"It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." Alice, "Alice in Wonderland," Lewis Carroll
June 17, 2015
By: Linda Case Gibbons
The American Dream may be hanging on the ropes, but it's still alive and kicking.
In America today, young couples usually have a house, landscaped and fully furnished, before the wedding reception is over.
And anyone can grow up to be president -- or get to Carnegie Hall -- except now you don't have to practice, practice, practice.
But in a world where lying has become a religion and making money is a dirty word, it's truth that is on its way to being dead and buried.
Today if you're a man, you can say you're a woman; if you're white, you can say you're black; and there's a rumor going around that Bruce Jenner's cat has decided to become a Beagle. (There will be a spread on this in "Vanity Fair" next month, entitled "Call Me Rover.")
Back in the good ol', little kids used to play make believe. Tots made believe they were Superman, but they didn't think they were Superman.
Today anything goes, except the truth. That's in short supply.
Take The Donald, for instance.
On June 16, 2015, Trump announced he was running for president.
In his speech, unlike other political candidates running for that high office, he said, in actual words, what he would do if he won, and what needed fixing in the country.
Seventy-three percent of Americans agreed with what he said.
They had been waiting for someone to speak out and tell them the truth about the State of Our Union. The truth was something they hadn't heard from anyone, in government or the media, in a very long time.
"The New York Times" doesn't tell them. Boehner doesn't. Paul Ryan won't. And Obama and Hillary never have.
But Trump did and, love him or hate him, he made a lot of sense in what he said.
- Mexico is sending us people with problems; we need to close our borders, build a wall and hand Mexico the bill.
- Our GDP has dipped to below zero; people can't get jobs; Obamacare is a disaster and will get worse come 2016; and the real unemployment number is 18 percent;
- Our debt to China is too large; our veterans should be treated better; our leaders don't know how to negotiate; our leaders don't know how to run our country; and our politicians are all talk and no action;
- And Kerry should have stayed off that bike.
The response? They laughed at him. Even though 73 percent of the people who heard him agreed with what he said, Trump was laughed at, even by members of his own party who should know better.
One "Man on the Street" actually said he didn't think Trump should run because he didn't have as much experience as Hillary Clinton!
This is how far we've fallen. Stupid doesn't even begin to cover it.
Conditioned by years of listening to rambling rhetoric from dithering leaders, we have accepted lies and half-truths. We've become weary of those elected officials who don't fight for the truth and those who lie to our faces.
So Trump's words were welcome. He said what we were thinking.
Plain spoken, a self-made man, Trump predictably evoked the usual disdain that the left has for men who don't need other people's money.
In a world filled with sycophants and fools, the man who speaks plainly, who doesn't need anyone to feather his nest or fund his campaign, is feared.
And it worried them, on both sides of the aisle. The pandering, needy, greedy politicians are easy to control. They will take money from whomever offers it to them, they care only about themselves and the next election, not their country. Trump didn't fit into that mold. And it worried them.
What do you do with guys like that? You can't control them with the promise of money, so what do you do with them? You ridicule them.
And Trump? You can dislike him, but you can't fault his logic unless you've become so Obama-brainwashed that you deny logic.
Regardless of whether you're a butcher, a baker or a builder of buildings, the fact is that your work is a "business," and a businessman has to watch the bottom line.
We haven't had leaders who have done that in a very long time.
The same thing applies to our country. The United States is a business. It needs someone who knows the art of the deal, someone who says the U.S. needs money, needs to stop spending, needs to bring back jobs and businesses from overseas, needs money to save Medicare and Social Security.
And Donald Trump said all that in his presidential announcement speech.
Think back. If you are a conservative, how many times have you been forced to accept candidates chosen by the Republican establishment, candidates you didn't want? McCain, Romney and now Jeb (he's leaving off his last name now, like Cher). And how many times have you wondered, "Did they choose these guys because they knew they'd lose?"
Wouldn't it be nice if we had a candidate that could win and actually do the job?
Whether Trump is that guy or not, wouldn't it be nice to have a candidate who could say to our president, "You're wrong, Mr. Obama. I did build that!"
Hold the line, America.