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We get what we deserve

Jan. 3, 2018 |

In a recent New York Times column, “We’re with stupid,” Timothy Egan wrote: “The problem is not the Russians – it’s us.... A huge percentage of the population can’t tell fact from fiction.”

Egan is right. Americans are by and large disgracefully ignorant about politics and history. The Trump administration’s descent into political duplicity and lawbreaking has its roots in the apathy and ignorance of the populace. Only 59.7 percent of eligible Americans voted in the 2016 presidential election, which ranked 31st among the 35 developed nations in voter turnout. Even more lamentable, an estimated 70 million of those voters were rated LIVS – low-information voters. Sixty-seven percent of LIVs voted for Donald Trump.

As a result, we get the government we deserve.

Informed and vigilant Americans, however, rightly decried the fact that Trump was elected to the presidency with no political or military experience and thus no expertise in these realms. Unfortunately, even they rarely noted the other critical side of this political coin.

A presidential aspirant must have a political or military background, and a record so that citizens and voters can properly evaluate his competence, expertise, integrity, ability to work with others, temperament, respect for laws, rules, and traditions, and all the other traits and skills needed to thrive, or at the very least survive, in politics.

For example, would Trump, who avoided military service with four draft deferments for being a college student and a fifth for heel bone spurs, have obeyed military law? Would Trump, who once fatuously claimed, “I know more than the generals,” have obeyed his superiors? And would Trump, who, in 1997, joked that sexually transmitted diseases were his “personal Vietnam” and, in 2016, derided Vietnam war hero John McCain for being captured, have risen in the ranks and served with distinction?

If Trump had served as a borough president in New York City, would he have earned the reputation of being a pathological liar? Would he have picked disreputable and unqualified people for his administration? Would he have displayed appalling ignorance about New York City’s and our country’s burning issues? And would he have treated with contempt the judiciary, the media, fellow politicians, the intelligence agencies, the disabled, ordinary citizens, and foreign leaders?

We will never know the extremely important answers to these crucial questions—though we can make an educated guess. That is tragic because in the past 10 months Trump has given us all these answers, not as a borough president, but as the leader of our country and, purportedly, of the Free World.

How can we better tell fact from fiction?

In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.”

This education, which must be non-partisan and non-ideological, should start in the middle schools of America. Courses should be required in civics, American history, and logic, and students should be taught how to determine which social media input is fake.

We end up with the government we deserve. As both Jefferson and Egan stressed, the people must become better educated and informed. Only then can they vote intelligently, whatever their political persuasion, based on the candidate’s record and character.

Paul Fein

Agawam

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