Since the election last November we’ve heard from people who insist that from now on they will pay closer attention to local clubs, councils and citizens. They seem to believe that it really isn’t about what Congress does, it’s about what people do – the people next door, at the next table, on the next stool, in the next pew, in the mirror.
But it has struck us that since that election, anger in letters to the editor has intensified. Anger at Washington, Trump, Trump children, Trump University, Trump hotels, Trump branding, Trump personality.
Are we really that easily manipulated? Or did we need this election the same way we needed to swim after jumping in the deep end?
We tend to refer to Trump as a liar, maybe because he called everyone else a liar and got away with it. Takes one to know one.
True, we’re not born liars, we develop it. We lie to avoid hurting others. Then we turn around and lie to absolutely hurt them. Or because we know we won’t be caught. Or because it’s easier. Or we think we’re protecting someone. Or we don’t want to be called out for doing something else that was wrong. Or we want to promote ourselves.
“Liar” is a word we learn mighty young. It’s associated with your pants being on fire. It is impressed on us that lying to anybody about anything is a punishable offense. We will be hollered at, shunned, exposed – something horrible and lasting.
But we do it anyway. Sure, we try not to, but we’re very good at making moral judgments and leaning on a lie to ensure our righteousness. We love to be right. And who doesn’t?
Lying is a habit. Anyone ever ask you your weight? How much money you got on you?
We admit to giggling about some of the public accusations flying around the country like boomerangs, but civility, civility, civility is missing and missed. Why is our government using its power and resources to suppress women, non-whiteys, non-Christians, or anyone who dares to think cleverly? Is it our fault?
The trouble we, and it is we, are having in and with Washington is not necessarily a problem with the president. Donald Trump doesn’t want to reign over a dysfunctional country, corporation, whatever he calls it. He wants things his way, which is normal, and much of what he wants is based on accumulating wealth and attention. Surely there have been presidents in the past 220 years or so who’ve done the same.
What’s different this time is there are nefarious forces (people) who are pleased as punchlines that the United States has a president so consumed with his own image that he rarely speaks or tweets about anything else. This sideshow takes our minds off the truth of what’s happening, which has nothing to do with #45 and everything to do with people who will stop at nothing to destroy the United States in order to remake it.
Confront them? They’ll just lie to us.
If we make two lists, one of good things this country has done and one of tacky things this country has done, we’re willing to bet they come out about even. But we seem to take comfort in thinking it’s our country, it’s our dirty laundry hanging on the line, it’s our business. Our country, right or wrong. Which is how we get distracted and bamboozled and neglectful of the truth in the first place.
It isn’t Trump who’s causing fear and distress and embarrassment. We knew what he was about when he applied for the job. It’s the magnification of our own silly selves who are afraid of being the sweet, smart, visionary people we really are. Until we realize that how others feel about us is really none of our business, we’re going to be flailing around in the deep end wishing we could swim.
Mary Pat Boian