THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE VERY UGLY

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE VERY UGLY
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Being swept up in the era of Trump one tends to forget that there are politicians in Washington who try to promote good policy. There may be more democrats than republicans who are currently working on measures to make life better for working people and the middle class nevertheless these men and women go to work for the people.

As in the laws of physics the opposite also must be true. There are legislators who work to enhance the riches of their donors and give little regard to their constituency. Their interest does not align with the best interest of most the country and dismisses issues like climate change out of greed or ignorance that will have monumental consequences going forward.

Good and bad politicians have dotted the political landscape since the inception of our democracy. And to be clear we are talking about their skills and commitment to be good legislators working in the public’s interest. But in 2016 another kind of politician surfaced and his aura is very ugly. Not just in his take on policy, but more importantly, what is in his heart.

When Bill Clinton ran for office in 1992 and Barack Obama in 2008 republicans harped on the trait character. They wanted the electorate to believe that their candidate (George H Bush in 1992 and John McCain in 2008) had a more wholesome character than their democratic counterparts running for president. The GOP warned "Character counts" and how this nation would suffer if we elected someone who smoked marijuana, or had an extra-marital affair, or sat in a pew in a church and listened to an African-American preacher decry the terrible mistakes our nation has made in race relations. In 2016, all this concern for personal character changed with the candidacy of one Donald J Trump.

Good character as a requisite for being president to have been replaced by misplaced hyper partisanship by the GOP and one of their largest bases the Christian right. As republicans in congress (even the reluctant ones) saw a chance to defeat Hillary Clinton and push their own policy agenda Trump's morality became a non-existent issue. At a recent Town- Hall Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa answered a question about Trump's treatment of women and his acrid remarks about people with disabilities this way. " I voted for Trump because of his policies” She went on to say, “Would you say there are character flaws?” “I think we have a president who has a number of flaws—I support a majority of the policies versus the actual person.”

Ernst in one statement confirmed what most Republican lawmakers think, even today Trump has continually showed a fundamental lack of a functioning moral compass. Since he has been in office Trump has lied repeatedly without remorse and has directed a cruel policy of deportation of Hispanics (some who have been here from the time they were thereby going against his promise to abide by “DACA” deferred action for childhood arrivals), and was willing to get a political “win” by throwing 24 million of their health care. This president and his family have used their White House positions as leverage to obtain trademarks for their products from the Chinese government and had one of their top political advisers Kelly Ann Conway hawking Ivanka Trump’s clothes line on Fox and Friends. And as we have seen and most likely will continue to see Trump and his administration under suspicion of collusion with the Russians to win last year’s election.

The republican party has committed political heresy. They have accepted Trump despite his numerous moral trespasses. As a result, this president and the very office itself has become a butt of jokes on prime-time comedy shows. Writers have been able to hone their skills in the dark comedy to describe the Trump presidency. What has also happened in less than the first 100 days in office is the coming into focus of something very ugly. A president who is spiteful and is willing to get down in the mud to soothe his personal insecurities. A leader who brags about bombing a country (which he forgot which one he bombed) while eating chocolate cake. And a person who uses personal attacks against his opponents with tweets like a petulant child seeking attention.

In a year when distortion of the truth is an almost daily occurrence in the White House. When our constitutional democracy is being disfigured by a president who doesn’t see the beauty of our democratic system. We comprehend that good and bad will always be a part of our governing body, but the superlative ugliness of the Trump administration has sullied the executive branch of our government.

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