PUTNEY — Not since the Vietnam War have I felt such anger and despair at the behavior of our governing bodies.
The Republicans have completely abandoned their principles, especially fiscal conservatism, and they have caved in to the agenda of the ultra-right faction of their party, whose main desire seems to be the creation of a permanent partisan advantage, regardless of the effects on our democracy.
They seek to rule, rather than govern. In states where they are the legislative majority, they often pass laws that even a large portion of their own constituencies don't favor. Instead of a party of ideas, they have become sychophantic panderers to the whims of the president.
Democrats, on the other hand, are so politically inept as to be embarrassing, and they certainly don't inspire confidence in their ability to govern. In 2016, they chose as a candidate the only person out there whose unpopularity rivals Donald Trump's. And that candidate gave a ”basket of deplorables” speech, in which she talked down to a big part of the electorate.
Trump's core narrative all during the Mueller investigation is that Democrats just want to overturn the election. With this impeachment, which has zero chance of success, they prove him correct.
They made gains in 2018 by talking about education, health care, climate change, immigration reform, and the kind of jobs that were being created, and now they are pissing all that away on self-righteous political theater instead of actually focusing on actually effecting change.
I have been a builder for 40 years. Most people I run into are not that politically sophisticated or interested. They care about what touches their lives.
Trump is a consummate liar, most certainly corrupt, who seems to think he was elected king and who runs the White House like a family business. But Joe Biden's son, accepting a job that I doubt he was qualified for in exchange for enormous amounts of money, illustrates that neither party has clean hands.
As the saying goes, ”a pox on both your houses!”