If you loathe President Trump's childish petulance but pretend it isn't Obama's defining characteristic, you're a fraud.
"These days I find myself less inclined to bicker over politics than ever before. I truly and honestly want to find as many points of agreement, points of unity, and common ground as possible with my fellow countrymen. It may seem counterintuitive then that I don’t feel overly inclined to defend President Trump when he’s maligned by the left. Some of it is unfair, to be sure. But finding common ground means I also have to be intellectually honest enough to realize that President Trump thrives on controversy, so he intentionally provokes it. No one can look at his conduct, his word choice, his Twitter feed, and come to any other conclusion than Trump stokes the fire because he loves the fight. Some on the right may be convinced that is the best way forward for our extraordinarily divided country. I am not.
"But the only way I can be right is if there are folks whose politics runs counter to mine, that is, those on the political left, who are willing to renounce the voices of division on their own side as well. This can’t be a one-way admission of needless division. That’s largely how we got Trump in the first place. The reason so many on the right are thrilled with Trump is because they feel as though they have been subjected to left wing Trumps for years, and now the real Trump is giving the left a taste of their own medicine.
"I’m of the belief that Presidents who seek to pit one group of Americans against another based on ideological or philosophical differences are a danger to the thinning moral fabric of our republic. Certainly not everyone will agree on everything, and anyone in leadership will have to take positions on issues that will be opposed by a significant portion of the population. But taking such positions doesn’t require sticking one’s finger in the eye of those who disagree or portraying them as buffoons, immature, or evil.
"So it’s long past time for honest brokers on the left to disavow such conduct, and cut ties with those who indulge in it regularly. Like Barack Obama. If it’s unhelpful when Trump does it, it is unhelpful when Obama does it. And he does it. All. The. Time.
"Most recently:" . . .
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| Pictures added by TD |
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