If you really want to put America First

I am concerned that the biggest danger to America is America's politics. I read this the other day and it says it better than I can:

"Americans take the health of our civic body for granted. Yet, that body has suffered one bruising blow after another in recent years.

The brutish election of 2016. The still-angry politics of the pandemic. The murder of George Floyd and its aftermath. The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, encouraged by a president who refused to accept a clear electoral loss. And this week, the sneak attack leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion about the most emotionally charged of issues, one that has divided Americans for decades.

How much more abuse can we take? How much more strain will we pile atop our already buckling political, legal and judicial systems before something irreparable snaps?

I wish I could say I see signs that we've had enough, that our leaders and their followers (that would be us) are ready to drop our weapons and try to work out our differences together.

But I don't. Does anybody?

As a conservative, I am pained to say that the worst abusers of our civic health tend to line up on the right. We have no shortage of mean-spirited, nasty progressives eager to start the next Twitter war. But on the right we have anointed leaders like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, whose disdain for norms of civility and propriety appears boundless, and we have tolerated even lower lights such as Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, so tasteless and obnoxious that they further taint even the seediest venues of public discourse.

Somehow, those of us on the political and social right have gone from Ronald Reagan's vision of a "shining city upon a hill" and George H.W. Bush's "thousand points of light" to Trump's "grab 'em by the (blank)."

Tim Swarens, USA TODAY

As a former Moderate Republican forced to turn moderate Democrat I see this as the biggist threat to our society and its values.

 

If you really want to put America first, put Trump back in office.

 

That's putting trump first.

 

Trump is an American, he has and always will put America first..
Biden is a cheap suit that has been paid off by every enemy country we have and is a compromised man.... he does the bidding of any or all with money without any concern for the United States of America... he should not only be impeached but tried and put in jail after he leaves office...

 

Tim Swarens, USA TODAY -- needs to get his facts straight. After reading his piece it's obvious he's a liberal hack. It wasn't the right that burned some of our major cities, including police cars and a police station, regardless of what Swarens reports. It's not the right looting stores and wanting to defund the police. It wasn't the right that "annexed" a part of a city and refused to allow the police in. And it ain't the right that is protesting at the homes of the SCOTUS justices.

 

Yeah… we need to do a lot of fixing. Most it though won’t take place nationally but on the local level. We’re encouraging radicalization unless we can fix local issues. And there are a lot of them.

 

Ohhh?

 

Not until we embrace single term limits for elected offices.

 

That would put the country back on the right track. But the politicians are not going to disembark the gravy train. Their thinking is what is good for them, not what is good for the country.

 

Don't forget making things like an infinite amount of pronouns, teaching CRT in classes, overblowing outliers as if they're mainstream, playing identity politics in order to pit one group against each other.

 

If we could instill common sense in voters, they could handle it at the ballot box.

 

Does the Trump from the alternate universe you're describing here have the same first name as ours? Do they look the same? I had always thought the multiverse was just an exercise in Sci-Fi at best, but you seem to have experienced it. I have so many questions. Like, how closely to our universe is your alternate universe? Did the same events happen? Did we still have 9/11, or maybe we did but on a different date? Different city?

They still have pizza and craft beers in the alternate universe too, right? I would hate for alternate me to be deprived of things like that.

 

Single term limits is foolish. You need to remember that a lot of these people, on both sides, often communicate with foreign dignitaries who are in life time positions. You would literally be throwing inexperienced lambs to the wolves. Not to mention we have a whole House of Reps who have to be re-elected every 2 years. And not everyone (read "most") wants to be a politician...after a few years you're going to be running short of people to represent us, the citizens.

Think through things before spouting common talking points.

 

Even George Washington, Father of our country, understood term limits. He refused to serve a third term. Too bad his understanding of what made America great never took hold with most of the greedy self-centered politicians.

 

We have that now with our vote. Problem is we keep re-electing the same bags of excrement over and over. It’s our own fault.

 

The solution is very simple, no person can serve more than two maybe 3 consecutive terms and afterward cannot serve again for a minimum of two terms before being able to serve again.

 

As with any problem in need of fixing, people need to be able to agree on what the problem is before designing ways to solve it. This........https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/
.....has been known for some time. Matters have only gotten worse since 2012 when the observations in the article were made.

But very few Repubs are honest enough about the situation, and its primary cause, to formulate solutions. Typically, external and or existential threats to our security would be enough to bring us together. Instead, even they are driving us apart. I hold out little to no hope things will get better in my lifetime.

 

You put Trump back in office if you want more handouts and another violent assault against democracy. Ahhhh, those were the days......

 

No doubt about it. I gave up years ago. The electorate is hopeless.

 

Three cheers for inexperienced lambs. Make it a revolving door. I have thought this through for half a century.

 

Trump won't live forever you know.

 

The typical response of some is to attack the messenger, make it personal. Do not listen, do not deal with the issue.

 

George Washington didn't even want to serve his 1st term. Had nothing to do with understanding term limits.

 

I knew George. George was a friend of mine. George confided in me. Of course he wanted to serve his first term because he did. He also wanted to serve his second term because he did. Then he said "enough" and refused to serve a third term. The man only did what he wanted to do and no one could argue with him.

 

Just like this one....