I haven’t posted on this site in a while and this post is long overdue.
Yesterday on TV, I was told by Mr. Trump that I can no longer trust “mainstream” media because it is biased and crooked – his words, not mine. This implies that I should trust “non-mainstream” or fringe media as my source of information. Using that rationale, supermarket tabloids like the National Inquirer or the Globe are more trustworthy publications than the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Boston Globe. Common sense dictates that this is simply not true.
Mr. Trump, who believes he understands the world of television better than the average citizen, doesn’t seem to understand that an opinion or statement one personally disagrees with is NOT necessarily more dishonest than an opinion or statement you DO agree with. In civil discourse, we can and are encouraged to agree to disagree. But in Mr. Trump’s world, when you disagree with him, it’s a personal insult to him and he personalizes his response back to you. Therefore, those who disagree with him are little or losers or ugly or crooked or lying. He, by extension, can not be wrong because he is the smartest person in the room, handsome and a winner.
There used to be a time, not that long ago, when we, as a nation, realized that the whole world was watching our grand experiment in “one man- one vote” democracy. Candidates from both parties would watch what they said because they knew words have meaning and the world was watching. They knew that the future actions of our allies and our enemies alike rested on knowing that the United States was consistent in words and deeds, regardless of who was in office.
That is, until this year.
We now have a candidate in Mr. Trump who says whatever thoughts comes into his head at a given moment without regard to consequences. Many of these thoughts do nothing to promote our standing in the world; thus, making the words of President Kennedy more relevant. In 1961 Kennedy said, “Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, State, and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their grave trust and their great responsibilities.” Unsurprisingly, Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to believe those words apply to him.
He has promoted xenophobia, misogyny, ethic and religious intolerance, disrespected our veterans and Gold Star families, encouraged our enemies to cyber spy on his opponents (and by extension all of us) all under the banner of “telling it like it is.” He’s encouraged violence against his perceived enemies and when called on it, lashes out by saying he’s being treated unfairly by bullies in mainstream media for reporting what he said. He has done his best to de-legitimize the current President by financing and advocating the “birther” movement and suggesting that the current President is the “founder of ISIS.” He is doing the same thing to his opponent by suggesting that if she wins it will be because “the election is rigged” or if she wins Pennsylvania specifically, which has voted Democratic for the last 6 election cycles, she cheated.
Because Mr. Trump faces a real possibility of losing the 2016 election in an electoral landslide, he has now called into question the integrity and honesty of our 50 state election system. His ego will not permit him to acknowledge that he might be rejected by American voters based on his words and ideas; therefore, in his mind, any election that doesn’t declare him the winner must be fraudulent and rigged. After all, he is a winner and can not lose.
In my opinion, Mr. Trump doesn’t have the temperament or the skill set to be President of the United States and I won’t be voting for him. But I can’t overstate the major disservice he has done to our constitutional framework as he encourages our citizenry to distrust our election system processes as he blames the media, any media, for reporting what he says and taking him to task when his words aren’t clear. If we, the American people, aren’t sure of what he says, how can our friends and allies or our enemies, for that matter, be expected to parse his words and understand them in real time. The world moves too fast for us to wait three days for his surrogates to come out and tell us what Mr. Trump really meant.
If Mr. Trump loses this election to perhaps the weakest Democratic candidate in 20 years, it will be because of what he said and not the medium in which the message was delivered.
