AMEND CORNER: Eavesdropping, billboards and other political questions

Posted 10/22/15

I don’t remember why we went, but the trip extended into lunchtime, so we, with no regard for nutrition, stopped for a quick sandwich.

I was eating the last bites of my roast beef sandwich when I overheard a political discussion on the other …

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AMEND CORNER: Eavesdropping, billboards and other political questions

Posted

Not long ago, my chauffeur, nutritionist and cat wrangler, the one who actually heads my household, took me on a ride to Cody.

I don’t remember why we went, but the trip extended into lunchtime, so we, with no regard for nutrition, stopped for a quick sandwich.

I was eating the last bites of my roast beef sandwich when I overheard a political discussion on the other side of a partition. A woman was talking about the failure of presidential candidates to give her a reason to vote for them.

I’m not sure which candidate or candidates she was referring to, because she mentioned no names, but they must have been Republicans, because at one point she said she wouldn’t vote for a Democrat because of “What Obama has done to this country.”

Now, I certainly am not enamored with either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, so I can understand someone not voting for either of them, but I was tempted to approach her and ask just what Barack Obama has done to us. I didn’t want to spoil anybody’s lunch, though, even if was only a fast-food combo, nor did I wish to pick a fight with somebody I couldn’t see, who might turn out to be bigger and/or better armed than I am. So I just finished my sandwich and followed my wife out the door.

On the way out of Cody, with full stomachs and some stuff we can’t buy in Powell, we passed a huge sign telling me to elect Donald Trump and “Make America Great Again.”

That slogan perplexed me as much as the Obama thing had. I wondered (a) What happened to America’s greatness and (b) How would Trump make it great again. Unfortunately, the sign offered no details, and there wasn’t anyone there to ask for more information. I’ve heard him spout a lot of stuff he calls “politically incorrect,” which in his case, appears to mean “rude and obnoxious,” but except for building an impossible wall, he’s a little short of specific proposals.

Now, I’m pretty sure there are people out there who will be happy to list all of Barack Obama’s sins for me. They will also gladly recap all the freedoms Obama has destroyed and predict his intention to score a coup d’état so he can become a dictator and install Sharia Law. Somebody else will be happy to explain how Donald Trump’s presumed wonderfulness and his over-the-top rhetoric will make us all proud to be Americans again.

But I’m not buying any of it, not Obama’s damage to America or Trump’s ... well, whatever Trump’s asset is.

The America I live in now is, for the most part, not much different than the one I remember nine years ago, except there’s less unemployment, cheaper gas and fewer people without health insurance. The economy is certainly better than it was then. Granted, it’s been growing slowly; I think that old Greek was correct when he had his tortoise defeat his hare. Slow and steady growth may be a good thing. In fact, that may be why the economy is better now than Mitt Romney said it would be, had he been elected in 2012. Whether Obama is or isn’t responsible for the improvement is beside the point. It has improved, and his opponents said it wouldn’t while he was president.

As for freedoms, I’ve lost none of the ones I had when I graduated from high school over five decades ago. Back then, one of my bosses warned me that John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were taking away my freedoms, but apparently they never got around to it, and neither has Obama.

More seriously, people are concerned about America’s standing in the world under Obama, particularly with regard to the Middle East. Their worry is that America’s leadership role is declining and we no longer have the influence or the strength to oppose the Islamic State, ISIS for short, and Iran, let alone to the big guys, China and Russia.

Those worries may be valid, but I’m not so sure. China and Russia have serious internal problems of their own, and I’m not sure anybody can put the Middle East in order. If you’re worried about Russia, for example, especially now that they have stepped into the conflict in Syria, think back to the 1970s. That was when the old Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and set up a government. That adventure revealed cracks in the Soviet military and divisions in their society, forcing them to pull out of Afghanistan in defeat. The USSR was so weakened by the defeat that it fell apart within a few years.

The Islamic State is a certainly scary outfit, and I suspect they will cause problems for a while. But recruitment will decline as the romance wears off, and internal divisions will appear. Other Islamic nations have a lot more to fear from ISIS than we do, so we should leave them with the responsibility instead of bailing them out.

We should have learned from recent history that we can’t go barging into a nation uninvited and impose an unwanted change of government on it, and neither can the Russians.

Obama’s reluctance to involve the U.S. more deeply in that conflict tells me he understands that lesson.

I hope Trump, should he be elected, understands it as well, but from his rhetoric, I don’t think he has.

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