At Least He’s Doing Something

A car is stopped on the side of the road. It is not sitting level because it has a flat tire. A Good Samaritan comes by to help the stranded motorist family. He correctly diagnoses the flat tire as the problem. He removes their jack and the flat tire. He then proceeds to remove the remaining three tires and throws them in the back of his pickup truck. He then takes the family’s wallets and purses and drives away. At least he did SOMETHING. The car is now level.

I often hear Trump supporters say, “At least he’s doing something.” It is a generalization that acknowledges that we all knew there were problems, and our government was not acting to correct those problems. In that, they are right. I think we can all agree that a plodding and complacent government has long ignored things like our burgeoning national debt. We continued to live beyond our means.

That government, regardless of who was in charge, would gladly break out the federal credit card to keep wealthy donors giving to their campaign PACs, their constituents happy, and getting reelected. Secretly they all knew they were painting us into a corner, but thought they could keep spending and let someone in the future figure out a solution. Perhaps the paint will be dry by then.

Enter our presidential Good Samaritan for his second turn at bat. He’s learned a few things and, if he can’t find a way around that pesky 22nd Amendment, he knows he only has four years to “do something,” even if it is wrong. So far, his solution is much like our analogy of the car with the flat tire. We will still be stranded when he drives off with our tires, money, and identification. We will be worse off than before he arrived.

In the meantime, Democrats yell in protest and Republicans stand idly by and hope that they can still somehow benefit. Some of them must realize the midterms will not be pretty. Democrats, who certainly are not without blame for our current dilemma, are hopefully developing a strategy to properly prioritize those things of most importance. You certainly don’t “bet the farm” trying to support the less than one percent of our population who may be transgender, no matter how much you think that is proper.

You don’t get to help anyone sitting on the sidelines. Keep on fighting the “good fight” instead of addressing the major issues, and we will all be left stranded on the side of the road.