I sit here in a bar eating a light dinner, imagining a convention season will be interesting, illuminating maybe even a bit humorous. But somehow it always manages to just be a time when the naiveté of my patriotism gets massacred.
I believe strongly in a system where the different points of view held by Americans that all love our country can focus on real problems. I know well enough that posturing and politics and blow hards all work to get our attention. And the conventions are the blow hardest moments for all the blow hards in our political process.
I long for a convention that focuses on identifying the challenges before us and weighing who the differing points of view really compare. One where a platform that inspires all of us. But this takes talking about the myriad of approaches and really understanding many of then have merits. But instead we get a bunch of people talking as if there are only two points of view and that somehow their “opponent” is crazy, corrupt, incompetent, self-absorbed, or just simple buffoonery. At both major conventions it my longing simply won’t matter.
The fact of the matter is we are all Americans, we all share this country its burdens and its benefits. We are a strong country but only if we always work to make our politicians work to focus on what they can do rather than who they can take down. But in the end the conventions are what they are and will try to make America weaker…
A Madman Has Spoken…