To the Editor:
Recently, when this paper looked into the source of today’s political unrest it found an answer inspired by Sen. Roy Blunt’s comments on recent challenges to Presidential legitimacy.
The conclusion reached was that, “This is just another attempt by Democrats to unseat a duly elected President…”
Leaping from the still open question of concern about Russian meddling in our election to a blanket condemnation of Democrats as just sore losers, conveniently skips over a lot of very-recent, very relevant history — cruel treatment of immigrant families, painful tariffs, climate change denial, defending racists, ignoring mass shootings, selling weapons to Jamal Khashoggi’s killers, attacking the press, betrayal of the Kurds, strong arming Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden, to name a few issues.
In so doing it actually provides the real answer to the question it purports to explain. We are a nation at war within itself because the black arts of spin and manipulation have displaced honest debate as how we process our differences.
Politicians on both sides have long leaned to judicious pruning of the truth, just as lawyers do in court, but there was a measure of restraint because they feared being exposed and shamed. That’s changed.
In the arms race of weaponized lying and manipulation there have been two major breakthroughs that have brought us to where we are. One has been the slow, steady decline of morals and integrity in the general population. That’s a harsh thing to say, but we all know it’s true.
We’ve lost the moral high ground that moderated political excess — many of us have become cheering accomplices.
Secondly, a bold champion has emerged on the scene whose audacity and shameless verve have inspired his side to reach depths never before dared. Politics has become a game in an arena where gamesmanship and not truth is the standard, where power and not the general welfare is the goal.
Democracy is a sacred institution.
It honors each of us with the responsibility for our own fate and for those around us. It reflects who we are. Our democracy is shaking — not because Democrats are decrying the abuses of power by this President, but because their just complaints are being muffled by a choir of pretense.
Think it over.
We control the rest, or unrest, in our country. Our choice is between fairness and the shortcut of political opportunism. If you’re not willing to be totally honest, quit the faux-lamenting of our sorry state of affairs…it’s only making things worse.
