By Nancy Thorner & Bonnie O'Neil -
One can only imagine how the constant attacks and negativity spewed against our President by so many Democrat officials and Leftist media sources have influenced opinions about our nation throughout the World? Democrats, especially those in high positions of power, give media sources plenty of negative fodder with which to malign our President. It was a national disgrace that on the eve of historic peace talks between the USA & North Korea, the Democrats in the House orchestrated a clown show hearing featuring the soon to be jailed Michael Cohen, going to jail for three years for a series of tax fraud and lying charges. Is it any wonder that according to a Rasmussen Report dated March 2, 2019, Democrats still see Trump as a bigger threat than Kim Jong Un?
While rhetoric and unprincipled actions may help Democrats in the short run, serious and unintended consequences to our nation, and ultimately our people, are likely to happen no matter political affiliation.
As for the Democrat Party, the 2018 mid-term elections propelled into office a number of socialist-leaning members, among them congresswomen AOC, a 29 year-old New Yorker who with no experience already believes she is in charge of the Democrat Party and Ilhan Omar, an extremely vocal anti-Israel Muslim from Minnesota.
Democrats veer to extreme Left
It is evident that the Democrat Party is being pulled way to the left as the new crop of Democrat Congress members "feel their oats" by insisting what their constituents desire of them back home are Socialist leaning policies such as healthcare for all, the Green New Deal, reparations for past sins of this nation, redistribution of wealth, and confiscation of guns, with a further pressing goal of impeaching Donald Trump to clear the way for a Democratic-Socialist president to implement their wish list in 2020 — one that promotes polities that are akin in many ways to the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel.
What makes the situation so frightening and extremely serious for the American people is that the mainstream media continues to cast its lot with the Democrat Party (as an extension of the Party), as it did throughout Obama's eight years in office, while the same media takes every opportunity to cast all Trump says or does in an unfavorable light and is also not adverse to making stories up.
During President Obama's most problematic times, the mainstream media was careful not to sully the Obama administration here at home or abroad. Perhaps the most grievous issue during the Obama years was the mistakes both he and Hillary made in Benghazi that resulted in the assassination of our Ambassador Stephens.
"All politics is personal” is a phrase often heard, but ironically not even those who have been credited with originating that phrase want to claim they authored it. The phrase was popularized by the publication of a 1969 essay by feminist Carol Hanisch under the title "The Personal is Political" in 1970. She later disavowed authorship of the phrase.
Why might those who popularized the phrase wish to embrace the coining of it? It is likely that most politicians, politically active citizens, and America’s media sources would prefer to think of themselves as altruistic and for their actions to be perceived as such by citizens, when they are far more likely to be self-focused than doing what is best for those they serve. Mark Twain once observed that if you didn’t read a newspaper, you’d be ill-informed; whereas if you did read one, you’d be misinformed. So many news sources seem to be in the business of intentionally misinforming the public when the public deserves honesty, whether from a politician or a reporter. Is it any wonder why many Americans have come to regard sources of news as fallible, when they report altruistic interpretations of what the media determines the public needs to know and hear?
Can honesty exist in this era of polarization?
Today total honesty when dealing with political matters is as hard to come by as when a person donates money wishing to remain anonymous. Many politicians — although more likely in the Democrat Party — vote according to the "Party line” rather than their own convictions, fearful of displeasing their party leaders. Courageous officials who express their own opinion are often minimized and/or abused by their political party leaders, as what happened when House members broke ranks with Speaker Pelosi over a gun control measure on Wednesday, February 27, 2019. In a procedural vote on gun sales, when Republicans moved to amend the bill to require Immigration and Customs Enforcement be told of any undocumented immigrant who tries to buy a gun, 26 Democrats voted with the GOP. The language was added to the gun bill, spoiling an important Democratic legislative achievement. In a caucus meeting Nancy Pelosi took a hard line saying:
“This is not a day at the beach. This is the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi said, according to two sources.
Pelosi also said vulnerable Democrats who had the “courage” to vote against the Republican motions to recommit would become a higher priority for the party leadership and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Pelosi wants the words and actions of her members to promote the Democratic Party's agenda, rather than members voting for what is best for the American people.
Democrats and Republicans alike often put their personal politics and careers first, not what may or may not be the best choice for America's citizens. While professing views that align with many of their constituents, especially during the campaign season, their voting practices once elected are usually self-serving.
In assessing the Republican Party, former House Majority leader Paul Ryan and many House members who won seats, or who were re-elected in 2016, campaigned on fixing health care and dealing with the out-of-control illegal immigration problem. When in power, however, the Republican Congress failed on both counts, which most likely resulted in the transfer of the House leadership to the Democrats in the November 2019 mid-term elections.
The pretend game
Most everyone connected with politics is guilty of pretending they think for themselves, but too often they “toe their Party line and vote accordingly. Not only is this dishonest, it is dangerous and cries out for a way to hold every politician accountable for what he says rather than what he does. We are reminded of “The Emperor's New Clothes", a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent – while in reality, they make no clothes at all, making everyone believe the clothes are invisible to them. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new "clothes", no one dares to say that they do not see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as stupid. Finally a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!"
What is a citizen to do?
Citizens deserve the truth if our nation is to prosper. The average American citizen does not have the means or time to sort out facts from fiction about every political situation, argument, or potential problem; they have historically relied upon media sources for facts they can trust. The public wants to believe their representatives in Congress put political party preferences aside in order to protect them. This conundrum is substantiated by the views of constituents themselves. When Americans are asked how they rate Congress, a very low rating is given to Congress as a whole, but their own legislator is given high marks.
What should most concern everyone in positions of power is doing what is best for this nation, without personal prejudice, but might this be an altruistic dream which can never be realized? When politicians do put country before personal ambitions we must highlight them by giving them credit when credit is due.
In that the public is eager for good news, unity, and words of encouragement was exemplified with the election of Donald J. Trump as president with his patriotic slogan, “Make America Great Again.” The public elected this NON-politician largely because he wasn’t a politician. Trump was someone who deserved recognition for what he had accomplished in the private sector, but most of all it was because Trump gave voice to what many Americans were realizing and feared: that our best days were behind us and America was on the decline morally and fiscally. By touching a hot spot many American citizens feared was true, Trump inspired renewed hope and patriotism which has resulted in a further mission of Keeping America Great in 2010.
It is unfortunate and dangerous that many in the media and Democrat Party are pushing another agenda, a radical one, under the guise that Donald Trump's presidency has been a disaster and a complete failure in every way and must be replaced in 2020 by the proposed Democratic Socialist revolutionary agenda.
As to moving this nation forward toward prosperity — health care for all and the Green New Deal — are not financially feasible or within the realm of possibility for this nation. The sweeping "Green New Deal" proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could cost as much as $93 trillion or approximately $600,000 per household — according to a new study co-authored by the former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — while Universal health care would tally roughly $36 trillion. As to the cost on the Green New Deal and "Medicare-for-all, Kamala Harris, in refusing to place a price tag on these said, "it's not about a cost," but rather return on investment.
It is unlikely the media will change its stripes, so what is the voting public to do? One thing is certain, unless the American people wake up by election day in 2020, their Constitutional Republic, as designated by our Constitution that provides the legal and governmental framework for the United States, will cease to exist and will be replaced by Socialism, which has never worked wherever or whenever in the world it has been tried, as is now being played out in Venezuela.
