The GOP is like the man who rushes to the emergency room for a paper cut and demands major surgery to fix it, all the while ignoring the stage IV cancer that has spread to every part of his body. The Republican obsession with fighting same-sex marriage, demonizing Planned Parenthood, relentlessly trying to find Hillary guilty of something and the myriad other “the sky is falling” histrionics would be comical if they weren’t so damaging to our country — and the world.
The issues we should be addressing, such as a failed education system, for-profit prisons that make billions of dollars and drive laws to incarcerate more people, the out-of-control costs of a college education, the corporate and lobbyist take-over of our political system and the violence in our country are the issues we should be gnashing our teeth over.
But people don’t want a leader who talks about those problems. Those aren’t fun issues; they’re issues that require study and contemplation. Who has time for that? It’s much easier to hate and to be a follower. Hillary has been under GOP attack from the moment her husband took office in 1993. They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars investigating Whitewater, Benghazi, her emails and anything else they can drag out. The GOP should be tired of looking ridiculous. Unfortunately for our country, they’re not.
We need a leader who will unite us instead of whipping up hate. Illegal immigration certainly should be addressed, but it should come after the bigger issues destroying our country. But, again, few people want to spend the time understanding those issues. The behavior I’m seeing lately is sickening. It reminds me of the white people screaming at the black students as they walked up the sidewalk to Central High School in Little Rock in 1957. Those fine Christian people hurling insults at the black students and threatening them to the point that President Eisenhower called out the 101st Airborne Division to protect them. Yes, it’s much easier to hate, and Donald Trump is the carnival barker encouraging them.
People like Trump don’t care about fixing anything. They just want power. So they appeal to the worst of human nature, those characteristics that can easily be ignited. They find an enemy to hold up to those people as the ones responsible for all the problems. Hitler did it with the Jews. The GOP does it with gays, women and minorities. Trump is doing it with illegal immigrants. Like Hitler pointing to the Jews, Trump glares at the immigrants and says, “There’s our problem.” And the crowds cheer. Oh, it’s so much fun to hate. When we do, we don’t have to assume any responsibility for the problems. It’s their fault, not ours. If only they weren’t here, we’d be fine.
So we march up to the castle with torches, we spit on black children when they try to enter a segregated school, we scream that same-sex marriage will be the ruin of the family and we hold our heads up high because we’re not one of “them”. If only the blacks had stayed in their own schools, if only the gays would shut up and be satisfied with being second-class citizens, if only women would stay in their place, if only the Mexicans would stay in their country then we’d be just fine. Never mind that college students graduate owing huge debts, never mind that a few people control our political system and never mind that we’re not safe going anywhere because of a society gone mad with violence. No, let’s not think about those issues. We’re too busy hating.
People like Trump will only incite Americans to act our worst, not our best. He brings out the ugliness in human nature. People say they love his candor. Jesus was frank, too, but he didn’t go after the disenfranchised. He went after those who used the poor. Why doesn’t Trump go after the corporate thieves and lobbyists as Jesus went after the money changers? Why doesn’t Trump go after the hypocrites who get laws passed for their benefit as Jesus went after the Pharisees? No, we don’t go after the powerful. We go after the groups that have no representation and who have no power. They’re easy targets. And the public swallows it.
Trump will fall as all men like him have. Unfortunately, they usually take their countries down with them.
Wagons Ho 