Our country is broken and it will never be the same again. Why do we say that? It
is undisputed by 16 intelligence agencies that the Russians interfered with our presidential
election of 2016. Our President refuses to acknowledge this fact. He never has asked the
FBI director a question on this subject and has never been briefed on the matter. Yet, those
that support him do not blink an eye. They cheer when he denigrates Democrats and
journalists, but his lack of concern about our archenemy means nothing to them.
Daily press briefings are a thing of the past. The press which is the guardian of our
democracy is shoved aside and replaced by early morning tweets as our source of
information. News that is accurate is deemed to be “false news”, when it is adverse to the
President’s position or interests. Again, a sizable amount of the population having no
knowledge if the news is false, champions these attacks. Somehow being lied to by the
President is in their best interest.
The demeanor of our Head of State is a throwback to yesteryear, when civility was not
considered a virtue but even a detriment. This behavior more reminiscent of the McCarthy
era or even going back further another century to times when duels or fisticuffs between our
elected officials was accepted practice. However, even back then, it was not played out on
the daily stage and certainly was not presented for all of us to hear and see.
The left is even more left and the right is even more right. Moderation or moderates
are disdained by both political parties and appear as weak to their respective party zealots.
Crossing party lines on a vote by our elected officials is near blasphemy, certainly to receive
repercussions from the party leaders.
But these are some of the evidence of why our country is broken. The real reason why
it is broken is because of us. We do not expect more than this from our President. We do
not expect more than this from our elected officials. We are entertained by the sporting event
that has become our government. Those of us on the left cannot wait for the nightly news
to hear how the buffoon that we call the President has made another blunder. Yes, we get
to mock him.
Those of us on the right watch our news respectively, waiting for those blunders and
laughing at the democrats because they can do nothing about it. We champion his lack of
civility as we interpret civility as a form of political correctness which has made our country
weak.
By the results of the primaries, whether for the President or even for local elected
officials, we have told our leaders that we cherish extremism and that we expect them to do
the same. Compromise is a dirty word, one that we will not forgive them for. Winning at
all costs is our mantra and it is better to lose all in the fight than meet someone else halfway.
We have been inundated with so many reality shows which, of course, are not reality,
that we view our Government as one reality show. It does not matter to us whether the
winner is a good person or a bad person, but rather that he played the game well. Unlike a
reality show, the winner, our elected official, actually has to do a job after he has won. We
seem to forget that and view the public office and especially the Presidency as a reward for
winning the reality show of the election. We do not judge whether he is good for the job or
bad for the job, but rather, he must be good for the job because he won the election. The
proof of his suitability is the fact that he won the election. Not the opposite, that he should
win the election because he is suitable.
With all that, we do not expect truth from our elected officials, but rather talking
points. We obviously do not expect excellence in job performance but rather someone to tell
us that he is excellent. We want a winner and apparently we don’t care what it takes to win.
We also don’t care what our winner stands for. Contradictions in the same speech.
No problem. A Rose Garden Ceremony to champion health care legislation followed a
month later by calling it “mean”. No hypocrisy. No foreign policy agenda. Strong leader.
Hated and vitriol. That’s our man.
Some may say that this Presidency, along with the years surrounding it on both sides,
will just be a blip on the screen of American history. But as we all learned growing up
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the kings horses and
all the kings men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.” Our country has had a great
fall and it cannot be put together again.
That is not to say that it will end or be destroyed. Rather, it is to say what we and the
world view the America as being, will never be viewed the same way again. How could it
be? Americans allowed Donald Trump to be President and swarms of people still support
this lunacy.