I consider myself to be of average intelligence, but the lies are coming so fast and furious…so fast it is difficult to discern truths. I know I am not the only one feeling this. So how does one navigate through this messiness? I find myself relying on the past more than the present. I find myself having to rely on the beginning of the lies. Our country elected President Obama to not just one, but two  terms. There were certainly times when I didn’t agree with him, but never did I think it was not an honest conversation he was having with us. I never thought he didn’t have the best interests of our country and its citizens at heart. If I look back, I could say the same thing about all the Presidents in my lifetime other than Nixon and Trump. I don’t think any President was doing less than what they thought was best for the country although some may have made huge mistakes, or we just didn’t agree. In short, we have had many Presidents but what happened under Trump was unlike anything seen in the past…even under Nixon.

And then the campaign 2016 started…all the way back then, the lies started. Other countries were blatantly meddling in ways we had not encountered before. The general election campaign was widely characterized as divisive, negative, and troubling. The mean, hurtful, and often times false accusations wielded by Trump against his Republican competition was unprecedented. Trump refused to show his tax returns, and his views on race, immigration, and violence at his rallies were reminiscent of uglier times in America. There were also allegations of sexual misconduct and the Access Hollywood tape.

Trump won and there was a peaceful transition of power although many believe and still believe something went awry with the election…but at the time Americans for the most part still trusted our election processes and that was of great benefit to Trump. He didn’t question our election process then…then our elections were perfect.

 Trump was handed a solid economy heading in the right direction. The Obama Administration had successfully guided us through the Great Recession that began prior to him taking the reins. When Trump took the reins real GDP had slowly and responsibly grown in 2009,  2010,2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014, peaking at 2.9% in 2015. In the aftermath of the recession, median household income (adjusted for inflation) recovered to a new record high. The poverty rate roller-coasted a bit but Trump received a poverty rate better than the pre-recession figure of 2007. The point is that Trump came in with so much to work with whereas both former President Obama and President Biden walked into fire and brimstone.

Trump was the first President with no government or military experience and  to exacerbate that situation, he appointed family and friends who had little or no experience to advise and oversee principal functions. Taking it a step further, he does not believe in the government he wants to govern…he doesn’t like the way it works—not policy but the constitutional foundations. Americans realized that and that is why they evicted and replaced him with President Biden. He saw it coming and began to plant the seeds early for the loss and for remaining in office by any means necessary…that is, if he lost the election. After his plans fell through, he left the White House and has continued to control players he left behind in Congress, SCOTUS, in the judicial system and so on.

So, you see, it is not what he is doing now, and it is not just what Congress is doing now…it is all the things that came before. It is the lying about his opposition, it is about the Hollywood Access tape, it is about the call to Georgia, it is the unfairness of the process for Supreme Court nominations (but now he wants to complain about the process not working the way he wants it to for him), it is about lying about COVID, it is about what everyone said immediately after January 6^th…not what they said after McCarthy’s visit to Mara Lago, it is about what Cassie Hutchinson and so many other Republicans testified to regarding what happened that day. 

That is how I know what is true today and that is how I know you likely know as well. Sometimes it is hard to do the right thing, especially when you know the price might be hefty. But this is one of those times we  simply cannot let our country down…it cannot even be close, or they will keep coming for our United States of America!