By Jim Heffernan
I’ve always thought of myself as “too cool” to ever feel kinship with Howard Beale in the iconic 1976 movie, “Network” but I’m there today. This last presidential election truly has me “mad as hell.”
For the second time in eight years, I’ve seen a well-qualified, intelligent woman lose a presidential election to a loud-mouthed shill for the upper class who talks “populism” but is actually stealing my children’s and grandchildren’s freedom.
I’m not mad at him, you really can’t be mad at a snake for being a snake.
It’s my beloved Democratic party and what it’s become that has me boiling. Our strategy of “When they go low, we go high” clearly doesn’t work.
I grew up with the idea that the Democratic Party, the party of FDR and Harry Truman* stood for the common man and the working class. I do not believe either party holds that belief in the hearts any longer.
In a 1956 speech, Dwight Eisenhower, the first president I remember, said “If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.”
It started gradually about 1970, but that’s what our parties have become, “a conspiracy to seize power.” We spend advertising billions quibbling and our real problems are ignored.
Presidents of both parties have come and gone since then. The “real” freedom of affordable housing and education has withered continuously.
Somehow, we have to return to “Truman” Democrats and “Eisenhower” Republicans who truly are dedicated to a “cause that is right and that is moral.”
I don’t think we can do it living in our screens and social media. We need to start talking to real people here in our real community.
National media is in it strictly for the bucks and if our planet perishes, I guess that’s what they call the cost of doing business.
As always, discussion welcome at codger817@gmail.com
I found it amazing how topical Harry Truman’s 1948 acceptance speech is still today. Here’s a link to the speech,
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-philadelphia-upon-accepting-the-nomination-the-democratic-national-convention
If you have trouble with the link, e-mail me and I can send a PDF file.
