Forfeiting Our Future. In my opinion, the long
and shameful trip down the slope of incivility and lack of statesmanship began
with President Bill Clinton. Clinton was
a remarkable politician; a gifted orator with sharp instincts. Though the explanation for his successful
executive actions mainly lay in desperation and last resort, he nonetheless
presided over a time when the Executive and Legislative Branches of our
government achieved some significant accomplishments; not the least among them
being a balanced federal budget. He came
into office as a zealot, was sobered up by mid-term rejections, and adjusted his
game plan to work with a Republican Congress.
It can be argued who was playing who, who won the most, and who
benefited the greatest; but the point is that things got done and government
functioned. But when President Clinton
got caught with his hand in the Lewinsky jar, things went south very quickly
and the ugly sides of both parties saw their opportunities to rise in
prominence. Clinton simply refused to be
held accountable for his moral lapses in the White House and the Republicans in
Congress refused to let it go. Between
them, all reserves of good will and good faith that might have been building
due to governmental accomplishments were shoved aside to make room for spite,
malice, acrimony, and pure, hateful partisanship. Since that time, the wound has never
healed. It has, on occasion, tried to
heal over a bit; but there always seems to be a new rip or tear to peel back
the scab and expose the ugly underside of the scar. The Democrats hated George W. Bush and
decided early on that nothing he did could be universally accepted as
positive. The Republicans have been all
too willing to return that favor with Obama.
At the end of Obama’s two terms, the terrible cost of these decades’
worth of dysfunction and partisanship is being fully realized and our nation is
slouching towards a societal model that is angry, sloven, shameless, and
aimless. Half of our population depends
on the sweat of the other half for their existence and they increasingly resent
the hell out of that other half for providing it. The providing half are finding it
increasingly maddening to support those who refuse to support themselves while
seeing no difference in quality of life between the two groups. Into this dynamic, we bring our future
generations; generations who perpetuate the hard-earned biases and resentments
of their respective parents.
Now
comes Presidential Campaign 2016 and the phenomenon known as Donald Trump. The standard definition of the teflon politician
cannot begin to adequately describe the remarkable fact that this man can say
essentially anything, anywhere, in any fashion, and not in the least be held
accountable for it. The man has openly
bragged that he could shoot a person in the streets and not have it held
against him; and he has gone a long ways towards proving this remark to be
true. Now truth be told, neither the
Republicans nor the Democrats have put up a candidate that exhibits sufficient
promise to dim the glare of Trump. And,
our sitting president has lowered the bar so much that we have come face to
face with the fact that the nation will continue to exist (although at a very low tide) with an incompetent and ineffective
Executive in the White House. So perhaps
it is the case that people simply don’t worry too much anymore about who they
choose as their President. Perhaps they
have given up on our government; given up on the financial underpinnings of
this country and the people and businesses that supervise it; given up on our
nation’s ability to protect the cause of liberty and freedom anywhere else in
the world apart from our own shores; and most important of all, given up on
there being better days and times ahead for our children and future generations
of Americans. In specific response to
the current discord in the Republican Party and the recent civil unrest at
Donald Trump campaign events, Marco Rubio offered the following words:
Now
Marco Rubio has very little chance of successfully obtaining the Republican
Presidential nomination that he seeks; for whatever reason…superior
competition, poor campaign management, poor messaging, lack of preparation…he
appears destined to fail in his quest.
But if you will listen to his words and read his emotions in this short
interview, I think you can sense a good deal of the frustration that many of us
feel about what has happened (and is
continuing to happen) to our country.
His heartfelt and obviously sincere message goes well beyond the
machinations of the Republican Primary and can easily be applied to the current
sad state of our country. I don’t know
where we will find ourselves twelve months down the road and who will be
leading our nation; but I hope and pray that they have at least a portion of
the frustration, recognition, and hope that Rubio speaks of. When you see the chaos and madness (yes, that is NOT too strong a word) and
realize that it is no longer a symptom, but rather a condition….God help us.
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