Reaping What We Sow.

In my rural Kentucky County, local politics have been a continual entertainment source.  We have a long history of selecting the least able among us to shepherd our county tax revenues.    When on rare occasion we actually get a solid, quality candidate to run for a county office, they typically are soundly defeated by the local good old boy or girl.  I would like to think that over the last decade or so, we have improved somewhat in our discretion as it comes to selecting county officials; but I am likely overvaluing the good few that have managed to slip into office.  And now, for those good few, the challenge becomes trying to maintain some modicum of integrity and common sense, in spite of the many influences that pull them counter to that goal.  On the national stage, I fear we are duplicating what I am seeing at home.  It seems that the quality of leadership, in both parties, has been trending downward.  

Like him or not, there can be little dispute that Donald Trump came into the presidency with a place on what must be considered the short list of “least prepared for the White House”.  Now a good President and a poorly prepared candidate are not necessarily mutually exclusive.   At the end of the day, the effectiveness of a person’s tenure in the White House is based on how the nation fares during their term(s) in office.   As they leave the Chief Executive’s office, it is largely forgotten from whence they came.  The memories that remain are what they did once they came into office.  But having said all of that and acknowledging that some of our apparently well-prepared Presidents turned out to be some of the lesser ones; it only makes common sense that we should pull our Presidential timber from the stack of boards that are kiln-dried, well-seasoned, free of knotholes, lacking in warp and twist, and have an obvious consistent grain to them.  If you continually pull from the cull stack, you cannot reasonably expect to get good boards.

So, upon the heels of the Republicans and Democrats selecting two of the least desirable candidates in history for the last Presidential race, you must pardon me for being astonished at the bum rush to promote Oprah Winfrey as our next President.  Do we learn nothing and simply repeat the same mistakes over and over?  Hillary Clinton was a known corrupt politician long ago and well before the Democrats picked her to run for President.  The Republicans selected the loud-mouthed and pompous Donald Trump from a slate of rather impressive candidates.  At the time, few people dreamed of this brash reality-TV personality winning the election; but most all of us underestimated the ability of the voters to recognize a crook, reject a crook, and reluctantly choose the lesser of two evils.  The incredible coincidence here is that the Democrats chose that election cycle, one in which they were damn near guaranteed a Presidential victory, to run a historically weak candidate.  In all truth and honesty, when it comes to evaluating the quality of Presidential candidates, Clinton and Trump both undoubtedly came out of the cull stack.  And now, fresh off their embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Donald, following more than a year of crying from the mountaintops how unfit for President this caricature is, the Democrats (at least  momentarily) coalesce around another entertainment personality as their bright hope for the future?  And who amongst us would be foolish enough to dismiss out of hand the possibility of Winfrey being our next President? After all, we…elected…Donald…Trump.  There can be a robust debate about whether it is best to have an insider President or an outsider President; but who in their right mind can argue that the best source for this nation’s leadership is the entertainment industry?

The immediate concern for our country should be the rejuvenation of a bipartisan and civil government; one that actually functions in some type of fundamental fashion.  Instead, we continue down the dangerous road of the idiotic Resist Movement and the bizarro world of Cryptic Tweets.  Instead of our two primary political parties examining and analyzing why candidates like Clinton and Trump end up on the ballot, we see them going bonkers over Oprah and finding non-existent redeeming characteristics in our current President.  The plain and simple truth is that the Presidential primary process as it currently exists in each party might very well, if not likely, lead to the same type and quality of candidates that we are now experiencing.  We should look closely in the mirror and ask who is to blame for the Roy Moores and Al Frankens of the political world.  Do we blame them or do we change the system that put them on the ballot? 

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America is a wonderful experiment that has generated heroes of every shape and size.  We as a nation have been largely blessed to have many of these heroes serve in leadership capacities throughout our history.  If we continue to select that leadership from the cull stack, is it reasonable to expect that things will turn out well?  The last Presidential election pointed out in clear terms the failings of each party’s primary system.  NOW is the time and the place for Republican and Democratic leaders to alter their candidate selection processes so that the best of each group are the ones that end up on the ballot.  If they fail to do this, the quality and effectiveness of our country’s leadership will continue to atrophy.  And if Americans cannot find suitable leaders on the ballot from the two major parties, is it unreasonable to imagine a third party rising to give a broader, and hopefully better, choice?  Chickens come home to roost.  We get the government we deserve.  We WILL reap what we sow