I spent much of my late adolescence and earlier twenties around politicians.\u00a0\u00a0I was one myself, stepping onto the first rungs of the ladder that led to a political career.\u00a0\u00a0At fourteen I was helping to strategize a local judge election.\u00a0\u00a0By eighteen I worked to orchestrate a Congressional \u201cGet Out the Vote\u201d operation.\u00a0\u00a0At twenty, the Carter\/Mondale Campaign \u201chanded me the keys\u201d to six counties in Southwestern Ohio, and gave me major responsibilities in Cincinnati as well.\u00a0\u00a0I went from there to work \u201con the Hill\u201d for a Congressman in Washington and then again back at home in Cincinnati.\u00a0\u00a0Four years later I was managing a Cincinnati City Council Campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I was around politicians a lot.\u00a0\u00a0And while all of them did what they had to do to win the next election, many were looking forward to \u201cmaking things better\u201d when they got the opportunity to govern.\u00a0\u00a0Even the folks \u201con the other side\u201d seemed to be serious about improving the lives for their constituents, though they might have very different ideas about how to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Politics could still be divisive.\u00a0\u00a0I \u201ccut my teeth\u201d at the end of the Vietnam War era.\u00a0\u00a0One mentor campaigned for Ed Muskie in New Hampshire of 1972, and another learned his job from the Humphrey general election campaign in 1968.\u00a0\u00a0There was nothing so divisive as Vietnam and Civil Rights, and both of those issues were still part of the environment when I started.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surrounded by politics and those that practiced the art from both sides, I grew to believe that most (not all) were indeed patriots. Sure they wanted to win and would do almost anything to succeed. But they also wanted to help \u201ctheir people\u201d. That included the folks that voted for and against them. They cared about our history and traditions, and knew which lines to cross and which ones to respect. And they ultimately saw themselves in the tradition of the Founding Fathers: trying to continue and improve the American Experiment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In today\u2019s polarized world, that view sounds antiquated and na\u00efve. But I still cling desperately to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the current actions of many of our Congressmen and Senators are challenging my view. They are purposely furthering a world where facts are no longer important, only fanciful stories of their leader. It\u2019s been going on for five years. Before we ever got to the 2020 election, we ignored Robert Mueller. His report was convoluted and afraid to reach conclusions. But a plain reading of the four hundred some pages lead to two undeniable conclusions: the Russians were involved in the 2016 Trump campaign, and the President and his men engaged in a two year campaign to obstruct that fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether it was enough to \u201cconvict\u201d or \u201cimpeach\u201d might be arguable \u2013 but the facts Mueller presented were clear to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That those same \u201crespected\u201d and \u201cold school\u201d Republican politicians would echo the Trump theme of \u201cRussian Hoax\u201d was saddening. And the same was true with the Impeachment. Again, the facts were clear, we all knew exactly what the President wanted Ukraine to do, and how he was going to get them to do it. Some of the Republican Senators at least acknowledged the plain truth of that and then simply said it wasn\u2019t enough to remove the President. But others fell in line with the Trump \u201cperfect call\u201d defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now there\u2019s the election of 2020.\u00a0\u00a0In the United States, we measure our winners and losers in terms of Electoral votes.\u00a0\u00a0We were reminded of that again in 2016.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who wins the majority of popular votes really doesn\u2019t matter:\u00a0\u00a0ask Hillary Clinton or Al Gore.\u00a0\u00a0But \u201cthem\u2019s the rules that we play by\u201d:\u00a0\u00a0that\u2019s what we were told in 2016 and 2000.\u00a0\u00a0And Gore and Clinton swallowed hard and did the \u201cAmerican thing\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0They stood in front of the nation and acknowledged their loss.\u00a0\u00a0Bothdid what the folks I grew up with would do.\u00a0\u00a0They were \u201cpros\u201d; good politicians, even though it was the hardest thing they would ever do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That Donald Trump refused to do so isn\u2019t a surprise to anyone. And that he would create a false narrative of widespread fraud isn\u2019t surprising either. He set that fake scenario up from the beginnings of the 2020 campaign. Americans, and politicians, should look at him and see him for what he is: an amateur. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is incredibly concerning is that so many other Republican politicians have made the decision to go along with this rank amateur for one more time. It\u2019s not about being \u201ctrue believers\u201d. They aren\u2019t all stupid (though Congressman Gohmert might be the exception). Those Congressmen and Senators understand the facts, but they reached a political conclusion making their career more important than the course of the nation. They are more afraid of losing their \u201cseat\u201d, than the fate of the American experiment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These \u201cpoliticians\u201d are the antithesis of patriots. Their self-interest is more important than their country. Instead of \u201cleading\u201d their followers, they are following them. They have more in common with Benedict Arnold than George Washington (and yes, I just called them traitors).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s not just in statement and tweets. On Wednesday they will actually stand for something that they must know is false. They will question the results of the American election \u2013 the core basis of our Constitutional system. And they will do it in the full knowledge that they are lying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It won\u2019t change the outcome \u2013 Joe Biden will be the next President.\u00a0\u00a0But it will damage the fabric of our nation once again.\u00a0\u00a0What else is a better definition of treason?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"