I want something different from politicians than who can talk the toughest, bark the loudest or trash talk the best. I want substantive solutions based on reality that work for the benefit of all. What I don’t want is a side show. Moreover, I’m tired of being screamed at and told how horrible life is — especially when things are improving. Give me some hope, and don’t insult me with misrepresentations of our collective achievements.
If trashing President Obama — and the collective gains we currently have — improves our economy faster and better, bring it on. Trash away! In the real world, however, I can’t take trash talk to the bank and pay my mortgage, or buy groceries or grow a business. What trash talk can do — especially when it is steeped in misrepresentations deftly marketed by limitless funds and spewed all over the airways by useless political pundits on a daily basis who take pride in musing on which scenario might take place — is to instill fear, dispel hope and spread ignorance. That’s the message of the Republican party over the past four years.
That’s also the message Republican presidential candidates are delivering.
Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spend millions of dollars and time on trashing each other in an endless barrage of “debates” that seem more like a bar fight. Neither of them have offered up a plan, let alone a substantive one, that clearly shows they can do better than President Obama on jobs and the economy, on foreign relations and national security, on health care or anything else. All they got is mindless, self-serving, self-contradictory trash talk.
There is a silver lining in the midst of the negative noise. I believe the majority of people — regardless of political affiliation — are just as tired as I am of the negativity the GOP is offering and will use 2012 as an opportunity to replace them.
