Campaign Rhetoric

Hurtful and Hateful Humor Returns to American Politics

It’s one of the things that has made America great. Humor can be the great equalizer— from the wisecracking GI coping with wartime stress to the disaster victim refusing to submit to self-pity. It’s even prevalent in politics and government, though carefully rendered in political campaigns with mixed results. We think of Ronald Reagan, 73, and the oldest person ever to run for President at the time (both Trump and Biden were older in the last election) in the [...]

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By |2023-06-28T19:26:03+00:00June 28, 2023|Campaign Rhetoric, Congress, Conservatives, Elections, Trump|

Voting: It’s a Privilege to Do the Right Thing

Despite jokes about dead people voting, election security is strong. It’s been quiet on the American front for many years now. Or so it seems. Even as I absorb the reality of observing three quarters of a century of a blessed life, I don’t think of myself as having lived through any great historical movements that dramatically changed the course of American life. Looking back, I guess when something is part of your past you don’t think [...]

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They’re Hooked on “A Feeling” about Election Fraud

Winks and nudges to keep the woke mob at bay. The most highly sought state-level office across these United States —27 state races with 119 Republican and Democratic candidates from Alabama to Wyoming as we approach the dreaded 2022 Primary Elections—is that of Secretary of State. It is a battle for control of our democratic process—namely, the sanctity of our votes—with Republican Conservative candidates blatantly anointing Trump as the party savior while continuing to promulgate the election [...]

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The Pros and Cons of Going to Extremes

Cautionary warnings about extremism continue to resonate as years fly by. —One of the advantages of having written hundreds of weekly newspaper columns over a span of 40 years for two different newspapers is an archives of your personal views over time. Some age well and some don’t.  Some are serious and some are silly, and few were completed without at least one attempt at humor. The following was written as a newspaper column more than five [...]

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By |2022-01-24T09:09:57+00:00November 18, 2020|American History, Campaign Rhetoric, Christians, Extremes, Immigrants, Muslims, Terrorism|

Election Lesson: United We Stand; Divided We’ll Fall

Wailing in the White House won’t help bring us together. I must confess I resisted following the blow-by-blow coverage of the presidential election, which required much of last week to project a winner. My attitude was just let me know when it is all over but the shouting. Well, the election part is over, anyway. As usual the shouting, better described as wailing, comes from a president who fears becoming something he detests above all things— a [...]

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Waiting to Find Out Who We Really Are

It’s time to zip up my lip and wait for what the voters have already decided. My plan for this week was to write about anything but politics, particularly presidential politics. I figured by mid-Wednesday morning when I posted this, there would still be no victory proclamation. It is time to move on, whatever happens, even if it means enduring a numbing four more years of fibs, fiction and factionalism. I suppose I can endure whatever happens. [...]

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By |2022-01-24T09:09:57+00:00November 4, 2020|Biden, Campaign Rhetoric, COVID-19, Elections, Politics, Presidency, Re-election, Voting|

Curbing Bearers of False Witness in Politics

Separate truths keep Americans at odds. I’ve always been a devotee of fact checking, especially in the political climate that has overwhelmed us since the political campaigning that prefaced the 2016 presidential election. It wasn’t just the presidential candidates themselves, but the congressional races where everything was divided into us-versus-them rhetoric and the campaign ads were replete with exaggerations and lies. Social media was a traffic jam of people who didn’t know what they were talking about [...]

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It’s Getting Tougher to Say what We Mean

Is that your head or someone’s misshapen big toe? Just one letter can change meaning. The political landscape is getting crazier and crazier, but is it crazy in a good or a bad way? Are facts important to you— such as the things people actually do and say— or do we really have the option of alternate facts? How about the alternative of optional facts? My recent blog about the overwhelming evangelical support for President Trump was [...]

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Emails from the Trumps to a Real Patriot

Do you really love me or is this the end of our budding bromance? I usually wait until Wednesday for my weekly blog, but I have some exciting news to share and I couldn’t wait. I had to get this on record before my 15 minutes of fame runs out. You see, I am apparently very important to the Trump family and several of their closest confidants. Go figure. The President asks about me a lot, even [...]

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Trying to Stem an “Epidemic of Lying”

Staying ignorant of the truth is literally a no-brainer. We live in an epidemic of lying. Research shows that about 60 percent of adults lie at least once in a ten-minute conversation. About 40 percent lie on their resumes, and 90 percent lie on their online dating profiles. — Dr. Amit Sood, Director of Research, Mayo Clinic’s Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why people lie, and why some seem incapable [...]

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