Our #FakeHero president is an insult to our Founders - By Eugene Robinson
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were highly imperfect men. Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Southerners were rank hypocrites for declaring all men are created equal while owning men, women and children as their slaves. John Adams was sour and disputatious, and later as president would sign the Sedition Act cracking down on criticism of the government. John Hancock was accused of amassing his fortune through smuggling. Benjamin Franklin could have been described as kind of a dirty old man.
Yet they laid out a set of principles, later codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that transcended their flaws. At this bizarre moment in our history, it is useful to remember that the ideas and institutions of the American experiment are much more powerful and enduring than the idiosyncrasies of our leaders.
I call this moment bizarre for obvious reasons. As Thomas Paine would write in December 1776: These are the times that try mens souls.
We have a president who neither understands nor respects the basic norms of American democracy. Make no mistake: Donald Trump is a true aberration. There is no figure like him in U.S. history, for which we should be thankful.
Trumps inexperience is unique; he is the only president never to have served in government or the military. This weakness is exponentially compounded by his ignorance of both policy and process, his lack of curiosity, his inability to focus and his tremendous insecurity. He refuses to acknowledge his shortcomings, let alone come to terms with them; and he desperately craves the kind of sycophantic adulation that George Washington, a genuine hero, pointedly rejected.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/our-fakehero-president-is-an-insult-to-our-founders/2017/07/03/c0bc0402-6024-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html
ProudMNDemocrat
(16,480 posts)He hits it out of the ballpark every time with his Commentaries. He makes you think.
MBS
(9,688 posts)for just the reason you said.
Skittles
(152,964 posts)I also like his writing style -it's flows evenly and is easy to read - he never sounds pompous or stilted
dalton99a
(81,065 posts)Response to DonViejo (Original post)
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