This morning I was forwarded an email from a 79-year-old who felt the need to rant about the mistreatment of poor Donald Trump. I will join his or her chorus and rant too. I am 65-year-old who believes the number one problem in America today is hypocrisy. For those who are unfamiliar with the dictionary meaning, I will quote Merriam-Webster here so we will all be on the same page. Hypocrisy-a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not: behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel.
What would be an example of hypocrisy in America? How about for the entire 8 years that Barack Obama was President my inbox was flooded with emails detailing his poor work ethic and callous disregard for the cost to the American people every time he played golf or went on vacation. Now the same group remains silent as Trump spends more time away from the White House and the work of the people than any President before him while spending an unprecedented amount of money in the process on transportation and security.
How about another example? Bill Clinton was hounded by the Republican Party over his liaison with Monica Lewinsky to the point they conducted impeachment hearings. They knew at the start they didn’t have the votes to remove him from office but the Republican Congressional Representatives and their constituent’s personal morality demanded that Clinton be held accountable. Where was that outrage when Donald Trump admitted that he sexually assaulted numerous women as he conducted a perverse kind of telemarketing process in finding that one woman who would say yes to his advances? What about the other women who had to fend off the unwanted advances of a man who viewed them as nothing more than a number in his game? Where was the moral outrage that has been used as a weapon against the Democratic Party for decades?
One last example of hypocrisy in America so that you may understand clearly why I have no sympathy for Donald Trump. By his own admission, he ran a campaign like no other in history. He said the vilest things about his Republican opponents in the primaries, he questioned the bravery of American prisoners of war, he used vulgar language when referring to his female Democratic opponent and likened Washington to a swamp calling into question the patriotism and motives of anyone that disagreed with him.
On TV, he called upon the Russians to conduct cyber-attacks on one of our citizens, he hounded a sitting American President for 8 years to “prove he was an American” and he incited violence towards otherwise law abiding citizens. He created the world he now live in. If he finds it difficult to do his job as President then maybe he needs to learn how to be Presidential. That would include learning how the American process works and to be more circumspect in his speech.
But if your real concern as an American is that we give the officials in Washington our support while they do their job then I submit you get behind Special Prosecutor Mueller. As John Kasich said, this is serious and “it is not a time for Republicans to hide and I also don’t think it’s a time for Democrat to exploit.” The time has come to hold accountable individuals who have held our country, its institutions and our very way of life in contempt. It is time to call the victimhood of Donald Trump what it is, hypocrisy.