I copy a couple of paragraphs from a recent Time article:
To look at Kennedy and to study his presidency is to glimpse America coming to grips with the nuclear age, waking up to the moral imperative of civil rights, fumbling with the dirty business of counterinsurgencies and regime change. He encapsulates the giddy conviction that Hey! America can do anything!--a notion that produced both the moon landings and the Vietnam War. Kennedy is the high before the lows; the buoyant marker of a fleeting hope that the laws of historical gravity might be suspended, if not revoked outright.
The nation at Kennedy's centennial is a different place, looking inward instead of outward, stepping back from the world instead of toward it. America is led by a generation of politicians who grew up in the relative peace of the postwar order, answering to an electorate more exhausted than energized by the duties of a superpower.
In the White House is a man whose Inaugural Address was in many ways a repudiation of Kennedy's. "Ask not what your country can do for you," Kennedy demanded.
Donald Trump said, by contrast, that "a nation exists to serve its citizens. Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public."
Kennedy spoke of a trumpet summoning Americans to "a long twilight struggle, year in and year out...against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself." He spoke of "a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind." He welcomed his role and responsibility, and those of his generation, as defenders of "freedom in its hour of maximum danger," and asked, "Will you join in that historic effort?"
Trump issued "a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it's going to be America first."
John F. Kennedy was the face and voice of an America that understood the high price of peace and freedom, and with clear-eyed determination was ready to pay it.
To look at Kennedy and to study his presidency is to glimpse America coming to grips with the nuclear age, waking up to the moral imperative of civil rights, fumbling with the dirty business of counterinsurgencies and regime change. He encapsulates the giddy conviction that Hey! America can do anything!--a notion that produced both the moon landings and the Vietnam War. Kennedy is the high before the lows; the buoyant marker of a fleeting hope that the laws of historical gravity might be suspended, if not revoked outright.
The nation at Kennedy's centennial is a different place, looking inward instead of outward, stepping back from the world instead of toward it. America is led by a generation of politicians who grew up in the relative peace of the postwar order, answering to an electorate more exhausted than energized by the duties of a superpower.
In the White House is a man whose Inaugural Address was in many ways a repudiation of Kennedy's. "Ask not what your country can do for you," Kennedy demanded.
Donald Trump said, by contrast, that "a nation exists to serve its citizens. Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public."
Kennedy spoke of a trumpet summoning Americans to "a long twilight struggle, year in and year out...against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself." He spoke of "a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind." He welcomed his role and responsibility, and those of his generation, as defenders of "freedom in its hour of maximum danger," and asked, "Will you join in that historic effort?"
Trump issued "a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it's going to be America first."
John F. Kennedy was the face and voice of an America that understood the high price of peace and freedom, and with clear-eyed determination was ready to pay it.
I can't even read about Trump but makes me too sad.
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