The Imperfect Example

Many pundits and others are already calling the presidential debates a-snooze-bout.

By James Preston Allen, publisher

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
― Angela Y. Davis

Many people are already calling the debate between Biden and Trump “not a game changer” that is unless one or the other falls over dead, the national polls won’t change– as of June 25 the best of these polls has President Joe Biden with a slim one-point lead over the Ex-President that amounts to what would be called in boxing a “grudge match.” This is the rematch and the fat guy in the orange shorts is coming out swinging. And we all know how much the Orange Guy hates to lose, so much so that even after three and a half years he still can’t admit he lost in 2020. It’s a form of grievance politics that has infected the national debates from Congress, down to even neighborhood councils. Representatives can’t set aside their personal battles for what could easily be considered the greater good.
The now-convicted former occupant of the White House has even raised $140 million since his guilty verdict as if that will save him in November. One only has to wonder if this is his latest grift. So, what’s in it for Trump to stand on a stage with Biden without a live audience yelling, “Lock him Up”? Oh yes, that was about Hilary, but now it’s turned on him.

You can look at what the Orange Guy is doing as being one big reality TV show. He knows how to play to the cameras ― all of his rallies, speeches, and TV appearances are about being “the Celebrity.” The hairdo, the fake tan, and his bluster of being a “billionaire” are all a persona that he wears to bolster this image– it’s fake. Has anyone actually seen his tax records that he promised back in 2016?

President Biden on the other hand is pretty much what he appears, the average Joe from working-class parents who has worked his way up to the presidency by never giving up. Not even his stutter, his age, nor his personal life tragedies have stopped him from getting to the Oval Office. He, like President Barack Obama before him, is like the model of American values of hard work and ingenuity. Trump as I said is just a grifter who doesn’t like to take no for an answer. Apparently, many conservatives admire this.

What will appear on stage this week on CNN and watched by millions of Americans and others around the globe will be this contrast between an authentic Joe and a BS Don. Will our democracy stand the test of an assault from a neo-fascist?

The question is whether there are enough actual voters who can tell the difference. However, what’s really at stake in this election in November is whether to will be the choice between keeping American democracy, even with all its flaws and all, or allow a to vote for a bully autocrat whothat espouses racism, intolerance, and outright hate to take the reins.
It is the outright hate that has pitted various segments of our country to engage in less than civil debate and protests, limiting free speech, attacking journalism, and open discussion of the “greater good” or even what core values are in a diverse society such as ours. At this point, reason seems to have failed us as a nation, or at least half the nation. It was perhaps said best by the American patriot of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine, “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”. Paine must have known that American democracy would face such a tyrant and would-be dictator. This ultimately is Biden’s challenge to argue reason with the dead.

The true test of a person’s integrity is what they do when they are given a little bit of power over their neighbors, the public purse, and whether they use it for the benefit of all or for their own personal own gain. We’ve seen it at our City Halls and I’ve even seen it in our neighborhood councils. Our governments are only as good as the people we trust to do our business and we are often fooled . However, all of these crimes in office pale against to what he has already been indicted for but for which many of us suspect as being high crimes, fraud, and most likely treason.

The last line I can think of is that tThe price of liberty isin eternal vigilance– attributed to Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.