Long gone the days of loyal opposition as left gets meaner
Presidents Day!
It sounds so 1950-ish, doesn’t it?
When you think about how America used to be you find yourself wondering if your memory has cloud- ed reality.
Was there actually a time when the nation’s chief executive was widely looked upon with deference, if not admiration?
Even those who loathed him called him Mr. President.
And was there actually a time when those who disagreed with their president were identified as the loyal opposition?
Isn’t that a quaint notion? Is that what you’d call the crowd that, from Day 1 of his incumbency, has been relentless in eviscerating Donald Trump, a properly elected president, hurling every imaginable accusation at him while personally trashing him with impunity?
America’s enemies could not exhibit more hostility toward our president than homegrown dissidents do every day.
These are mean times in America and nothing captures that meanness more than the malice of those who did not get their way in the last presidential election. Like spoiled, unruly brats, they want everyone to know just how unhappy they are.
To be sure, they have that right, but, boy, are they getting tiresome.
Even if Trump refers to spirituality in addressing terror or grief he’s immediately denounced for flagrantly crossing the artificial line between church and state. It wasn’t always this way. On this Presidents Day, consider this inscription Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the granddaddy of all liberals, authored for Bibles given by the Gideons to troops heading off to World War II: “As Commander in Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States. It is a fountain of strength.”
Imagine if Trump tried that today when sending Americans into harm’s way?
In most of life it’s understood we’re at our strongest when, individual differences notwithstanding, we’re all pulling in the same direction.
That’s still true, at least theoretically. Before we’re Republicans or Democrats, we’re Americans: Attack one of us and you have attacked all of us.
But when those attacks come from within, perpetrated by soreheads who believe the country’s best interests are subordinate to their own, those wounds can be both deep and lethal.
Our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, agonizing over a civic rupture brought about by the Civil War, borrowed from Scripture in ominously noting “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
What’s that got to do with us on this Presidents Day?
It’s simple. Lincoln might have come from a different time, but his message was timeless and still speaks to us today.