Forget the election and focus on the aftermath
I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t want to hear another word from Republicans or Democrats.
I just want them to shut up and give us a break because I have heard enough of what I no longer want to hear.
I am just going to cast my ballot on Nov. 3 and be glad this race between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden is over — because it is the aftermath we have to worry about.
And no matter which side wins, there will clearly be an aftermath to this high-octane clash over ideology.
If there was any doubt that leadership in this country has descended into the scum of reality TV, then Tuesday’s “fight night” debate was your answer.
Instead of presenting a road map to tackle the issues dividing the nation, Trump and Biden’s tit-for-tat barbs offered voters nothing but a screamfest gussied up in polarizing one-sidedness.
So what’s the use of tuning in as back and forth they go, rolling in the dirt of politics and swinging at each other with he said, she said; they didn’t, we will; they can’t, we won’t.
I blame the president for both igniting and sustaining an atmosphere energized by deep-seated hatred that has created a fault line running clear across America.
I had hoped that once he was elected — as my column “Go, Donald, go” pretty much predicted — the president would pull back on his dangerous rhetoric and pull us back together and as he proclaimed, “Make America Great Again.”
But he didn’t. Racial tension and intolerance, musty from the closet where they have been stored, have been dragged out and refreshed with venomous carnage.
And now, it is airborne. Already, we’re killing each other, shooting at each other, attacking one another and damning one another. We’re burning churches, blowing things up and mailing poison.
Jews are being ambushed. Muslims are being spit on. Middle-Easterners are being beaten.
Protests have become a violent and deadly conse
quence of free speech and the right to assemble.
And worse, we now have homegrown terrorists strapped and ready to kill any American who disagrees with his or her radical philosophy.
How can anyone not think the worst is yet to come when the bough has broken and the octane spilling out threatens to set us back 150 years?
Hate is infectious and treachery is its partner. That is a lethal combination in a shifting landscape contaminated with fatalism that hits morning print and nightly news on a daily basis and Twitter at every minute.
I have written before how the government sows
the seeds of resentment among its people and you now have front-row seats to this developing drama.
I just wish the Republicans and Democrats would find a planet on which they could start their new species of unyielding conservatives and uncompromising liberals and rocket there as quickly as possible and leave the rest of us on Earth in peace.
There was a time when leadership was defined by example and leaders who burnished their reputations by upholding American values and traditions — and most importantly, the need to maintain a unified America. At least that was the public face.
But that public face has changed.
Leadership is now defined by tailored information pushed by commentators and plastic news anchors on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
I don’t know where we are headed but I do know history has taught us that hate only brings the death of loved ones, destruction of what we hold dear and puts progress on hold.
And if you are a true American, no matter the ideology, then you know when the smoke clears on the battlefield and we look to see who is still standing, it will be Black, white, Hispanic, Asian and all the other races and cultures that make up this nation.
What the American people need is a “true American” — not one beholden to political handshakes — to lead them forward as this toxin runs through America.
Because right now, “American’s Got Attitude” is bringing damnation to this country.
And no matters what anyone thinks, that makes all of us losers.
Politicians? No one wins this dirty game.