Maybe I'm paying way too much attention to the analyses of the current political situation in the USA. It seems to me that no matter what the orange-haired man says or does, it has null effect on his supporters, who believe just about everything he says and continue to defend him. How is that possible? I wish someone would give me an answer, stat. In the meantime, he continues on his merry way, doing what he does best--double-talking and behaving exactly as he wants. But the rest of us should just do as he says, because of course he knows what's best for the country. Anyone who disagrees with him is out to get him.
My closest friends and I attended Catholic grammar and high schools. We were taught that hard work pays off, that doing your best leads to a job well-done and satisfaction all around. We learned to tell the truth, that lying was bad and counterproductive, likewise cheating on exams. We learned that honesty was the best policy and that having personal integrity was important. We were taught to honor our parents and older people generally. We learned to respect authority. We were taught not to pick fights, and bullying was frowned upon. Our parents told us to try and make peace with the bullies, and if that didn't work, to ignore them. It usually worked out.
Over a long lifetime, I've witnessed many different kinds of behavior, both good and bad. My work experiences during the past forty years have shown me that doing your best does lead to personal satisfaction for a job well-done, but it is no guarantee that management will be satisfied. Management plays by its own rules. Giving your all is not necessary (or even desired) in order to get noticed or promoted; cutting your efforts to fifty percent can guarantee the same results as one hundred percent effort (I have tried this once or twice and it's true). Why is that? The answer is politics. Who you know is more important than what you know or how much effort you put into something. That is what Catholic schools and parents should have taught us, but didn't. Because they wanted us to make a difference in the world. I understand that. Take cheating on exams, for example. Cheating is anathema to those of us who grew up under Catholic educators, but in the modern world, many students would tell you there is nothing wrong with cheating on an exam in order to get good grades. Because good grades will give you leverage. Good grades will guarantee that someone will check off the box 'does well in school' and that opens doors for the cheaters down the road. But in the end, getting into some ivy league colleges (if that's your thing) also comes down to how much money daddy and mommy donated to the university of choice. Something else we weren't taught in school. Think of some of the recent college scandals where celebrity parents tried to buy off universities and individuals so their children could get into good schools. Thankfully they went to prison (albeit short prison sentences) for their unlawful behavior, but what kind of example does this set for their children? I'd wager that the only thing that bothers some of these parents is that they got caught. Nothing else. Because again, who you know and what college you went to trumps most everything else.
Why do I bring these issues up now? Because it appalls me that we as a nation are going down the road toward re-electing a man whose amorality knows no bounds. It scares me to think that the potential end of democracy as we know it lies in the hands of a reality television persona and his family. It appalls me that everything in the world comes down to greed and grifting. Lying and dissembling are rampant--in politics, in the media, in churches, in schools. We don't react as a society anymore to bad behavior. We accept it almost apathetically as long as it doesn't impact us personally. But when we don't stand up to politicians like Trump and his cronies, we tell our children that it's ok to behave like he does. When we don't stand up for what's right, for how we were taught, we hand over power to the bullies. The entire GOP can't manage to find their collective balls in order to stand up to him. It's a sad commentary on what our society has come to, how low we have fallen. It's even sadder when the Catholic church defends and promotes a man like Trump, a man that fifty years ago they would have vilified. The priests preach from the pulpit about the importance of voting for a man who presents himself as anti-abortion. Whether or not he is against lying, cheating, grifting, and bullying is unimportant to his constituents and supporters. Anti-abortion trumps all, and Trump trumps everything and everyone. How low we have sunk.
