The Failure of American Voters and their Poor Choices in Our Nation’s Leaders
Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart
First, let me begin with the greatest president in American
history. The only American leader who placed his nation’s people in priority number
one, 100 percent of the time: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was elected to four
terms as our country’s President, but died on April 12, 1945. The fact that he
was unbeatable encouraged the establishment of presidential term limits, passed
by the vote of the people on February 27, 1951. Unfortunately, our government
didn’t learn much from this change in our system. The legislative and judicial
branches remain free to do as they please without restrictions on their length
of service.
I use FDR first because if he had finished his fourth term,
I sincerely doubt that he would have approved the use of the atom bomb on the
people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People were of greater importance than
corporate profits or reelection. The unnecessary taking of innocent lives
remains one of our nation’s greatest crimes, in my opinion.
We move onto the first election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Like many others, he made a fool of me. I believed he would serve all Americans
and move our nation forward. Less than three months into his first term I
became aware that he, like most Republicans, is simply a conman. It was Reagan
who began demanding complete loyalty and a void of dissention within his party.
It was Reagan who began the right-wing’s war on the working class, and the wars
on women and minorities. It was Reagan who encouraged the creation of the Christian
Religious Right with his extreme devotion to Christianity. If he had not been
chosen to be our nation’s leader, many “hot button” issues today would not
exist, including gun control, abortion, same-sex marriage, and the stagnation
of quality of life for most Americans. His fiscal policy resulted in the
national debt reaching one-trillion dollars when he left office in 1989.
George H.W. Bush continued Reagan’s use of “trickle-down
economics,” which was nothing but a ploy to increase the wealth of the super-rich,
while ignoring the needs and wishes of the working class. He barely survived a
single term.
To the rescue came William Jefferson Clinton with an
administration which not only erased the national debt, left office in 2001
with the national treasury experiencing a surplus.
Of course we all know that George W. Bush erased all of his
accomplishments. He began by ignoring warnings from our national security agencies
about an “imminent attack” on our nation. His use of the aforementioned policy
of trickle-down economics and the elimination of any oversight related to what
was happening on Wall Street, combined with our engagement in two illegal and
unwinnable wars, increased the national debt and nearly placed our nation in a
second Great Depression.
President Obama displayed great wisdom personally, and by
his choices for advisors. His fiscal policies, based on common sense, moved us
away from the Great Recession and when he left office in 2017 America’s economy
was in full recovery. Social changes moved our nation forward in the 21st
century displaying a willingness to join the rest of developed nations.
However, another Republican president, Donald Trump, ended
many of President Obama’s policies, while bragging about Mr. Obama’s
accomplishments as his own. His failure to attack the rapidly advancing
coronavirus in 2020, telling the American people that “it would just go away,”
nearly placed our country in another Great Recession. He accomplished nothing
for the great majority of Americans over four very long years, and wants to
return to the White House in 2025. Trump will forever be remembered as the
worst president in history, and the greatest criminal in our nation’s 247-year
history. His division of our nation is only comparable to the events which
resulted in the first Civil War.
If American voters were better informed, and the former “fourth
estate” would have performed its primary responsibility, Reagan, Bush 41, Bush
43, and Trump would never have won the Electoral College. It is a fact that if
the Electoral College did not exist, no Republican would have resided in the
White House since 1993. Democrats, who understand economics, would have led us
courageously for the last 31 years, and our country would not be in shambles
today. Our government would be less corrupt, and America would not be under
attack by a fascist and his extremist cult. Compassion, understanding, and
acceptance would be the norm instead of anger, hatred, and violence.
Today our once respected nation is in a battle for its very
existence. The Second Civil War has not become bloody, yet, but it will be very
soon. I believe that when the next general election is held on November 5,
2024, the conflict will have become bloody. Trump is without question the
leader of the Neo-Nazi movement in America, and his minions, including the
Proud Boys and others, will begin attacking loyal Americans with the intent of
establishing Trump as their leader, replacing democracy with fascism once and
for all.
No one can “sit on the sidelines” any longer. It is us vs
them, and “them” are the supporters of the worst criminal in the history of the
world. We have only two choices, and one will end the dreams of our founding
fathers forever.
VOTE! Like your future depended on it.
Op-ed by James Turnage
Find my nine novels on Amazon’s free Kindle app
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