How people should be treated vs. how they deserve to be

Sometimes it's really, really tough to turn the other cheek. But it can - and should - be done.

Photo by Ashley Whitlatch on Unsplash

Recently Donald Trump made headlines by vowing if elected to only be a dictator on day one, implying he would have to be a temporary autocrat to start undoing the damage done to America during the three terms of Barack Obama he was almost accidentally placed in the midst of. (That “three term” portion of the previous sentence is written only half in jest.)

But that’s the thought of a poll I recently ran across on the

Don Surber

site.

A pre-Christmas poll of 984 Americans by JLPartners on behalf of the Daily Mail asked voters to describe in one word what each candidate hopes to achieve in a second term.

Revenge was the No. 1 answer for Trump.

Nothing was the No. 1 answer for Biden.

While Donald Trump certainly has more of a case than most to take revenge on his enemies - sort of like a old Hollywood movie - maybe the better question is how we can get the needed justice to be served yet move forward beyond it.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Joe Biden indeed took massive bribes from China and committed treason by giving them aid and comfort. Let’s further assume that the justice system works as it should and the old man dies in prison. All that has done has made him a martyr in the eyes of some, just as I’m sure Donald Trump would be if something happened to him.

I’m barely old enough to remember the whole Watergate thing, and the fact that President Nixon resigned rather than be impeached (and likely convicted.) It’s sort of laughable now what charges brought him down, since it was the coverup of a “third-rate burglary” that eventually drove him from office. At least his vice-president got his graft honestly before he resigned.

As history tells us, Nixon may have weathered the storm until it became clear that his party wasn’t completely behind him - this thanks to Lawrence Hogan Sr., the father of Maryland’s last governor.

But in this politically-charged day and age, you’d be hard pressed to find a Democrat who would even consider the evidence against Biden, regardless of how strong a case the Republicans built. We went through that with Bill Clinton, who perjured himself before a grand jury but got off because he was popular and a Democrat at a time when the Senate had enough of them to require Democrat votes to convict. The Republicans who brought the case before the Senate barely went through the motions because they knew the Democrats would be partisan and not convict. By the same token, while there may be a few Republicans who would vote to convict a president from the GOP, there wouldn’t be enough of them to toss him out.

It’s probably not in the cards that we will ever get rid of a crooked President unless he or she loses an election, so maybe we need a new paradigm here.

Even in a place like Sussex County, which skews Republican, we certainly have a lot of neighbors who are opposite politically. However, that doesn’t mean they are the enemy - even I, a person who considers myself “barely left of militia,” have a few Democrat/liberal friends, relatives, and acquaintances that I like and talk to. There’s nothing wrong with it.

In fact, it’s a little bit like Reagan said, except instead of the 80% agreement in a political sense, it’s an 80% agreement in a lifestyle sense. We live in the same area, shop the same stores, more than likely have investments in the area, and want to see it succeed.

So let Donald Trump get his revenge. More than likely you’re not going to be affected, and maybe you’ll breathe a little easier because he’s not going after you like Joe Biden seems to be going after peaceful J6 protestors. Me, I’m going to strive to be a better citizen and let bygones be bygones.

In the spirit of being a good neighbor, remember you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.