After watching Michelle Obama’s Becoming and President Obama’s brief address to all our graduating high school seniors, I was moved and encouraged to feel and believe that we are more good than bad. The psychology going on is that the current monstrosity in the White House is all negative all the time while blaming others for being negative. These are the behaviors often associated with psychopaths. Seeing the Obamas greet people and speak to all of us reminded me of the dignity that the office of the president is supposed to radiate to all the people of our beloved country.
We are seeing real American heroes step up every day. We have real professionals who worked in our security apparatus, our State Department and in our health care leadership stepping up to show We The People what is failing regarding not only the current pandemic crisis, but also the pathetic rancor in our legislature.
Partisanship in Washington is radiating out of the Republican Senate like the tentacles of a rotting octopus to all corners of our country in every level of government. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell displays his utter lack of dignity by telling President Obama to keep his mouth shut, while making false accusations about the legacy on pandemic control he said weren’t left for the current administration. He later apologized for the gaffe, but didn’t retract his “boy” statement. The thing is, Mitch, your boy president threw out the book that the Obama administration made up while you were busy trying to get fascist judges on the federal bench.
It is heartening to see the Obamas coming back out of the shadows of anonymity to bring the concept of dignity, grace and intelligence that we so sorely lack today in our federal government.
So many questions to ask, so few responsible answers. Why would the Republican Party become the cult of Donald Trump almost overnight? Are their donors that influential such that these people will sell their souls to a criminal for probably no more that 30 pieces of silver? Guess so. Where did Republican honor, integrity and decency go? Did they ever have any? How could they have rolled over for such a disgusting wretch who openly denigrates women, exudes non-dog whistle racism and who says he is treated worse than Lincoln? What happened?
Obama happened. His eight years of scandal-free governance is the antithesis of what Republicans, in general, and Donald Trump, in particular, stand for. Republicans pulled out an entire deck of race cards during those eight years of well-intentioned leadership. They exploited the institutionalized ignorance of the aggrieved white male and the closet racists in every state. Now, we see the thing that is our president praising and encouraging demonstrators with AR-15s at state capitol steps.
Remember, the intellectual dwarf that is president Trump washed his hands of responsibility in mitigating the pandemic, showing us all how little empathy he has for the sick and the health care heroes putting their lives on the line every day. He passed off the responsibility to the state governors, and when they did their jobs, ridiculed them and pushed the mindless thugs to go scare the crap out of everyone.
It would be scary if it weren’t so evil and pathetic. There is no dignity in the Trump White House. There is no vision of anything other than the re-election of the worst, most dangerous human on Earth right now. There is no grace, no honesty, no respect or regard for the rule of law.
None of the things that the Obama administration represented are visible today from the executive branch in any area, least of all with the DOJ. William Barr has set back the value of the rule of law by centuries, as if it were a quaint segment of some long-ago monarchy where the king sat on a wooden throne. But his boss, compelled by his multiple personality disorders and diseases, requires that his enemies, real and imagined, be persecuted and prosecuted.
It’s a good thing that the Obamas are still young enough and vibrant enough to preserve the dignity and real American values that the racist bigots and the Republican Party avoided, denigrated and insulted during the eight years of dignity. It was dignity in the face of raging racism. It was a dignity that transcended the utter disgrace of Republican partisanship and lack of governing – something they’ve now turned into their playbook. It was the administration of Barack Obama that made the playbook to ward off and deal with global pandemics affecting our country.
We all should be thankful that the Obamas are now speaking out and rallying our citizens to do what needs to be done in November. Typical of Barack Obama’s dignity and eloquence, he used only one word: vote!
