Base calling the shots

I looked up the exact wording in Gov. Sanders’ State of the Union rebuttal: “If we seize this moment together, America can once again be the land of the free and home of the brave.”

I was kind of snoozing, but that one woke me up.

I expected to hear the refrain of wokedy, woke, woke, wokedy, woke and other culture-war nonsense, but that one shocked me. What I heard was America is not now the land of the free and the home of the brave, presumably because of Democratic treachery. If you are not shocked by that, I don’t know what to tell you, except that it’s a lie. Technically it is a wrong-headed, radical-right-wing, culture-war, Trump brat opinion based on some cynical Trumpian talking point appealing to the fetid and festering flag-waving but unpatriotic core of the Republican base. Technically an opinion, but I believe it soars above the technicality level to the level of a damnable lie.

It was a slap in the face of soldiers, sailors and veterans. I can’t say for publication what it was on the graves of deceased ones. If there has been an outcry over her saying such a thing as a spokesperson for Arkansas, I have missed it. Well, she doesn’t speak for me, but you know what I mean. I’m ashamed of her and of the assumed majority of Arkansans for whom she did speak. I’m embarrassed that my expression of outrage seems to be just a spit in the wind.

After the Hutchinson administration’s maneuvering through the GOP’s more-or-less reasonable establishment base, I believe the Sanders administration will be at the head of the fetid and festering radical core of that base now calling the shots.

HOWELL MEDDERS Fayetteville