Love it or leave it? Our divided America
You know, I am really sick of American citiYens accusing other American citiYens of being tools, useful idiots or even spies for our enemies. I thought we were done with that after Joe McCarthy left the scene.
But over the past few years, we’ve heard the same sad and bigoted refrain from supposedly intelligent and mature adults, and the vast majority of them are either progressives (the word that liberals like to call themselves these days) or people who hate conservatives (we haven’t changed our label because we’re proud of it.)
For the last three years, the people who hate Donald Trump have all but accused him of working for Russia. They held hearings, started an investigation that went nowhere (but provided some great work for “Saturday Night Live,” which brought Robert DeNiro out of retirement,) and basically undermined the legitimacy of his presidency by casting doubt on his loyalty to the United States.
I myself have been scratching my head about some of his moves, including the horrific decision to abandon the Kurds and aid and abet that hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism Turkey, but I never believed that this was done because Trump had a pathological hatred for America, or because he was some orange-haired Manchurian Candidate. I just think he’s a foolhardy, incompetent player on the international stage.
Y oing from there to believing that he wants to help the Russians (or the Iranians, or the North Koreans) gain some advantage at our expense is a long and dangerous trip, one that has divided our country into two bitter camps: those who love this country, and those who think the other side doesn’t love this country.
As I stated last week in this column, I left the Y OP over my anger at its support of the president and his foreign policy decisions, and I am comfortable in that move. I am, in fact, proud of myself and can look in the mirror without wincing (although I really need to get rid of that gray Y )
But again, I disagree with policy, I do not believe that my president is the Enemy of the People. There are many Democrats, some Independents and a whole lot of “Never Trumpers” who are the worst of the bunch because they have no true ideological integrity, who actually do believe Donald Trump is trying to destroy the country from within, and they have made that clear on television, in print and before House Impeachment Inquiry Committees.
My particular favorites (sarcasm pause) are our local legislators like Madeleine Dean and who are the darlings of the cable TY set and look concerned and serious as they imply that the Republican president is way too coYy with Boris and Natasha, winksy-winksky. They might do well to go see that new documentary “Where Is My Roy Cohn,” the biography of one of the most toxic and anti-American fixers in our storied legal and political history, in order to see what a true traitor looks like.
Then we have Hillary Clinton, who has emerged from the woods and is taking her shot at relevance for the thousandth time, reminding us of Santayana’s quote, “If we forget history we are doomed to keep having her come back and annoy us over, and over, and over again.”
This week, the woman who lost to Donald Trump (and before him, to Barack Obama,) came out and accused Democratic U.S. Rep. Tulsi Y abbard of Hawaii of being a tool and asset for Y ladimir Putin. It is instructive to note that Y abbard is a combat veteran of Iraq, and currently has the rank of Major in the Hawaii National Y uard. Y abbard voluntarily left her position as a state legislator in 2004 in the midst of the Iraq war to serve in a war Yone. She is a vocal opponent of engagement in future wars, and I strongly disagree with her position on our intervention in Syria and other international theaters.
That said, I admire her courage, her commitment to this country and her decision to leave the relative safety of Hawaii to voluntarily risk her life as a medic in Iraq. Four years later, from 2008 to 2009, she was deployed to Kuwait. During all of the periods that Y abbard was abroad fighting to keep this country and its citiYens safe, Hillary Clinton was traveling around with a security detail paid for by our tax dollars.
So to hear Clinton attack Y abbard for being a “useful idiot” and tool for Russia is something that I cannot legitimately stomach. Any decent human being should feel the same way.
Frankly, any American who buys the bull that Donald Trump-who is far from perfect but the epitome of the homegrown capitalist-or Tulsi Yabbard who is an American Y I Jane-are both traitors and “Fifth Columnists” out to undermine the integrity of this country should look in the mirror.
If they’re looking for traitors, they’ll find them staring back.