Rudderless Ship
A lot of the ideas I have for this column actually come from conversations I have with friends or family. Different perspectives give me a broader picture of things.
As I have repeatedly said, I like to hear other peoples opinions. I may not agree but I believe everyone is entitled to an opinion, or two. They have their reasons why they believe something to be true and they like to share those thoughts.
Ask someone his/her opinion on something and watch them go. It’s always a given, you have a lull in a conversation, ask a person about something that involves them and they won’t stop talking. I am guilty of this as well. People’s favorite subject will always be about themselves. It is just the way it is. That includes opinions.
What I have discovered over the last few years is that a lot of people treat their own opinions as facts. When I first discovered this phenomenon, it was mostly Democrats and Progressives who would just tell you that what they believed was the truth and there wasn’t any other position but their own. That is still the case (maybe worse) but I have seen quite a few Republicans do the same thing. My way or the highway.
You want to look at division in this country. Look to the fact that neither side can look at something, form an opinion, wait for the other side and then discuss. There is no dialogue between people who believe in different things. That era is over.
The media perpetuates this divide. Instead of giving balanced journalism, they pick a side and create narratives supporting their opinions or beliefs.
Let’s face it. The media in this country hates Donald Trump with a passion that we may have never been seen before. There was a time when the NY Times used 50% of it’s National coverage to report on some negative aspect of President Trump, years after he was out of office. The fear at the Gray Lady is that he will be reelected. That fear has led the Times along with other liberal media outlets to start on a new tactic.
They have decided that no matter what happens to this guy, his poll numbers go up, and they need to stop it.
The new twist in this years long hatchet job is that the Democrats fear that if Trump gets elected, he will be coming after everyone who has ever said a bad word about him. The Nation will eventually be “ruled” by someone akin to a dictator.
They have taken multiple comments President Trump has said and twisted them into some narrative about if he gets reelected he is going to take control of this, that and the other thing and put this country back on course from Day 1.
Every President who has ever been elected in the 20th and 21st century has taken control from Day 1. Uh, Joe Biden created one of the biggest disasters any modern President has ever created on Day 1. He stopped the Keystone Pipeline from being completed. Which set the country’s oil production back a year and half and returned the energy lever back to Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. How come that little move didn’t stir the ire of the New York Times or CNN? Has anyone done a economic impact on that Day 1 move? The price of oil went up from around 54 dollars a barrel to as high as 119 dollars a barrel. Wait, the Democrats will say that it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine that did that. Simple economics will tell you that if the biggest supplier of oil on World markets increases production during good or bad times, prices will rise much slower when there is a disruption. If the United States continued what it was doing during the Trump administration and with the completion of this pipeline, The Saudis and the rest of OPEC would have much less control than they have had up until last month. Oil production is now at record levels. It took the United States two years to undo Joe Biden’s stupidity and prices have come back down (maybe that was the plan all along?).
So for the media to jump all over Donald Trump and mischaracterize comments said in an emotional speech is just bad journalism.
This new attack on Trump will fail as well.
The average American may not like Donald Trump because of his bombastic comments and his ill timed maneuvers but the average American will look at the leadership we have now and then they will have to make a choice.
You have Joe Biden who is failing on multiple levels and his sidekick, Kamala Harris possibly facing more daunting challenges than they already have. The increased threat of China in the South China Sea. The Russians going into the Ukraine conflict with a nothing to lose attitude. The War in Gaza that is taking an incredible toll on Israelis and Palestinians. Possible problems in South America that are starting to stir up. A fentanyl crisis at home. An immigrant situation that the administration has completely lost control of. Hmm, Let me see, anything else? I think thats plenty.
This would be a lot to handle for any President, Republican or Democrat but with Joe Biden at the helm, I am not entirely comfortable with his ability to mentally navigate any or all of these situations.
In my humble opinion, many of these situations were a direct result of our adversaries believing we have weak, incompetent leadership. When a team is in disarray as the US appears to be, strong decisive leaders will look to take advantage of that confusion.
Truthfully, we really don’t know how a 78 year old Donald Trump will be able to handle the multiple scenarios our country faces. We just don’t.
The differences between Joe Biden and Donald Trump are many and I believe the biggest one is that President Biden uses the puppet master/advisors while trying to make a decision and President Trump shoots from his hip and does not listen to advice.
Both situations are scary to be honest.
Look, I firmly believe that Barack Obama was one of the most overrated Presidents in history but one thing I do believe is that President Obama didn’t have anyone behind him pulling his levers. Maybe Michelle was the closest thing to a trusted advisor but overall, he went with what he thought was right. He had way to big an ego to sublimate himself to some backroom political kingpins.
George Bush had his father and some good and some not so good advisors but he listened and then acted accordingly. He took the hits but thats what a President is supposed to do.
Bill Clinton, same thing. He had Hillary which like her or hate her, she was a plus as far as intelligence. She was, and still is, a very smart woman but that will never make her a good person. In any event, President Clinton had the ability to listen to both sides of the aisle and try to come to some sort of consensus. A lost art for sure.
The point of all this is simple: We have a ship that is being driven by someone who is just incapable of driving such a large ship and he is driving it into the ground. The decision that will play out over the next eleven months will be what kind of captain do we want driving this ship.