In January, we will experience another presidential inauguration. The way things appear to be trending, that POTUS will be Joe Biden. If not, Donald Trump will be the first U.S. President to lose the popular vote twice.
One thing I hope the next Congress passes in a timely manner is to restore the Fairness in Media standard. Ronald Reagan rescinded it and within days, FOX News began broadcasting its alternate reality disguised as news. It would be good to return to a world where facts drive the discussions again. And that brings me to my main point.
In his Chaplain's Perspective column in the October 21 edition of the Vista, Robert Box expressed his misgivings about POTUS 45. He stopped short of admitting what a disaster Trump's first term in office has been, but he came close enough for me. It must take spiritual and moral gymnastics on the scale of Cirque de Soleil to justify having cast a vote for him as a beacon of Christianity, especially after witnessing his words and actions of the past four years. I have a feeling that by 2024, the Republican Party will resemble Germany after the end of WWII. None of them will be eager to admit they supported a president who almost turned us into a fascist regime in just four years, in the same way you couldn't find a German who supported Hitler by 1950.
However, in his op-ed, I noticed Mr. Box couldn't leave well enough alone. He has to find a way of pushing a false trope about the competency of Joe Biden as if there isn't a stark difference between the two candidates. There's nothing wrong with Biden's mental state, and there's nothing assailable about his love for this country. If Mr. Box had watched the town hall that took the place of the expected second presidential debate, he would have witnessed a man fully in control of the facts, willing to admit that some past actions he supported had unintended consequences that need to be addressed, and who deeply loves his country with a servant's heart. Yes, he has a stutter, but that's not a sign of dementia. You know who else stuttered? King George VI of England! And he still managed to lead the British through WWII.
As far as painting Kamala Harris as far left, he really missed the mark. She was among the most centrist of the Democratic hopefuls. Her record as California AG supports that. The real problem here is that since 1980, the Republican Party has lurched so far to the right that it has to paint the Democrats as being equally leftist. In the rest of the free world, our far left is actually the political center. False equivalency is still falsehood unless you're a supporter of the Nine Commandments and One Suggestion.
Bill Hesse
Bella Vista