Pelosi, McConnell and Trump

The person Republicans hate more than any other Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, was elected House Majority Leader by her Democratic colleagues the other day and Mitch McConnell, who Democrats hate more than any other Republican maintained his position of Senate Majority Leader. So we have the same battle occurring in the United States Congress that we do in bars, churches, offices and on the streets of American towns and cities from coast to coast. The Democrats won’t yield to McConnell, the Republicans won’t yield to Pelosi and the stalemate continues.

I socialize with 10 to 12 people on a regular basis and I’m one of the few Democrats. Consequently, I try to keep the subject of politics off the table because I know I’m vastly outnumbered. But that doesn’t always work because some of the Republicans in the group feel a need to bring politics up anyway, either to promote their own perspective or to trash mine. One is particularly fond of talking about America becoming a Socialist country if a Democrat President is elected in 2020 and how that would be the death knoll for the America we’ve known and loved all of our lives.

There were only a handful of elected Democrats you could accurately describe as having Socialist leanings during the off-year elections in 2018; certainly nowhere near enough to dictate policy. But in seeing a monster behind every tree, this person is convinced the few elected federal officials with Socialist leanings will be able to convince their colleagues to see things their way. I’ve been a moderate Democrat all my life and I don’t support total Socialism any more than the most ardent Republicans and the other moderate Democrats I know and talk to don’t either. So it’s really a false foe my friend is fighting but fight it he does, practically every time we’re together.

Senator McConnell has vowed not to vote on anything in the Senate that can’t pass a vote and that President Trump wouldn’t sign because it wouldn’t make any sense to do that. Practically he’s right but that conflicts with the concept of representative government which indicates that each elected Congressman vote his or her conscience instead of voting by party. How long has it been since we saw that in action?

Of course, Trump’s flagship cause is the building of the wall between the United States and Mexico. Now that there is a significant majority of Democrats having control of the House, it’s obvious that’s not going to happen and, if it doesn’t, he would have failed on his major campaign promise. He doesn’t like to fail and he doesn’t like anyone who doesn’t support him. So fireworks can be expected every time the house defeats funding for his wall.

Everyone has a different opinion about Trump. Over 90% of all Democrats see him as being unfit for public office and believe he will lose the Presidential election of 2020. Over 80% of all Republicans think he’s doing a wonderful job and believe he will be reelected. We’ve had political divisions like this before, even though we choose to forget them. In 1972, Republican Richard Nixon crushed Democrat George McGovern, winning 49 states, in the most decisive political victory of the century. Nixon was forced to resign later in his term primarily because of the break-in of Democrat headquarters in the infamous Watergate building by Republican operatives, along with his handling of other issues captured on tape recordings of phone calls made in the White House and supported by Nixon.

So we don’t always know who’s right by the percentage of votes they get. Americans can be convinced easily that someone is honest when they’re not, that someone is working in their best interest when they’re not, and that someone is trustworthy when they’re not. That’s why senior citizens have always been the target audience for financial frauds perpetrated by white-collar criminals. We learned when we were young that we should trust people and we’re finding out when we’re old that sometimes that’s not such a good idea.

I have no idea how the 2020 election will turn out. Trump has his base of support that will not desert him no matter what he says or does, just like Nixon had in 1972. Bill Clinton enjoyed the same level of support after his affair with Monica Lewinsky became public knowledge in the 1990s. Maybe we’re all fools or at best, maybe we choose to look on the bright side of a person instead of the dark side.

But the dark side will always tell us much more about who that person really is than the bright side ever would.