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Leaders Can't Serve the People They Hate [1]

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Date: 2022-09-18

No one has any hesitation when it comes to throwing out their garbage.

After all, it’s full of things you don’t want anymore, like paper and leftover food and coffee grounds. People can’t wait to get that stuff out of their house.

But what if you realized your wife had thrown your cherished, 20-year-old bowling championship trophy in there? Or the set of baseball cards you’ve had since 1968? Or your scrapbook of photos you took when you and your pals where on spring break in 1982?

My guess is you’d get them the heck out of there because these things have value to you. You don’t want to treat them the same as the junk that you have no use for.

Keep that in mind as we look around the country at the various federal, state, and local races heading into Election Day on Nov. 8. Do a lot of these people – particularly Republicans -- hit you as the type who, if victorious, will make an honest effort to unify our country, to govern for all people, to seek the greater good and make the tough decisions needed to achieve it?

Will a politician who sees migrants as nothing more than pawns in a sick political stunt really be willing to sit down with other officials and devise a fair, effective, and humane immigration policy? Is that possible after he’s shown such distain and cruelty toward the very people involved in the issue?

Will an elected official who’s demonized teachers and tried to turn our educational system backwards because he thinks it’s a winning talking point be interested in now moving it forward? To treat good teachers as the valuable members of society that they are? To demand they teach the true history of our country, warts and all, because it’s the right thing to do?

Will a candidate who’s attacked and ridiculed the poor in an effort to justify cuts to our social safety net be able to support the system in place to give them a hand up to a better life? Will he even care about the LGBTQ+ community after making it a front in the trumped-up culture war the Right has waged on our country.

How about someone who’s lied continuously about the 2020 election? Or supports insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol, beating policemen in the process? Or ignores the clear danger of climate change? Or believes a woman has no right to control her own body? Is someone like that a person who should be in a leadership position in this country at any level?

The answer to all the above questions is no. That’s because these people aren’t going to be interested in serving the entire country. They aren’t going to all of a sudden care about the folks whose lives they have attacked, ridiculed, and, in some cases, ruined, all because they thought that lying, fear, division, racism, and hatred were the best routes to take in their quest for power.

They’ll care about who they’ve always cared about: the people who give them money, the people who can do things for them, and themselves. They won’t even care about the segment of our country that’s so enthralled with their bullshit that they’ll vote for them and against their own best interests.

There are a lot of things that make a person unfit for office. Ginning up hate against multiple segments of our population, trying to divide us, and blatant lying to get elected are a few of them.

Do me a favor. Before you vote look in the mirror, then go cast your ballot for the candidate who best fits the belief system of the person looking back at you.

I have a feeling that if everybody does that, then we’ll be heading the right direction. That’s because this and future elections aren’t just about who wins this race or that race. They’re much more than that.

They’re a referendum on us.

***

Thank you for reading my post. You can see more of my writings on my blog: Musings of a Nobody.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/18/2123647/-Leaders-Can-t-Serve-the-People-They-Hate

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