Perhaps I’m naïve, but it seems to me that a legitimate candidate for office should have a platform, a series of goals he hopes to accomplish to benefit the people of the nation. That should be his selling point. I heard that platform in President Biden’s run for office back in 2020 … he wanted to unify the nation, help those in need recover from the financial effects of the pandemic, abolish the death penalty, raise the minimum wage, make college more affordable, reduce carbon emissions, and more.  All things that would help people, thereby helping the nation as a whole.  He did not run what I call an ‘anti-campaign’, using every opportunity to denigrate and critique his opponent, but rather talked up his own plans and ideologies.

Today, looking around at the entire lot of Republicans either in Congress or hoping to make a run for the Oval Office in 2024, their campaign ‘strategy’ seems to be to drag President Biden and his family through the mud. Telling lies and making up stories about your opponent does NOT constitute a platform!  The first thought that comes to mind here is that they obviously have no good ideas for how to heal the ills of the nation, so they must instead go on the defense and try to, as one politician put it, “crush” the adversary.

When did politics in the United States become the territory of the mafioso?

Why would the Republicans in Congress wish to create an even wider chasm in this nation than we already have, and why would they try to bring down the president?  Think 20 months ahead to the next presidential election, and you’ll have your answer.

There is an interesting piece in the New York Times, the result of some six hours of various interviews with Representative James Comer, who is currently serving as chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.  It’s a lengthy article, but well worth the read.    He is going all out to try to find, or perhaps create dirt against not only President Biden, but his entire family.  I was thoroughly disgusted when he said it is a shame that Beau Biden, the president’s son who died in 2015, was ‘never investigated.’  Investigated for what???  To pick on anybody’s dead child is inhumane, but Beau Biden was a veteran and it was his time in service to his country that ultimately led to his death. Every parent who has ever lost a child should be enraged.  Comer stepped on some toes here!

If a candidate has a winning message, he/she should spend their time promoting that message, not attempting to smear his/her opponent!  Those who spend (waste) their time smearing their opponent with lies, unsupported investigations and the like, obviously have no message of their own.  It is telling that the Republican Party refused to put forth a platform in 2020, rather saying that whatever Trump wants is their platform.  Policy and principles have vanished into thin air within the GOP, and it has evolved into the party of lies and retaliation.  What Trump wants is of paramount importance to the entire GOP, and what he wants is a power grab. He cares not how he gets it or who he steps on, who he ‘crushes’ because he sees this as his last chance at redrawing the framework of this nation, turning it from a democratic republic to a full-blown plutocratic autocracy.  Apparently, there are an untold number of people in Congress who are there to help him get what he wants, starting with Gym Jordan and James Comer and a hundred or so others who are willing to sell us all downriver for a spot in the limelight.

One other thing to think about … if you have a winning message, or any message at all, you don’t need to aggressively attempt to keep people away from the polls on election day, or dilute the votes of Black, Asian, and Hispanic people as is done by voter suppression laws and gerrymandering.  Think of the schoolyard bully and you will have the definition of the Republican Party today.