Exercising Tolerance in U.S. Politics
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush
In the post I wrote yesterday, Not Everyone Can Raise His Voice, I pondered the good fortunate I had to have lived through the “corporate” period of my life without the criminal insanity of today’s U.S. federal government. Would I have dared to make public statements on this subject when I was billing millions of dollars of marketing services to clients like Penske Logistics, IBM and AT&T, all likely to be captained by heavy-duty right-wingers?
I’m just glad I was never tested.
Of course, I wasn’t happy when Ronald Reagan lowered the top tax rate from 70% to 28% and paid for it by taxing social security, but I figured: hey, this is what Republicans do; it’s just one more thing that harms the vast majority of Americans to benefit the wealthy, but it’s not the end of the world.
I feel much the same way today; I’m saddened, but I don’t get jacked out of shape when some random fool like G.W. Bush gets elected. Suppose some garden-variety Republican jackass had won in 2016, say W’s brother Jeb. I would have said, OK, this guy is incapable of having an original thought, but in a perverse way, that’s actually good, in that it limits the amount of harm he can do. Cool beans.
The problem is: that didn’t happen. Our country, and to a lesser degree the entire world, is being run by a criminal sociopath. That’s not “cool beans.” At all.
Craig,
Weird and weirder! You write an observation full of hate,abuse and intolerance and then ask why things have become more intolerant.
To quote a headline in the American Spectator;
“President Trump honors hero dog Conan. Media goes barking mad!”
CNN’s Joan Walsh covered the While house event and described the event as ‘terrifying’, exactly why, she didn’t explain.
But her main coverage was about first lady’s coat which has a flower motif which Walsh inexplicably complained was ‘macabre’.
She also complained about the first ladies choice of wearing black suede high heeled boots which Walsh seemed to feel had “inappropriate” connotations when attending an event honoring a dog.
This from a journalist who constantly berates Fox for trivializing women in the news!
You may feel it gives your comments the edge and you receive credit around the cracker barrel for parroting offensive cliches, but do you really believe it adds to the gravitas of political discourse?
You must realize when you call the twice Governor of Texas and twice President of the USA “some random fool” you are also calling the millions of supporters who voted for him fools also.
How does calling Jeb Bush a “Jackass” contribute to tolerance and understanding?
How does constantly ranting about the current President and his millions of supporters being all “criminals” “sociopaths” “white supremacists” “Nazi’s” (especially the Jewish ‘nazi’s) “insane” “deplorable”, “inferior” “corrupt” and a hundred other epithets, raise the standard of political discourse?
As the latest attempt at impeaching the President fizzles out, public support for impeachment plummeted as also the American voters realize once again the Democrats and “Never Trumpers” have cried “Wolf”.
Even the New York Times has finally started to express concern that divisiveness may have gone to far.
NYT columnist Thomas B Edsall cited a study conducted among democrat and leftist voters which found 6 in 10 respondents described Republicans as”downright evil”.
At least 1 in 4 think they “lack the traits to be considered fully human” and about the same proportion will say we’d “be better off as a country if large numbers of the opposing party just died.”
This is at the heart of American politics as the 2020 election nears.
It will be an election not about policies or issues, but focused on vengeance.
About taking power from the people you hate and using it against them. Making them cry. Making them scared or ashamed because they are bad people. Maybe locking them up. Aggravation is everything, comeuppance is the goal.
Malice is never a virtue, not even when you believe those who don’t share your opinions deserve your malice.