Opinions, Oafs, and Oaths

 “The slow-rising central horror of ‘Watergate’ is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it.” — Hunter S. Thompson

Almost fifty years after Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency in the wake of the lawlessness and cruelty that defined his time in office, Americans fulfilled Hunter S. Thompson’s prophecy of doom by electing Donald J. Trump, a vengeful thug of a president whose four years in office will forever be remembered for the countless cheap shots he took at anyone who dared to oppose him—including many longtime loyalists—and the treachery of perpetuating lies and conspiracy theories that incited his followers to descend upon the nation’s Capitol in a violent insurrection aimed at preventing the certification of his failed attempt to win a second term in office.

The godfather of Gonzo Journalism would be spinning in his grave right now, (were it not for the fact that he had his cremated remains fired out of a cannon in 2005), horrified by the realization that 74 million Americans voted to re-elect Trump despite having a front row seat to his cheap shots and treachery for four long and ugly years.

 

A few of those 74 million Trump supporters live right here in Southern Boone County. Many of them are friends of mine. Wait a minute! A liberal member of the media has conservative Trump-supporting friends? Impossible! Actually, it might even be true that the majority of my friends in SoBoCo are conservatives, yet friends we still are. But how is such a thing possible?

Mutual respect. While I am under no obligation to respect your opinion, I can still respect you and your right to voice your opinion. I can separate you from your opinion, even if your opinion is, in fact, completely wrong. 

Some people believe that opinions cannot be right or wrong. That assertion is absolutely false of course. If you are of the opinion that the Earth is flat, science can verify that your opinion is completely incorrect. I am in no way obligated to respect such a blatantly untrue opinion. However, if you work hard to provide for your family and you treat everyone you meet with compassion, then I will still respect you as a person—despite your misinformed opinions. 

If you believe that Donald Trump, a billionaire real estate developer from Manhattan, truly cares about dirt-poor people living in mid-Missouri trailer parks, then you have every right to voice that opinion. Just don’t be surprised when I call you out for clinging to such an erroneous belief. Please don’t confuse my condemnation of your opinion for a condemnation of you as a human being however. You may have voted for Donald Trump twice, but we can still be friends. If, on the other hand, you support the criminals and traitors who violently stormed our nation’s Capitol on January 6, then you will have lost my respect. Possibly forever.

On January 20th, the nation will have an opportunity to begin healing itself from the divisiveness and hatred that trickled down from the White House and spread out across the country over the last four years. I am not asking my conservative friends to suddenly become bleeding heart liberals. Instead, I am asking for you to question the opinions that you’ve held during Trump’s time in office and examine whether it might be more prudent to find some commonalities that can bring us closer together as a nation.

I am asking my friends, both conservative and liberal, to focus on those things that we have in common, instead of those things that have been driving us apart. Surely, we can all agree that making healthcare affordable for everyone is important. Surely,we can agree that we can do a better job of taking care of our veterans. Surely, we can agree that education funding is important. Surely, we can agree that social distancing and mask-wearing is still important until enough people are vaccinated against Covid. Surely, we can agree that love and compassion, rather than hate and mistrust, is the only way we can truly make America great again.

On January 20, Joe Biden will take an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. On that day, each of us should make a solemn promise of our own—a citizen’s oath, if you will.

“I (state your name) do hereby promise to treat my fellow citizens with dignity and respect. I will listen to other points of view, and I will form my own opinions based on facts, not unfounded conspiracy theories. I promise to do what I can to help my fellow Americans by promoting and defending the freedoms described by our forefathers including Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

And I would like to add one more promise we should all make; To read everything ever written by Hunter S. Thompson. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.