2 hours Ago
America is still a free country, and despite shrill rantings and dire warnings emanating from a wide variety of pundits, influencers and other propagandists, it’s likely to remain that way, regardless of who becomes the nation’s 47th president next Jan. 20. That established, there’s no shortage of concerns to consider prior to casting a ballot this Nov.
5. Most Americans feel strongly about multiple topics, including the economy, health care, the environment, immigration, abortion rights, education, gun control and a variety of other very real issues. Andrew D.
Young is a resident of Cumberland. When it comes to most of these matters I can’t pretend to know any more than most other Americans do. I get my news from a variety of sources, but who’s to say how reliable any of them are? Nearly all have some sort of corporate-driven agenda these days, and in most cases their top priority is delivering “facts” their audience wishes to hear, rather than providing unbiased reporting.
Fox News spreads propaganda for the Republican Party in the same way the state-owned news agency TASS served the Soviet Union during the Cold War years, and still serves Vladimir Putin’s Russia today. Similarly, MSNBC is just one of the left-leaning news sources that selectively reports (or doesn’t report) on events that cast Democrats in a more favorable light. The truth is that most United States citizens concur on far more than they disagree on.
But thanks largely to the efforts of some brutally effective professional polarizers on the left, the right, and from abroad, far too many otherwise rational Americans are currently unable to see that. Neither major political party has a perfect candidate atop their ticket, nor does either possess a platform any independent thinker can wholly agree with. Given that limitation, in an ideal world most voters would choose the issue or issues that matter most to them, weigh where each candidate stands on them, and subsequently make a well-considered choice.
I don’t feel I can criticize anyone else’s decision regarding who they vote for, whether they base their choice on border security, cutting the federal deficit, environmental health, getting judges they agree with appointed to the Supreme Court, or any other issue. But what’s fair is fair, and consequently I don’t feel anyone has the right to tell me how to think, or how to vote. For me, the most important issue regarding who’ll be the next nominal leader of the free world is character, and the person atop the ticket of one of America’s two major political parties has demonstrated time and again that he doesn’t have any.
I cannot bring myself to vote for someone who has cheated on three spouses. I cannot cast a ballot for an allegedly savvy businessman who has declared bankruptcy six times. I don’t want someone with a history of disrespecting women in charge of America, any more than I want someone who appeals to fear, prejudice, distrust, xenophobia and racism in order to inflame already-resentful followers.
I don’t want a chief executive who’s an arrogant bully, a habitual liar, or a demonstrated narcissist, so it goes without saying I’d be ashamed to have someone who’s all three of those things occupying the White House. Furthermore, I don’t want anyone who’d knowingly hitch their ambitions to such a person anywhere near any position(s) of power. Nothing’s wrong with anyone making their Election Day decision based on the environment, border security, foreign policy, taxes, or anything else that matters to them.
But for me and others like me, integrity is the one issue which, if you’ll pardon an oddly inappropriate verb, trumps all the others. We invite you to add your comments. We encourage a thoughtful exchange of ideas and information on this website.
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