It seems to me that climate change is devastating the USA … and I’m not talking about environmental matters. It’s the scorched earth condition of the nation’s political landscape that’s given me a rampant case of patriotic blues.
I was raised in a family of political activists who are chiefly responsible for the DNA that has made me a news junkie each time an election season rolls around. I’m not naïve about the invective, the dirty tricks and smoke-filled-room machinations that typically go with the game. But a couple of months ago, when the Republican front-runner got into a pissing match with Fox News, I realized we had entered uncharted territory.
As the weeks go by, you can’t miss that the tone of this year’s campaign discourse is steadily going downhill. As commentator Cal Thomas recently put it, “the gutter would be a step up, because things have descended into the sewer.”
It’s bad enough that most of the GOP candidates have been more intent on trading insults with their opponents than laying out coherent visions of how to get their country and the rest of the world on a more peaceful and prosperous track. Now Sanders and Clinton are starting to take the same path.
All the while, news media talking heads take up air time playing up the most salacious sound bites, rarely taking opportunities to delve into deeper substance of each candidate’s proposals.
I cringe at the hate speech and xenophobia being spewed by avid right wingers. But equally abhorrent are the hard-core liberals who interrupt campaign rallies or demand the ban of college campus speaking engagements in order to hush the voices of those with whom they disagree. What is more fundamental to democratic principles than freedom of expression?
As a toxic environment is allowed to flourish in political forums, it seems inevitable that violent encounters will multiply as convention and election dates fast approach. It’s become a deplorable state of affairs, bizarre as a García Márquez novel.
My Mexican friends are truly perplexed by what they see happening north of the border. They can’t fathom that in the span of eight years, folks in their neighbor country have taken a quantum leap from electing a man of color to sit in the White House to putting a foul-mouthed bigot on a pedestal.
It’s gotten to the point that for the first time in my life I’m feeling a bit embarrassed to acknowledge my nationality. I’m seriously contemplating regular use of the maple leaf lapel pin gifted by a Canadian pal. My only solace is that I’ve settled in a land where pains of the heart can be washed away with a clever joke, a melancholy song, unbridled fiesta and a couple of shots of tequila.