Forget about Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”, we have a tale of two parties in America.
Almost two years ago, on Dec. 11, 2018, I wrote a column about how ridiculous our political system had become. Here’s a quick recap of what happened back then:
The leaders of both of the Democratic Party and Republican party put on a show for the masses when President Trump called a meeting with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. What ensued? Entertainment. According to the Democrats, President Trump misled the Democratic leaders into thinking that the meeting would be private; however, according to Republicans, Pelosi and Schumer were looking for a reason to not compromise. The goal of the meeting was to prevent an impending government shutdown the following week.
Now the actual happenings of the meeting were not so private. Again, what actually happened was live entertainment at its best. Arguments, sarcasm, belittlements, and over all disrespect occurred on both sides of the aisle, but hey, that’s good ratings and equals exurbanite amounts of views, likes and re-tweets.
When did important matters of state get reduced to which social media facet could garner the most likes. When did our political system that was once held in such high regard and standards get reduced to a common ratings sweep on the social media broadcast system likened to the most popular soap-opera.
It is utterly and disgustingly a slap in the face to the Americans that fought and died in the Revolutionary War to give us the very freedom to choose our leaders in the first place.
Well, here we are again. Life after another brutal Tuesday. The first Presidential debate of the election cycle aired on television and multiple streaming giants like Roku, Facebook Live and Twitter. That debate was something. Pure and simple. I have to be honest, I turned it off a bit more than halfway through it. To see our President and former Vice President behave so childishly on a national stage made me sick to my stomach. I don’t want my children watching that behavior and aspiring to be like them.
I picked up my phone and looked at Facebook out of curiosity and sure enough, my newsfeed was flooded with my friends, Democrats and Republicans alike, posting that the debate made them ill as well. I did laugh at the number of elementary school teachers on my feed that were claiming that their kindergarten students had better manners than those displayed on the national broadcast of the two top contenders vying for our votes this November.
Maybe it’s the southern Mama in me, but I sure felt like popping both of their hands with a wooden spoon and telling them to behave in front of company. This madness of trying to ‘one up’ one another must stop. The American people that have been so hurt by this unprecedented year deserve to have our leaders communicate to us in a clear and direct way. We deserve to know a plan to boost our economy and reopen our businesses. We get to know the course of action on confronting this illness and getting on with life as usual. We are the ones casting our votes and turning in our ballots and just as we’d never sign a blank check only to give it to a stranger, we have earned the right to know for what our vote is being cast. We deserve to hear a debate where each candidate can clearly layout their ideas and plans on leading our country out of the mess of 2020. That debate was just a political mudslinging, mess fight.
When I was a kid, my Grandpa was my hero. If I had a broken toy, I’d run to him yelling, “Grandpa fix it!” He’d always stop what he was doing and reattach the head of one of my plastic ponies or change the batteries of some electronic music player. More important than his acts of service toward me, were his words. He’d take the time to tell me how I could have avoided the broken toy or used up batteries. The man really was and still is a hero. And one little nugget of wisdom he taught me was, “Even a swan is gonna smell like a pig if it hangs out in the pig pen.” Well, I don’t know about ya’ll, but I sure am tired of the leaders of our country not caring how they smell. Every one of them needs a water hose and a bar of soap taken to them. I’m ready to see dignity and composure in our leaders and find out what they plan to do to get us out of this mess, instead of seeing them sling mess on a live stage.
