deceit, and hate between people of the two major USA political parties.

I have a different viewpoint than you on the rest of your comment about divisiveness, “But he [President Donald Trump] has found every fault line in America and wrenched them wide open.“

Your statement leaves me thinking you believe that President Donald Trump’s time in the White House is more divisive and tumultuous than was President Obama’s eight years in office.

I’m not buying it.

I’ve followed both presidents very closely, and they are equally divisive. Just with two different political parties in power at different times, with different agendas, and different sets of supporters, one liberal and one conservative.

Of course, our difference of opinion is largely predicated on your political viewpoint being left or possibly left-center and mine being center-right with a little center-left on social issues. Obviously, you align more closely with Obama’s line of thinking on policy and I align more with Trump’s.

Robert, as to style points, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know I think President Obama wins that one hands down.

As I stated earlier, I think this current-era of extreme divisiveness started in 1992 when President Clinton and Newt Gingrich took office, advanced a little through George W. Bush’s term as president, became much more divisive during President Obama’s time in office, and continued on the same trajectory to worsen and harden with President Trump.

No one person is to blame for the sorry state of affairs we find today politically in the USA. There is plenty of blame to spread across the two major political parties and their constituents (us) in our great country.

I don’t like President Obama’s elitist attitude toward working class people. His on-air statement when he thought he was off-air was a divisive as it gets: “They [working class] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

I don’t like that President Obama thinks he has all the answers, and if you don’t agree, he makes fun of you. I agree he is smart, accomplished, and articulate; but really, nobody has ALL the answers.

I do like that he doesn’t tweet that much, generally uses good manners in delivering his public comments to and about others, and seems to be a good husband and father.

But I personally believe he materially contributed to the division of the country along political and racial lines just as much as any president in my lifetime, including President Trump.

Being the first black President, which is a very heavy lift, I cut President Obama some slack on the racial division front.

I am extremely happy and thankful that the USA citizenry finally elected the first black USA president. In my mind, that was a huge, positive step forward for our country.

In my lifetime, we the people of the USA have been much healthier than we are now as a democracy, and I’m confident we’ll keep working on getting better in the future.

So, Robert, with respect and after deep reflection reading your article and doing my independent research, I say “Thanks, but no thanks” on your invitation to vote for Joe Biden in November 2020.

If President Trump and Joe Biden are the only choices on voting day, I’ll be voting for President Trump.

If there are other viable candidates that unexpectedly surface, I’ll seriously consider them before casting my vote.

Attachment

Robert Redford post, July 8, 2020, various media outlets

“I have a lot of vivid memories of growing up in Los Angeles in the 1940s, but one in particular keeps coming back to me today, in these troubled times. I remember sitting with my parents — actually, my parents were sitting; I was lying on the floor, the way kids do — and listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt talking to us over the radio. He was talking to the nation, of course, not just to us, but it sure felt that way. He was personal and informal, like he was right there in our living room.

I was too young to follow much of what he was saying — something about World War II. But what I did understand was that this was a man who cared about our well-being. I felt calmed by his voice. It was a voice of authority and, at the same time, empathy. Americans were facing a common enemy — fascism — and FDR gave us the sense that we were all in it together. Even kids like me had a role to play: participating in paper drives, collecting scrap metal, doing whatever we could do. That’s what it was like to have a president with a strong moral compass. It guided him, gave him direction, and helped him point the nation toward a better future.

Maybe this strikes you as simple nostalgia. I’ve got a touch of that, sure (who doesn’t right now?). But I’m too focused on the future to sit around pining for the old days. For me, the power of FDR’s example is what it says about the kind of leadership America needs — and can have again, if we choose it.

But one thing is clear: Instead of a moral compass in the Oval Office, there’s a moral vacuum. Instead of a president who says we’re all in it together, we have a president who’s in it for himself. Instead of words that uplift and unite, we hear words that inflame and divide. When someone retweets (and then deletes) a video of a supporter shouting “white power” or calls journalists “enemies of the state,” when he turns a lifesaving mask against contagion into a weapon in a culture war, when he orders the police and the military to tear gas peaceful protestors so he can wave a Bible at the cameras, he sacrifices — again and again — any claim to moral authority.

Another four years of this would degrade our country beyond repair. The toll it’s taking is almost biblical: fires and floods, a literal plague upon the land, an eruption of hatred that’s being summoned and harnessed, by a leader with no conscience or shame. Four more years would accelerate our slide toward autocracy. It would be taken as free license to punish more so-called “traitors” and wage more petty vendettas — with the full weight of the Justice Department behind them. Four more years would mean open season on our environmental laws. The assault has been ongoing — it started with abandoning the historic agreement that the world made in Paris to combat climate change, and continued, just last month, with using the pandemic as cover to let industries pollute as they see fit. Four more years would bring untold damage to our planet — our home.

America is still a world power. But in the past four years, it has lost its place as a world leader. A second term would embolden enemies and further weaken our standing with our friends.

When and how did the United States of America become the Divided States of America? Polarization, of course, has deep roots and many sources.

Without a moral compass in the Oval Office, our country is dangerously adrift. But this November, we can choose another direction. This November, unity and empathy are on the ballot. Experience and intelligence are on the ballot. Joe Biden is on the ballot, and I’m confident he will bring these qualities back to White House.

I don’t make a practice of publicly announcing my vote. But this election year is different. And I believe Biden was made for this moment. Biden leads with his heart. I don’t mean that in a soft and sentimental way. I’m talking about a fierce compassion — the kind that fuels him, that drives him to fight against racial and economic injustice, that won’t let him rest while people are struggling.

As FDR showed, empathy and ethics are not signs of weakness. They’re signs of strength. I think Americans are coming back to that view. Despite Trump — despite his daily efforts to divide us — I see much of the country beginning to reunite again, the way it did when I was a kid. You can see it in the peaceful protests of the past several weeks — Americans of all races and classes coming together to fight against racism. You can see it the ways that communities are pulling together in the face of this pandemic, even if the White House has left them to fend for themselves.

These acts of compassion and kindness make our country stronger. This November, we have a chance to make it stronger still — by choosing a president who is consistent with our values, and whose moral compass points toward justice.”
– Robert Redford, July 8, 2020