Thoughts on Trump and the Presidency
I’m writing this because I think what we all need in America right now is one more person offering their political beliefs online.
These last few days have been nothing short of astounding. Make no mistake, what Donald Trump has done over the last 5 and a half years or so since he came down that escalator is nothing short of deplorable. There are people, a lot of people, who have done great evil in his name.
Before you think this is going to be some rant about how “Trump isn’t the disease, he’s a symptom” or that Trump is just giving voice to something that’s been there for a long time, not only am I not going to argue that, I think that argument misses the point entirely.
In America, every 4 years we elect a president. That election process basically boils down to which drunk driver gets to be the one who drives the semi truck through the playground at recess. We debate for hours over “well Driver A has only had 6 drinks” or “Driver B had more drinks, but he spaced them out more” and then we’re dumbfounded when a drunk driver driving a semi truck through a playground at recess goes over about as well as, ya know, a drunk driver driving a semi truck through a playground at recess.
And let’s be honest, sometimes there actually is a better pick between the two. Sometimes the driver defies all logic and does minimal damage. Sometimes your worst fears are realized in every single way. But, make no mistake, none of them have any business being behind the wheel of that truck. Yes, the degree to which they have no business being behind the wheel of that truck varies from drunk to drunk, but they’re all drunk.
The news pundits debate back and forth over “why the hell did we let that guy drive the truck?” all the while, the people who picked him defend him as “better than the other guy.”
So what if, now hear me out, the problem isn’t which drunk gets to drive the truck? What if we were voting over which drunk driver got to drive a tricycle around a well padded, closed course.
Suddenly we’re not so scared of what could happen! Suddenly the worst thing they could do is skin their knee, maybe put a rip in the padding or a dent in the trike.
Long winded metaphors aside, what if the problem isn’t that an evil man took control of the government and caused mayhem? What if the real problem is the only thing it takes for the government to cause mayhem is an evil man to be in control?
Remember, evil is only as scary as the power it wields.
Evil isn’t going anywhere, we will never get to a point where evil doesn’t try, and occasionally succeed, to take power. The whole point of our governmental system was built on the idea of putting safeguards in place so these things don’t happen!
The problem is, over the last 200+ years we’ve allowed the size and scope of the government to grow so out of control that it becomes a dangerous weapon in the hands of everyone who ends up wielding it.
Do I have any plan to fix this? No, not at all, I don’t think anyone does. In fact, I think the only way to fix this problem is for everyone to just be aware of the problem and vote for, advocate for, and promote policies that help limit our government.
