ViewPoints
We Have a Problem
Truth is truth and there is no wavering on that point. The truth is supposed to be factual; it’s not opinion or conjecture. It requires proof. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on, pill ” said Winston S. 
Churchill, unhealthy a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, physician it will be believed,” said Adolf Hitler, who was the leader of Nazi Germany and initiated World War II, and oversaw fascist policies that resulted in the Jewish Holocaust and the mass murder of 6 million Jews.
This year’s political season has taken an extreme turn where truth and truth telling have gotten lost in the fray of reality-TV politics, ugly personal attacks, half-truths and outright LIES. In this year’s presidential campaign the general electorate has chosen to ignore the facts, overlook the truth and get on the bandwagon that proclaims America needs to be rescued, or restored to a place where she once was great because now she is broken, tattered and lost. The call to “take our country back” and restore America’s “greatness” in the world has become the rallying call for most of the GOP candidates and their constituency.
The problem is that the world’s perspective of America is overwhelmingly positive and the nation’s standing in several prominent areas of measurement like the economy, unemployment, the deficit, gas prices and other measures are actually significantly better than they were before President Obama took office in 2009. The demonization of President Obama is, largely, the target of the vitriolic venom from the other side of the aisle. According to GOP candidates, our current President, due to his weakness and untenable lack of leadership, confirms their conservative opposition and base assertion that America has lost her standing in the world. Just based on the favorability ratings for President Obama in the world, the only places where he has lost significant support is Israel (largely due to the Iran Nuclear Deal) and Russia (largely because of Putin). Otherwise, the President’s approval or favorability ratings in the world are high across the board, especially in Europe and Africa. After his recent visit to India in January, his favorability rating went up 18% to 74% overall. So, as the Leader of the free world and the representative for the United States of America and her standing in the world, America is STILL Great.
Right now, there is a candidate running for POTUS who claims he knows nothing of the KKK and white supremacy; a candidate who openly attacks religious freedom by calling for a ban on Muslims, who promotes violence as a tactic by ginning up a mob mentality and wanting to punch someone who disagrees with him in the face, telling another crowd to light the protestor on fire; a man who denigrates women using offensive and vulgar language from the podium. This man calls an entire nationality criminals, drug dealers, rapists and vows to build walls to keep them out of our country while promising to round up over 12 million men, women and children and throw them out of the country? A man who says he cannot lose support even if he gunned down someone in cold blood in the middle of 5th AVE? This is the candidate that over 47% of the Republican electorate says they support. They do not care about facts or truth. They Do Not care what he believes, what he says or does. They have been mesmerized by a personality, a charismatic media manipulator. Hitler was a fanatical megalomaniac, and the results of his leadership that played on the BASE FEARS of the German people and the idea of restoring a National Pride was absolutely catastrophic.
This crowded bus is headed for a cliff and the driver is perfectly willing to drive them off that cliff. We don’t need to “Make America Great Again”! We need to wake up from this nightmare before it’s too late!
Up Next Week: No Questions Asked?
