 |
| Trump's poll numbers since January as compiled by fivethiryeight.com (2) |
It has come time when we must turn away from banging away at
President Donald Trump’s moral and human shortcomings.
All the short comings are well documented for everyone to
examine. Those that support Trump have
the same access as those that do not.
Every lie, every indiscretion, every personal failure, all his business catastrophes
– all are part of the social, political and cultural library.
And yet, he maintains his support. Trump himself even said, “I could stand in
the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
(1)
This may be the one time he told the truth.
If attacks on his character is not turning a single vote
away, then it has come time to take another course. That course is on the issues.
This doesn't mean that those that have deep personal difference with the way he conducts himself should just stop. Indeed, as some examples, the way he has mocked the disabled, war heroes and statements that bring his gender bias to the forefront should be kept in the public eye. These are statements of his position on the issues.
You see, I have felt a long time that we are in danger of becoming a captive of personality. Many of us, find commonality with others in a personality. Many friends of mine were, and still are,
strong supporters of President Barack Obama.
Some of us hung on his every action, watching for a clear message that
would guide us to a deeper understanding of our culture and in what direction
it was headed. Others, like myself, felt
comfortable with his leadership to the point that I paid less attention to his
actions because I was sure that he would act in a way that was like the way I
would, or would bring us to the same place in the future.
If nothing more, we found our commonality in our love,
respect and devotion to the personality of Obama. We banded together to support his tenure.
But now, many of the same people are bound to another personality,
but not for the same reason. This new
group rose out of the Obama years. But, this time, it is bound by our disdain for the personality of President Donald Trump. It is as if we were shown an honorable
example of leadership that were could rally around, then, in what seemed like
some mysterious occurrence that no one expected we passed
through a worm hole to find an opposing universe of dishonorable leadership.
Once we were bound by love, now we are bound by hate.
It is that hate that will kill us.
Hate is what will defeat us both personally and at the polls. Hate is the type of motivation that propelled
Trump to the Oval Office. The hate, that
we feel in ourselves right now, is what motivated the Trump supporter during the last presidential election, and, still does.
If we focus on our hate and Trump’s personal failures, the
more likely the voters that supported Trump will, like Einstein’s repelling
force, repel them farther from the middle ground and move them farther right.
Forget Trump. Forget
Obama. (Did I just write, forget Obama? Yes, bear with me before you reject
everything that I have said – if indeed you made it this far.) For the love of
our community and human kind, drop any attachment you have to personality, in the
past, here in the present and in the future.
Personalities, whether for good or evil – are not what we should be
focused on.
Let us be bound by problems that need to be solved and their
solutions. While we focus on
personalities, we blind ourselves to solutions.
What if, and it is even frightening to ask the question, Trump has a
good idea to solve a problem? Because it
came from Trump are we to reject and resist?
When Obama was president, did we just go along with everything he did
because, well, because he was Obama? I
certainly didn’t.
There is a big schism between the left and the right. Most solutions that the left develops is
often reject out of hand by the right. But, it
happens the other way around as well.
The left regularly rejects the right’s solutions to even some of the
most benign problems that the world faces.
Why would we reject something before even considering it? You may of course know the answer. Because it must have evil intent because it
came from the other side.
Many times, the left and the right also shift their
positions. As often as not, there can be
a complete turnaround in just 1 or 2 election cycles. Most of the time, that’s because a
personality (note, a personality) everyone rallies around has demanded a change
in a party platform instead of an actual mia culpa (3) by the party.
By focusing on the issues, people can see how issues affect
them. Then, solutions can be developed
from the grass roots level instead of at the personality level. People will then decide for themselves what
will be best for them, and it must be with the good of the community also in mind.
Instead a personality, more times then not, will decide what will keep them in power.
No comments:
Post a Comment