BY BOB BEARDEN
Give him a Chance? Why?
He was presidential. He gave a great speech. He was on message. Wow! These are just a few of the many accolades given to trump after his speech to the nation last Tuesday. But they don’t tell a story nor do they tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We as a nation have set the bar very, very low when it comes to our 45th president, so grading him on a curve we never used for all the other presidents is simply asinine.
We are sinking into trying to find something we can like about a man who is simply not likeable. Trying to be fair about a man who has no fairness in his heart. Trying as hard as we can to believe what our eyes, minds and hearts tell us is not true.
He is what he is and one tailored speech designed to elicit a kinder, gentler le petite le’ orange tells us more about our capacity to forgive and forget than it does about who he really is.
Hitler was a spellbinder of a speaker but no less a charlatan than is The Donald!
He was schooled beforehand and he did not write that speech he gave, either in part or totality. He simply read what he was given and in that we gave him an A for effort. Why set the bar lower for him than for all others? Why do we as a nation believe he deserves to be given extra credit for just showing up and not screaming fear and hate? It makes no sense to me.
He hasn’t changed who he is. He is still draining the swamp by placing all the swamp dwellers in his cabinet and turning them loose on their various departments to destroy the environment, deregulate every single piece of saving grace. He has and is populating his swamp with unabashed prevaricators who have spent their entire adult lives lying for the sake of greed, power and money.
How is it that we, after just one low-ball speech, can believe that he won’t continue to do what he promised us he would and what he has been doing ever since the day he was elected?
Are we so anxious to believe that he will not do those things he has promised that we are willing to see him and his promises in filtered light of fake news? He is a showman. Last Tuesday night he put on a show and we as a nation stood up and cheered. We have a low threshold when it comes to collective memory. And we always as a people and a nation try to give charlatans and prevaricators the benefit of the doubt, usually to our everlasting shame.
One speech and we are fawning all over ourselves at his suddenly acquired presidentiality. It is a crock of excrement. It is just another illusion that he has foisted upon us and we have swallowed it hook, line and sinker. He hasn’t changed and he will never be presidential in the mold of Barack Obama or even George W. Bush the lessor.
He is what he is and he once again has pulled the wool over our collective eyes.
Give him a chance and we will sorely regret it.
– Bob Bearden is a trustee of the Central Oklahoma Labor Federation and a member of Mayflower Congregational Church UCC in Oklahoma City
