A couple years ago, more or less, I had dinner with a good friend who welcomed that Trump was shaking things up. In his view, there was something rotten with the two major parties, especially the Democrats whose angst and \u201csquealing\u201d delighted him. While he did not vote for either Trump or Clinton back in 2016, he has continued to defend much of what has happened as not unexpected and understandable given the awful mismanagement of those in power. Most of his ire seems directed at the Democrats, people he defines as elitists or socialists while he paints unflattering portraits of leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and others. Parenthetically, such comments are followed with references to Trump as a \u201cjerk or ass\u201d and Joe Biden as a \u201cflake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Common to this view and that of many who voted for Trump is the defense that Trump\u2019s atrocities are not as bad or are no worse than those they attribute to people on the left. They cite the Black Lives Matter protests, the destruction of private property, the handling of the Portland riots and so on. And, of course, they can\u2019t resist adding that neither the media nor the Democrats called out the violence and destruction in those cases. They always play the \u201ddouble-standard card\u201d and add that everyone has always known that Trump is a lunatic. This explanation makes everything okay. Really?<\/p>\n
Of course there are ongoing serious issues in our country which need addressing. People in both parties and others have made some bad choices and mistakes that need rethinking. We know that. But I would argue that first we must address the unprecedented threat that Trump and his enablers represent to the stability and the rule of law in our country.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s join together and excise the present cancer affecting our government. Then we can get on with debating the pros and cons of policy.<\/p>\n
In the interim, I might ask if things have been shaken up enough. Has the shake up been worth it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple years ago, more or less, I had dinner with a good friend who welcomed that Trump was shaking things up. In his view, there was something rotten with the two major parties, especially the Democrats whose angst and \u201csquealing\u201d delighted him. While he did not vote for either Trump or Clinton back in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-robert-fischer"],"yoast_head":"\n