On August 12th Grandpa Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate for the Presidential election. An intriguing choice not because of the myriad reasons he might have had to choose her, but because she had not long prior savaged him while running against him. Despite being close to the Biden family as a friend of Joe’s late son Beau, Harris did not hold back on calling the Democratic nominee out on his stance surrounding segregated busing. Not stopping there, when a number of women came out with accusations of inappropriate touching, her comment was, “I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.” Inevitably this led to several heated scraps between the two while they angled for the Democratic nomination.
Years prior it was Ted Cruz and Donald Trump that were angling for the Republican nomination when Trump threw out the whopper that Cruz’s father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Kennedy’s assassination, insinuating that he had something to do with it. Not stopping there, he mocked Cruz for being born in Canada (Wait, I thought you could not become President if you were born elsewhere), compared Melania to Cruz’s wife with the impertinent, “The images are worth 1,000 words,” nicknamed him Lyin’ Ted (irony anyone?), and launched a number of other shots across the bough in Cruz’s direction. Ted responded with nuggets like “real men don’t attack women,” “you’re a sniveling coward,” and “this man is a pathological liar.” He definitely hit the mark on the last one.
Fast forward to today and the only marks any of these people are leaving on each other are loving ones. All was forgiven in the Joe and Kamala skirmishes and Donald Trump now calls Ted Cruz “Beautiful Ted.” Cruz for his part threw his wife’s honor to the side and cozied up to Trump as he improbably rode towards the White House. So how can any two individuals throw as much shade on each other as these examples have and come out “friends” on the other side? It is called the politics of convenience people. And that is where we are at this point. You can hate someone one minute and love them the next if you see it will benefit you politically. It is why the entire process comes off as disingenuous and manipulative. And yet we follow a process that elects these types of people to the highest position in our lands for young Johnny and Sally to look up to. Yes kids, it is okay to emulate these people who lie, manipulate, scream at each other, insult each other, and make decisions based upon their own self interests. And kids if you want to become the leader of your country someday, follow their example.
Heaven forbid we hold these people to a higher standard and example going forward. Seeing as we are all complicit in the process of putting them there in the first place, perhaps we all need to check our heads and find a way to hold them accountable.
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