The great legacy of Jimmy Carter: human rights and of Donald Trump's ending it

Jimmy Carter is laid to rest today. He will be long credited for taking the concept of civil rights and making it a standard and goal applied to all nations: human rights. It was a standard used in determining foreign policy action. Civil and political rights were a key part.   While Carter the man is being buried, so is his concept of human rights as applied to our own country. The contrast between Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump could fill many opinion columns. Still, one stands out above all: Trump plans to end the standard of government diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI)in governing this country. It ends requirements that those in the minority. The disadvantaged get a special chance to get their voices heard in shaping public policy. Officially, they will be less seen and less heard if not totally ignored.  Trump's immigration policies no longer give the US a moral high ground on human rights. His threats to separate families in his mass deportation policies will be condemned worldwide as it was in his first term, though his new, more cruel threat would break up mixed-status families, as well as deporting mom, dad, or grandparents, leaving those with status behind. His replacing human rights domestically with the ending of DEI further white Christian nationalism's goals of controlling public policy.   Project 2025 contains the implementation strategy of appointing loyalists to key positions. Trump's intentions are clear, as is his announced appointee of Russell Vought to OMB, with the power, the ideology,  and the ability to end DEI administratively. https://19thnews.org/2025/01/project-2025-russell-vought-office-management-budget/  and many others with Project 2025 ties. Trump taps authors and influencers of Project 2025 for key roles in new administration | AP News

The impact goes beyond the government as some in the private sector are also following suit. So far, Trump has already reneged on most of his campaign promises, from rolling back grocery stores and ending the war in Ukraine on day one, but ending DEI along with mass deportation of immigrants, which is also a race-related issue, are so far untouched. 

The best we can do is hope and pray; while the advocacy of human rights may only be made dormant and suppressed by some political leaders of this country, it rises again and survives in four years.

Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian   on Carter's meaning of human rights....—the right to be free from government violation of the integrity of the person; the right to fulfill vital needs such as food, shelter, and education; and civil and political rights. 

US: Lasting Harm from Family Separation at the Border | Human Rights Watch

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/12/major-trump-campaign-points-evaporate.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/anti-dei-program-effort-2025-states-companies-universities-trump-rcna184580

Mark Zuckerberg Drops DEI And Fact Checking - Search News

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/dei-suffers-another-blow-as-mcdonald-s-slashes-policies/ss-BB1rhNAr?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=5f1e40a1228e4f03845359208208333e&ei=29

In case you wonder, I am a white Christian who believes in treating all neighbors as I would treat myself. White Christian nationalists do not.

Donald Trump has lowered the bar for future presidential candidates

. A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News March 19-21 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion/muftic-disgusted-donald-trump-has-lowered-the-bar-for-future-presidential-candidates/

Donald Trump has lowered the standards for President of the US to such a degree,  any similar shortcomings of those who run for that office in the future will no longer seem so  important.

Before Watergate and muckraking investigative reporting, the personal sex life  of FDR , Dwight Eisenhower and JFK were not reported publicly until later by historians,  though their indiscretions were hardly secret among those in their closer circles. I live within two miles of Ike’s summer White House and locals  kept rumors to themselves.

I  remember painfully the ignominy  saint- like Jimmy Carter suffered when he admitted he had “lust in his  heart”. The cries of hypocrite ran out in then. How quaint that seems today.  In his memoirs of his early life I read Carter appeared to be a red blooded American young man like any other until he met the love of his life Rosalynn. They have been  married nearly 72 years.

Now running on cable is a story of my  once local Colorado idol, Sen. Gary Hart, a candidate for president who  was caught with a lovely on his lap on a boat named Monkey Business. I was disappointed and angry with him.   He had just deprived the United States of a very bright mind with great political judgment because his reputation of personal judgment  and his candidacy were flushed down the toilet. Ye gads, loyal wife Lee Hart and I had met while carpooling our children to kindergarten.

Ronald Reagan, movie star and America’s first divorced president,  was devoted to Nancy, his second wife .The Bushes, the Fords, and the  Obamas were beyond reproach.

Bill Clinton was another story, but even his dalliance with an intern  that got him impeached appears petty compared with the hijinks of Donald Trump and Stormy, Access Hollywood, and sixteen  witnesses attesting his grabbing habits were not an empty locker room boast. Even salacious unverified parts of the Steele dossier did not make a dent.  Any candidate who follows him will be immunized by comparison from accusations of having more than a wandering eye .

Usually a president represents a person who some young person can aspire to be. Ask yourself. Would you want your child or  grandchild to grow up to be like Donald Trump?

Donald Trump has lowered the bar on more than just  character standards for president. Any GOP candidate who dares use the the argument that such and such a social program cannot be enacted because it would create a deficit will not longer be able to  make that argument stick. Donald Trump in his second year in office has run up the budget deficit , highest since 2009 right after the great recession. He signed the bill into law when the GOP threw an additional  1.7 trillion dollars into the deficit hole with the tax cut to the wealthy. Try making that argument again. The guffaws from the left will drown them out.

It is no wonder in polls conducted by NBC/WSJ in January  that the most frequent words associated with Donald Trump were ’ disgusted” (38%), “scared” ( 24%  ), “angry” (11%), and that was before the Stormy saga.

The puzzle  is that somewhere between 35% to 40% of Americans  forgive him of his trespasses so long as he supports their social and cultural agenda, appoints fellow ideological travelers  to judicial vacancies, and satisfies political contributors. Per U Gov poll March 13, only one half thought Trump's Stormy affair was immoral. I imagine President Trump will weather Stormy, too.

Update: April 26, 2018
Especially forgiving his trespasses are the Evangelicals who have a great sense of their own righteousness. They, too, have lowered the bar for future candidates. https://www.thenation.com/…/why-evangelicals-still-support…/
In taking this stance,any future outrage by Evangelicals at an immoral, unethical, bully Democrat that does not support their agenda will not carry much weight or will not be taken very seriously. Imagine some candidate/l President, like Bill Clinton, who was
basically impeached for immoral behavior, would be attacked in the future for such behavior...the Evangelicals will be exposed as the ultimate hypocrites ..

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/trump-one-year-hopeful-disgusted-n839071

http://time.com/5015271/republican-tax-plan-deficits-trillion/

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/trump-and-national-debt

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/12/trump-notches-worst-deficit-great-recession/?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/only-half-trump-voters-affair-195613225.html

Hypocrisy is not new in politics; , it has just gotten worse

Rep. Devin Nunes, Donald Trump's GOP House member errand boy, was at it again. After having to recuse himself from the Russian investigation because of flagrant partisanship,  in a prior stunt. Devin Nunes, chair of the House Intelligence Committee,  wants to release his "memo" on alleged misdeeds by the FBI.  The Trump administration's own Justice Department says it contains classified information and  release would be "extraordinarily  reckless ", harmful to US security.  Nunes is on a thinly disguised  campaign to try to obstruct the Mueller investigation by damaging the FBI's reputation and to give a reason to fire Deputy  AG Rod Rosenstein who is  supervising the Mueller probe. The reason the Justice Department gave : the Nunes memo includes  information into FBI secret methods to gather information. No wonder Russian bots are cheerleading for the release of this memo. Russia could  learn much helpful to their own attempts to subvert US democracy and learning more about sources and methods used by US security services.  The FBI believes also it is misleading. and inaccurate.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/31/fbi-grave-concerns-expected-release-nunes-memo/1083218001/

Of course, after exhaustive investigations led by a GOP Congress into Hillary Clinton's e mails that allegedly contained classified information, those investigations  went nowhere because her intent to include them was not proven. Now  Nunes intentionally wants to release classified information harmful to the US.     Is it  OK if the GOP intentionally does release information that hurts US security  but it is  not OK if Clinton unintentionally did it  and with no damage to US security?

It is just boys being boys and locker room talk if the GOP 's flag bearer, the President of the US.  admits to sexual assault on starlets and pays off porn stars for his encounters, but it is impeachment worthy when Bill Clinton "did not have sex with that women".  Give Trump a "mulligan", White  Evangelical religious leader  's exhort while some of  their believers believe Trump   "was sent by God".  Give me a break.  How many of the GOP would like their kids to grow up and be like Donald Trump?

I yearn for those simpler  days when President Jimmy Carter admitted he had "lust in in heart".  But of course, he, a devout Christian,  came in for ridicule by his political critics  as a hypocrite.   How far  down  the toilet has the country gone?

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/1/23/16924546/evangelical-tony-perkins-trump-stormy-daniels-affair-mulligan

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/27/millions-of-americans-believe-god-made-trump-president-216537

http://www.businessinsider.com/release-the-memo-campaign-russia-linked-twitter-accounts-2018-1

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-04-06/house-intel-chairman-devin-nunes-recuses-self-from-russia-investigation

https://www.thedailybeast.com/doj-warns-that-releasethememo-would-be-extraordinarily-reckless