Make America hate again
I sit in our new digs across from the American Embassy in Jerusalem, with its flag flying high, as if things are normal 6,000 miles away in our Garden State, and the other 49 states. Things are sadly, badly, not normal at all. Not here. Not there. And probably not in Greenland, or Panama, or Canada, or even in the Gulf…..the Gulf of Mexico that is.
Our new president came to us with anger, rancor, animosity, and a bag of vicious lies that he described in his own inarticulate and inept way, using his grade-school vocabulary, while fighting back at all the imagined enemies that he totes with him wherever he goes. Most of us are pretty lucky not to feel his endless paranoia or greed and hatred. And word on the street is that he’s already pining and planning for a third term. Illegality is a nonissue. As birthright citizenship goes, the notion of unlimited terms is close behind. After all, if he doesn’t get his way, he’ll foment another attempt to lay siege to the Capitol and then not even bother arresting the cop killers he pardoned so casually last week. And we all witnessed with our own eyes and ears that the coup was orchestrated by our president. I suppose some have shorter memories than others. I know what I saw.
Here, as in America, many of the people on the street, driving the cabs and delivering the Wolt food, are pretty much open to his style of government, willing to give the guy with the meticulously coiffed golden hair a chance to prove himself, having forgotten that we already traveled that route. Many others, not so fast, remembering that an old man doesn’t change his spots, hearing more about vengeance and petty things like removing security and its familiar ring of revenge. Why else does Dr. Fauci now have to pay for security for himself, after years of serious threats to his life?
But describing him is so easy. He’s so obvious. What I cannot get my arms around is our other government officials. Have they no shame? These people who are chosen to be our representatives, our protectors, are truly anything but. What is it with them? They are indeed mindless followers, quaking in their suits, retracting their own words with no embarrassment, following the leader as if engaged in a childhood game. If he says sit, as one would address their pet dog, each of them will hasten to do his bidding. That this is the truth is beyond debate. They will sacrifice whatever principles they may claim to own. What I cannot understand is why. It’s beyond inexplicable. It’s truly deviant. What are they all so afraid of? Are we governed by lemmings leading our nation to mass suicide?
Get New Jersey Jewish News's Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up
Their fear and cowardice leads us to a dysfunctional Supreme Court, with most justices disobeying the laws they are sworn to uphold, accepting lavish gifts, and doing so with arrogance and impunity. I recall learning back in my school days that Supreme Court justices were, at a minimum, honorable. None of us regards most of them as such in our current climate. Their lifetime tenure is a pathetic display of naivete. Their unsupervised lives grant them license to do whatever they choose, holding the rest of our law-abiding citizens in contempt.
But does the Biden family deserve blame for the election results, the devastating results? I think the answer is yes! And I blame Jill, at least partially, the harmless looking Bubbie of the family, loving and supporting her husband a bit too energetically and I suspect selfishly. Being the First Lady is a lovely job. It means flitting around the world in Air Force One, a huge house in the sky, quite a distance from Economy Class. It’s smiling at the photographers for Vogue, hosting fabulous dinners and being charming at the Easter egg rolls. After all, if you have one life, why not try a couple of terms as First Lady? It’s just a nice experience.
Maybe I sound like a cynic, but I remember the bit of brouhaha when Jill wanted to be known as Dr. Biden at the beginning of Joe’s term. It is exceptional, not normative, for a doctorate in education to warrant the honorific doctor. Yet she argued for just that, which seems to indicate a bit of an ego issue, at least to me. She is now universally known as Dr. Biden.
So what’s this got to do with the present president?
It became obvious long long before that devastating debate that Joe could no longer serve. He was at the mercy of his family as they caucused to discuss his future. Time wasted. Jill enjoying being First Lady; Hunter, dealing with the threat of prison time, and who knows what else? The family should have long before advised Joe that it was time to select a new candidate for his job, long before he finally relinquished the campaign and the office. Too late, Joe. Too late. There was a chance to spare the nation. But it’s too late now.
Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of eight. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com
comments