By Edwin Cooney
The nature of American politics is contentious by history and by nature. The disgust millions of us feel at its present state of affairs was probably inevitable. After all, who do we Americans have to pick on but ourselves? At it's best, it can be genuinely funny!
Adlai Stevenson used to tell about a time in politics when local elections came down to which of the candidates was related to “savage” Indian tribes. On one occasion, a candidate said of his opponent: My opponent insists that he isn't part Indian and I believe him — for the Indians deny it too.
Then Congressman Brooks Hayes tells the story of an elderly woman voting for the first time who came out of the voting booth asserting that "as I looked up and down that list, I saw so many names of wonderful gentlemen that rather than vote, I just wrote at the top of my ballot: God bless you all!”
Then there's another Brooks Hayes character who cracked at a reporter's question about who would get his vote saying: ”What vote? I never vote! It only encourages ‘em!"
I've listened to many serious but eventually meaningless debates such as the one between Nixon and Kennedy in 1960 over whether or not we should go to war with the "Red Chinese" over the fate of two islands five and six miles off the coast of China. During two of the historic 1960 Nixon/Kennedy debates, a lot of time was wasted on discussion which turned out to be meaningless because there was never another Chinese shelling of those two islands after the election.
I sincerely believe that most Americans who run for office are fair-minded and genuinely anxious to please most of their constituents.
However, three or four times throughout our history (the 1828 campaign between General Andrew Jackson and incumbent president John Quincy Adams, the 1876 election between Hayes and Tilden, the 1928 election between Al Smith and Herbert Hoover, and even the 2008 election between Obama and McCain), the campaigns were about religion and personhood as much as they were about foreign and domestic issues.
As we approach 2024, political practitioners at almost all points on the political spectrum complain about one another's individual faults and how their faults and beliefs will destroy the voter, the society, and ultimately the country if something isn't done to put them in their place. The shouts of anger and suspicion, led most powerfully by the rich and well-connected, call in one way or another for the obliteration especially of ethnic minorities. A single night of television broadcasts demonstrates the determination of groups like the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys, and antifa to strut their stuff. Ultimately, it legitimizes cruel and inhuman attitudes throughout our society.
This new legitimacy confuses the distinction between natural prosecution of a former president who may have committed crimes within a reasonable doubt and the dominance of America's traditional political circus.
Although prosecutors must prove their various cases and former President Trump is entitled to due process of law, I'm personally convinced he's guilty of more than one charge of illegal conduct caused by willful self-indulgence.
It's apparent to me that "cruel and unusual punishment” which is judged unworthy of a free society in the Constitution has been replaced by the legitimacy of cruel and unusual treatment by warring groups of citizens within society.
Ultimately, it's likely that most Americans tiring of this continuous national food fight will bring a powerful halt to it via the voting booth very, very soon!
The voting process is likely my next topic.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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