Is there any morality left in our politics? Any of us with some moral values and good conscience will acknowledge that our political system is morally bankrupt. The influx of too much money into our politics has clogged our political canals. The irony is that all of us know about it and do nothing. We complain about the incompetency of our chosen representatives and still keep electing them over and over again. We either vote on our party’s basis or we are easily swayed by the candidates who repeat lies so often that, at the end, we start believing in them.
We have elected a president who skillfully lied constantly during his campaign and succeeded in accomplishing his goal. We, as a nation, failed to stand against his lies, bigotry and flip flop attitude. The tragedy is that this saga has continued even after the election. Every day, his new lies are exposed but he is still applauded by his supporters. The facts do not penetrate into the minds of over thirty percent of our population that supports him blindly. It is appalling to see the young boys and girls and elderly men and women applauding enthusiastically after each non-factual and often petty sentences uttered by this President during his rallies. It was tragic to see police officers in Brentwood, New York clapping over President’s encouragement of using excessive police force against the offenders. Of course, next day many police associations condemned President’s remarks but that could not hide the fact that there were significant numbers of police officers in the audience who agreed with the President.
The incompetency is another virtue of this President. His lack of knowledge about domestic and international affairs is astonishing. His supporters argue that they want to give him a chance to govern. This is a flawed argument since one gives a chance to a person who wants to learn. The learning requires humility and trust in the facts. Neither President Trump is humble nor believer in the facts. He is shrewd but not smart. He is arrogant and his manners lack civility. He is a polarizing figure who is poisoning the minds of his ill informed supporters with hatred and bigotry.
Sadly, President Trump is not the only one involved in this pettiness. It is heart breaking to see that some of his cabinet officials and staff members who are highly professionals and men of integrity remain obedient to their incompetent boss. Do they ever think that the future of their country is at stake here? The eighty percent of Christian Evangelists support this President. This should be enough to expose the hypocrisy of the organized religions but it is not. Again, the reason is money. They are content as long as they enjoy the tax exempt status of their enormous wealth collected from their supporters. If this is not the exploitation of the masses in the name of God then what else is?
America became strong on the basis of science and technology. A nation that does not realize the importance of Science and Education and seeks remedies for its ills in some divine’s recipes or fake destiny can never achieve greatness. Why are we drifting away from our values and denying science?
We are the one who gave the world the idea of individual liberty, freedom and pursuit of happiness. For a long time, our citizens enjoyed this freedom and the relationship between the public and the law enforcement agencies remained cordial. Why is that now almost every day we hear police brutality and citizen’s lack of obedience to our police officers? Once again, the money plays its role in this. The privatization of our Jails and increasing castration of our citizens create mistrust between the government and the public. The laws are applied harshly to those who do petty crimes but the white collars criminals often roam free or buy their way out of the jails.
This President coined the term, “Fake News”. Our media is in a way responsible for making Donald Trump, the president. The media is still obsessed with the name Donald Trump. Hardly, any world news gets any significant time or coverage on our cable television these days. The media is surrounded by the expert analysts who spend all their time and energy analyzing the lies. These media circuses either wash the brains of the general public or make them so indifferent that they simply do not care about national affairs. This lack of interest in politics is exhibited in the low turnaround of the voters during the election.
Our Commander-in-Chief simply delegates his authorities to his Generals. Whenever he creates a chaos in his administration, he appoints his General to clean the mess. Ironically, he insulted those military Generals during his campaign by claiming that he knew about wars more than those Generals. One of the shining pillars of our democracy is that the military remains under civilian rule. Military intervenes in civil affairs in banana Republics. Over-patronization of military is a harmful trend and we must be aware of its consequences.
It is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of our intellectuals, academics, politicians, cabinet members and the concerned citizens to stand against this President and his cronies and clean our country with the menace of Trumpism. Until we do this, Mr. Machiavelli will keep smiling in his grave.