If you are among the 83 million-or-so Americans born after the deification of King Dutch the Great in 1980, you might find this concept difficult to grasp. But I swear it’s true. America used to have integrity. Honesty used to be a factor in political discourse. We once had leaders who led, rather than bullied. And we could once, with good conscience, take pride in calling ourselves Americans.
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We even had a Republican President – and ex-general, no less – who warned us against the manipulative evil of the “military-industrial complex.”
Many Americans – myself included – look to the assassination of JFK to mark the date when it all began to unravel. Whether he was murdered by a single sniper or removed as part of an enormous plot that continues to somehow remain concealed to this day is immaterial to this specific discussion. The fact he was replaced by an opportunistic, power-hungry warmonger who was only too happy to make himself a slave to that same “military-industrial complex” is the key.
LBJ started us on the road to Fascism, using minority and gender rights to create a “liberal” image for his Presidency while he was lying to the Nation about a Vietnamese attack on an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin so that our over-sized army could continue the slaughter of Asian civilians it had begun in Korea. (Okay, maybe that wasn’t the sole purpose. But it was an acceptable alternative to permitting the Vietnamese to run their own country.)
Here is one segment from Real News about John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson's Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, when he died in 2009 and his involvement with the Gulf of Tonkin as a Liberal.
That was back in the days of yore when it was still cool to be a liberal. Two decades later, the skillfully manipulated citizens who heard the word envisioned only lines at the gas pump and Ted Kennedy in a neck brace, saying, “When I returned, Mary Jo and the car were gone.” And perceptive people wrote songs like, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?” as the progressive principals of the Sixties were transformed into national jokes by conniving dullards.
Nixon started us on the road to stupidity by tailoring his message to appeal to the sensibilities and racist attitudes of the uneducated southerners who had voted solidly Democratic since the Civil War because they were still pissed at Abraham Lincoln.
But the loss of our national integrity began with Ronald Reagan, who apparently considered it his personal obligation to stop the national drift toward economic equality that had begun in the Sixties.
Here is a brief and yet stimulating read on "Reaganomics".
If he could have taken back all the socially progressive advancements, I’m sure he would have. But we weren’t about to stop “doing our own thing.” So, we find ourselves halfway evolved as a culture; living in a society where a woman is free to express her sexuality by bedding a man to whom she isn’t wed without wearing a scarlet letter on her forehead…just as long as she doesn’t expect to make as much money as him.
Reagan’s campaign of disinformation began with “trickle-down economics,” a plan perfectly tailored to impress doctrinaire Christians who were willing to accept any amount of shit from their lives provided they’d be assured of a place in heaven when they died. “Put your faith in Jesus and he will take care of you,” was easily modified to, “Put your faith in the wealthy and they will take care of you.” Poor, uneducated southerners got the message and turned, en masse, into Republicans.
And the “campaign of dishonesty” which is the legacy of modern American politics was begun in earnest by both parties.
Admittedly, you still have a way to plummet before you get to Trump. But an important factor that has been under-analyzed during his rise to power is the legacy of his predecessors. We watched during the campaign as he promised to take one regressive action after another. Our political commentators not employed by Fox News wrung their hands and wondered why the people he promised to harm would still support him. And they failed to get the point. People voted for Trump even at risk of losing their children’s healthcare because they believed he was lying.
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After decades dealing with the lies of American politicians, they simply assumed he’d say one thing to get elected, then do something else. They didn’t even give his words the respect might give to those of a reality TV star. To them, it was all strictly fiction.
Here is one Fox News segment where a Wall Street Journal editor (Conservatives) is asked to explain lying and how the media should report it, clearly a main distribution source of lies.
And now we find ourselves at the mercy of the only politician in recent memory who told the voters the truth about his agenda and followed through with it.
Meanwhile, Fox News commentators now wring their hands and wonder why their President is lying when it’s all he’s done since the campaign began. And the significant percentage of their viewers who also cling to the idea they were “created” be a white, male deity suck up his every word just as they do the lies of their religion: because they fervently wish it were the truth.
America has a future. We will survive the Trump Presidency. But if we fail to use this opportunity to demand honesty and integrity from our future leaders, we won’t have gained anything from the horrific-yet-potentially-instructive experience.
[Featured image: @JonMarkDraws/Flickr]