A Myopic Comparison: Reagan and the Donald

Over the past month I've been able to use my Audible subscription to listen to both Bill O'Reilly's book, Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency, and Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Art of the Deal.  While I was listening to both books, it struck me that both President Reagan and President Trump have many similarities, more than many realize.  I just thought it would be good to point out those similarities in my view. So let's get to it.

1) Both President Reagan and President Trump are both former Democrats that won the Presidency as Republicans:

•  I recall when reading Reagan's autobiography, An American Life, Reagan talked how proudly he was a Democrat during the FDR era.  He was very much skeptical of Big Business and Good 'ol Boy politics.

• There is plenty of documentation that the Donald considered himself a Democrat for most of his life.  In fact, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer in 2004, the Donald said the following:

"In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat," Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in a 2004 interview. "It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now, it shouldn't be that way. But if you go back, I mean it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats. ...But certainly we had some very good economies under Democrats, as well as Republicans. But we've had some pretty bad disaster under the Republicans."

2) Both President Reagan and President Trump got great support from Evangelicals, yet they do not attend church regularly.

• It's been a well know fact that Reagan was not affiliated with a local church as President and rarely attended.  In fact, Reagan's lack of church attendance was a question in his debate with Walter Mondale in 1984.  Here's his rationale:

I have gone to church regularly all my life, and I started to here in Washington. And now, in the position I hold and in the world in which we live, where Embassies do get blown up in Beirut [...] but I pose a threat to several hundred people if I go to church. I know the threats that are made against me. We all know the possibility of terrorism. We have seen the barricades that have had to be built around the White House. And, therefore, I don't feel—and my minister knows this and supports me in this position—I don't feel that I have a right to go to church, knowing that my being there could cause something of the kind that we have seen in other places, in Beirut, for example. And I miss going to church, but I think the Lord understands.

It should be noted however, that President Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush were known to attend church regularly as President.

• The Donald considers himself a Presbyterian and attends Marble Collegiate Church.  However, the church says the following:

"Donald Trump has had a longstanding history with Marble Collegiate Church, where his parents were for years active members and one of his children was baptized. However, as he indicates, he is a Presbyterian, and is not an active member of Marble,"

However, despite each individual's lack of church attendance, they both received great support from Evangelicals in their campaigns.  Reagan encouraged the rise of Jerry Fawell and the Moral Majority while the Donald received the greatest share of Evangelical support in any election in the history of the Pew Research poll.

3) Both President Reagan and President Trump were known for being politically incorrect, for their good or bad.

• Reagan was well known for his politically incorrect statements.  Among them are:

"My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes."

He was joking around in a voice-level test before broadcast of a speech during the Cold War, but it turned out the microphone was switched on.

"We are trying to get unemployment to go up, and I think we're going to succeed"

• If you followed the last campaign, we all know the Donald doesn't hold back from what he really thinks.  Just follow his Twitter page with his handle @realdonaldtrump and you will know what I mean.  Many say that Reagan kept more discipline than the Donald does in holding his tongue.  While that may be true, Reagan didn't have social media to spread his stream of consciousness either.

4) Both President Reagan and President Trump had acting backgrounds.

• Goes without saying much.  But I'll say this, comparing  Reagan's "Bedtime for Bonzo" with the Donald's "The Apprentice" would be comparing apples and oranges.

5) Both did not exactly act with great morality when it came to their lust for women.

• Reagan not only was a remarried divorcee, but also a serial womanizer for much of the first half of his life, when he was working in Hollywood.  Books such as Love Triangle have made claims that Reagan had extramarital flings with as many as 50 women.  O'Reilly even claims that Reagan was in the arms of mistress Patti Larson when his daughter Patti Davis was born.  How much of this is true, I don't know.  But to have multiple sources document such claims strengthens the case it's more true than not in my myopic opinion.

• Based on the last campaign and the fact that the Donald in in his third marriage, I think it's clear that he hasn't been the shining star in dealing with women either.  There are other stories of past acts, like talking about how his daughter Ivanka should be well qualified for photo shoots in porn magazines on the campaign trail, but I think the case is clear.

6) Both President Reagan and President Trump were Republicans that connected with blue collar Americans.

• As it has been made clear in their wins of states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, both Reagan and Trump won the respect and support of blue collar Americans, especially union households.  They did this mainly through their direct and simple communication style that emitted much emotion when they spoke, connecting them to the audience.  

I think I've said enough for now on this topic.  But I just wanted to share my myopic opinion. 

Mellow Yellow Invades the Biltmore and Clemson

It's been a week already, but I guess I should provide recap of my trip to Asheville, NC to visit the Biltmore last Monday.  The Biltmore is a 8,000 estate which is centered around a Châteauesque-style mansion built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately owned house in the United States.

The mansion has 250 rooms, including 33 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens and 19th-century novelties such as electric elevators, forced-air heating, centrally controlled clocks, fire alarms, and a call-bell system.

The chess set in the library was from Napoleon.

I finished my trip off by heading to Clemson University, which is about 50 minutes south of Greenville, before heading to the airport.

Of course, Clemson is known for having a very good football team: national championship quality football team, in fact.

But Clemson is actually a university, a beautiful campus, in my myopic opinion.

In short, count the trip a success.  I perhaps will come again.  I certainly urge you to if you haven't been to South Carolina.

Mellow Yellow Invades SC: Shoeless Joe Jackson's Museum

Saturday afternoon I spent some time at Shoeless Joe Jackson's final house, which is on the west side of Greenville, near the baseball stadium.

Joe Jackson was a left fielder from the Greenville area.  He was arguably the greatest hitter in baseball history in an era where home runs were few and far between. During his career, he achieved the highest batting average by a rookie (.408), led the American League (AL) in triples (26 in 1912, 21 in 1916, 20 in 1920), led the AL in doubles (39 in 1913) and hits (226 in 1912, 197 in 1913).  As a left fielder, he was known to have great range (said that balls hit near him were "a place where triples go to die") and arm (said to be able to throw the ball 400 feet on the fly).  

He got his nickname "Shoeless" in 1908 when in a game he played in new spikes that gave him many painful blisters on his feet.  So before he batted one time he decided to take his shoes off before he got to the plate.  He hit a triple during that at-bat and he was nicknamed "Shoeless" ever since.

What Jackson is most known for is the 1919 scandal where the team he played for, the Chicago White Sox, lost the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.  The White Sox were heavy favorites in the series and suspicions arose that they threw the series to conspire with sports bookies.  I'll tell you in a bit what I was told once I got into the house.

Here's a couple of the signs outside of the house.

Here's the house and what you see walking in the front door.

Once I got in the front door, a geriatric man, Bill, greeted me and asked me what I knew about Jackson.  I told him the scandal of 1919.  Bill raised his voice, saying that's not true. He went on to say that Jackson and the seven other players accused of throwing the series were victims of a mafia and media smear.  Jackson's stats during that World Series appear to give him proof that was the case.  Here are a few of Jackson's stats during that series:

• Batting average: .375
• Hit the only home run
• On base plus slugging: .956 (e.g. .800 is a very good offensive performance)

Eventually Jackson would get cleared of wrongdoing.  But his and fellow alleged teammates forever would be smeared by what Bill would call "Fake News" headline "WHITE SOX INDICTED!"  Here's a video link for a more complete explanation : Click Here

So here's Jackson's living room:

One of his bats, a bit heavier than what we see today.

The kitchen of his house, appliances were sold off, so these are replicas.

Finally, the bathroom area of his house, very cozy indeed:

All in all, this was another interesting experience.  Thanks to Bill, I learned something new as well.

Mellow Yellow Invades SC: Charleston

Currently I'm sitting at a coffee shop in Greenville, SC in the midst of my 6 day holiday in South Carolina to visit friends and see regional sites.  Yesterday, I was in Charleston, SC on a day trip.

Charleston is about a three hour drive from Greenville.  So after waking up at about 4:45 am ET to workout, clean up and have breakfast, I left for Charleston at about 6:50 am.  I arrived in Charleston at about 10 am. 

The first site I visited wast Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12, 1861.

I arrived at the port/museum to dock the ferry to go out to Fort Sumter itself, which was a man made island.

The ferry ride itself is about a half hour long.  But at least it was a nice day.

Here's the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, which is a cable-stayed bridge over the Cooper River in South Carolina, USA, connecting downtown Charleston to Mount Pleasant. The eight lane bridge satisfied the capacity of U.S. Route 17 when it opened in 2005 to replace two obsolete cantilever truss bridges. This bridge is the third longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere.

A view of Charleston from the ferry.

A view of Fort Sumter from the ferry as we arrived. Notice we have no flag on the flagpole.

Since we were in the offseason, only two ferries run each day and I was on the first ride of the day. During the peak season, April through Thanksgiving, six ferries run each day from multiple locations. The park ranger said that since federal law prohibits flying the American flag at night with no light, they have to take it down each day before the last ferry leaves the fort.  Since I was on the first ride of the day and the flag is very large, the park ranger asked for volunteers to help hold the flag as it is raised back up the pole. Alas, I did volunteer to be a line leader.

Here's my views as we unfurled the flag.

It was a very nice day.

Here's some views of the fort:

We only spent an hour on Fort Sumter, but at the end of the visit we were treated to a shooting demonstration.

So after the shooting demonstration I boarded the ferry for my return visit.  I'm grateful that I was able to mark off another Civil War site that I wanted to visit. I'm very intrigued about the history of the Civil War. In fact, while I was waiting at the airport on my way into South Carolina I saw a man across from me reading one of my favorite books: James McPherson's The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era.  While I lived in the DC area for one year after Carleton, I was able to visit these Civil War sites on weekend trips:

• Bull Run
• Antietam 
• Gettysburg
• Harper's Ferry (John Brown's raid)
• Wilderness
• Confederate White House (Richmond, VA)
• Chancellorsville (where Stonewall Jackson lost his right arm)
• Ellwood Manor (where Jackson's arm is buried)

I was just glad to start on the southern portion of my sightseeing, hopefully with more opportunities to come.

After the ferry returned to port, I walked about 10-15 blocks to Downtown Charleston to go on a tour of the city via horse carriage.

Apparently carriage tours are quite popular in Charleston, so the city regulates which route a carriage takes.  So theoretically you could take 8 different tours on eight different carriage rides.  I'll say in my myopic opinion this is an efficient way of looking at the city and it's worth the $25 fee.

Charleston has quite the English feel to it.  Traveling through the city reminded me of my days walking down the streets of Cambridge, England about 16 years ago.  For the houses are close together and have that English style (narrow, high and long towards the backyard).

Here's the Mile Newton house, built in the 1760s.  Newton was a very wealthy slave trader who used his house apparently for his business purposes.

Here Battery Park and White Port Gardens, which is in the rich historical part of town.  Across the street from this park are some of the most expensive houses in Charleston.

At the end of the tour, I was reminded that while Charleston has a historical past, it's still the 21st century.

After the tour, I decided to head off to an early dinner before heading back to Greenville. Based on recommendations, I decide to head to Magnolias, a local Southern-style restaurant.

I ordered the a cup of tomato soup and the Charleston crabcake, which is a crabcake on top of butter risotto with a side of collard greens.  In my myopic opinion, the dish tasted as good as it looks.

In short, my day trip was a success and I am a fan of Charleston.  To paraphrase General Douglas MacArthur, I have come through and I want to return.