A Brief History
On Monday, September 26, 2016, former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will square off against Billionaire businessman Donald Trump in the first Presidential debate of the 2016 election between the two major parties’ nominees.
Digging Deeper
Could one of these people on the podium have been you? NO! At least not unless you are descended from serious money or have a pedigree that includes English royalty, and for the most part, have attended an Ivy League school or military service academy.
The fact is, and you may be surprised, that every single one of our past presidents except Martin Van Buren was descended from King John of England, the guy that signed the Magna Carta. Really, we are not kidding. Even Obama. Plus, Obama’s grandmother was the president of the Bank of Hawaii, while his mother was a globe trotting anthropologist. Obama went to Yale, as did Bill Clinton and both George Buish’s, John F. Kennedy went to Harvard.
It helps a lot if you have the family background to get an “in” with the political world. John McCain was the son of a Navy Admiral and the grandson of another Navy Admiral. McCain, a war hero no matter what Donald Trump says, is worth perhaps $21 million, but his wife is worth $100 million. Mitt Romney is preposterously wealthy, and though he claims only a net worth of $250 million, that is because he has put hundreds of millions of dollars into trust funds for his kids (to avoid inheritance taxes) and he keeps a bunch of his money in Switzerland and the Caribbean islands, so who knows what he really has. His dad was president American Motors when that company was a major auto manufacturer, as well as being governor of Michigan.
Bill Clinton went to Yale, and his wife went to Wellesley and then Yale. Do you think your kid’s junior college degree gives him/her a chance at running for president? Heck, Hillary had a husband that was president and W had a dad in the Oval Office. Al Gore did not go to Yale, but his father was a senator and his mom is a Juris Doctor. Do you think the son/daughter of a truck driver will get the nomination?
John Kerry, remember him? He was the nominee of the Democrats in 2004. He went to Yale, and his wife inherited somewhere between $165 million and $3.2 billion (midrange guess, $750 million). Yeah, he’s rich.
Donald Trump’s dad had around $300 million, leaving The Donald with a healthy legacy. Donald went to school at Fordham and then the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School of Finance and Commerce), more Ivy League stuff. Do you think your on-line degree will get you into the White House?
The sad truth is, many parents lie to their kids and maybe to themselves that anyone can grow up to be President of the United States. Realistically, you better be rich, go to an Ivy League or other prestigious college, have family connections and have royal lineage. This “anybody could be President” claim is just one more urban myth told to us by those in charge to keep us in our places. (I am a graduate of Cleveland State University, by the way. No royalty, no money, no connections.)
Question for students (and subscribers): Would you want to be president? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Trump, Donald J. Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America. Threshold Editions, 2016.