I’ve written before about my recovery from being a political junkie.
It doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention. I simply no longer gorge on politics. I try to keep my news intake to 30 minutes a day and I try to read from a few different viewpoints in order to triangulate what’s really true.
It had been a long time since I’d listened to stump speeches. In this era it is the worst possible way to gain valuable information. But I stopped to listen to one recently and that made me decide to listen to a couple of others for the sake of comparison.
I’m amazed we’re able to function as a country.
I’m not even sure who stump speeches are targeting. Are they red meat for the base or are they for the on-the-fence voter?
No matter. We’re in a mess either way.
I know former President Ronald Reagan was far from perfect. He had his issues. He could, however, make you feel proud about your country. He had a way of making you think you were a valuable asset to this City on a Hill. He made you think you could achieve what you wanted if you had the desire.
He led you to aspire to something. In part, aspiration helps the country move forward. What exists today is not aspiration, it is degradation. It is degradation with a side of contempt mixed in with ineptness.
Reagan said this, in part, during his farewell adress January 11, 1989, from the Oval Office:
there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.
An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties. (Reaganlibrary.gov farewell to the nation)
Trump said this recently after winning the Iowa Caucuses
They said, “Well, if you win by 12%, that’s a big win. That’s going to be very hard to do.” Well, I think we’ve more than doubled that, I guess, tripled it maybe. They said you’ll never get over 50. And I just left and we were at 54. Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen with it, but they said, “You can’t do that, sir.” I said, “What’s about the highest?” “Well, you could get into the forties, maybe 40, 41.” And then I look up and it was very interesting. I didn’t know they called it early. I thought that they called it at about 10 o’clock. My impression. (From Rev.com, Jan. 16, 2024)
Trump said this during a stump speech in Waterloo, Iowa:
He can’t find his way off a stage. Let’s see, I got there. I could jump off this one. I could actually do it, he couldn’t. Or I could just head back the way you came. No, it’s pretty amazing. I watched the other day. He had two entrances, two exits, and he couldn’t figure out, how the hell do I get out of here? (From Rev.com, Oct. 9, 2023)
This was Candidate Biden’s answer to a debate question about inequity in schools during a 2019 debate appearance. And he’s just gotten worse since.
Well, they have to deal with the … Look, there is institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Redlining, banks, making sure that we are in a position where—
Look, we talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title 1 schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise to the equal of … A raise of getting out of the $60,000 level.
No. 2, make sure that we bring in to the help with the stud—the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we need… We have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are required—I’m married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them.
Make sure that every single child does, in fact, have three, four, and five-year-olds go to school. School! Not day care, school. We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help. They don’t know what— They don’t know what quite what to do. Play the radio. Make sure the television—excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night. The phone—make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school—er, a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.
Davis: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.
Biden: No, I’m going to go like the rest of them do, twice over, OK? Because here’s the deal. The deal is that we’ve got this a little backwards. And by the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I’ve confronted Maduro. No. 2, you talk about the need to do something in Latin America. I’m the guy that came up with $740 million to see to it those three countries, in fact, change their system so people don’t have to chance to leave. You’re all acting like we just discovered this yesterday! Thank you very much. (From Slate, Sept. 12, 2019)
There are 336,000,000 people in the United States and this is the best we could do.
I know we live in a different era. It’s no longer 1989. But we won’t exist much longer if the path to power is paved with degradation and contempt rather than aspiration. Check history and see how that works for other nations.
First, they got us to stop critical thinking by giving us all standardized tests.
Then they distracted us with all this technology.
Then they got some of us (and an increasing number) to doubt whether America was good at all. Now we're too busy — and simultaneously too lazy — to think and to represent the values and innovation that made this nation great.
A house divided cannot stand, but the dark forces in power do not care. They know how to make a buck off the whole deal.
I agree, been saying it for 4 years. Is the egotistical, rude, & name-calling Trump & the barely cognizant Biden the best this country can push forward to run for President? Where are our TRUE LEADERS & PATRIOTS?!