Divide and Conquer

Why is it that more and more people just don’t get along? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this vile. That’s just in what we “see.” I can only imagine how nasty it is behind the scenes. We’ll get to politics in a moment. But division and nastiness don’t begin there.

I really don’t remember my age when I first noticed people taking sides. It was even before kindergarten. But it was when I started school that I began to notice there were kids that were better than me — at least that was what I was told. Betty’s Dad owned a big company which automatically made Betty better. Tom was from a prominent Catholic family. In south Louisiana where I grew up being prominent AND Catholic was a big deal.

When youth baseball began, I was only seven. Since I was the youngest, I was stuck behind the plate at catcher. Everyone knows catcher is one of the toughest positions on a baseball diamond. And catchers can make great plays to win games AND catchers can blow plays that cost the game. I don’t remember a single great play I made at catcher. Naturally, my teammates let me know how inadequate my play was. My ball reputation played out at school. My “rep” dropped a few notches the next school year.

The older I got the “better-than” or “less-than” stigma changed addresses and schools, but it never really changed. If anything, it heightened. By the time I got to college, I had determined that there were people that had more than I did, guys that were better looking than me, and girls that in no way would ever consider dating me. Yes, it was tough at first. But I soon realized that to live in this world and find happiness, I had to find a way to not only accept myself but to find ways to get along with other people. No matter how wealthy, how popular, how good an athlete, how good a student, and how attractive a person is, to make it in life we each must find ways to successfully interact with others. But how does one do that?

First, realize and accept that everyone is different. It’s ridiculous to continually try to be someone for one person while having to change and be someone else for another person. The secret to staving off that dilemma: find people with whom you relate on various levels and that you have similarities on which you are comfortable. Accept that and build on those similarities.

Guess what: it works!

Adult Nastiness

It didn’t get better the older I got. Fellow workers and friends all seemed to prioritize friendships based on “desired” personal realities than realities alone. Example: a good friend wanted to befriend a wealthy guy in town. The wealthy guy was hung-up in a circle of other wealthy people. But my friend was committed to breaking into that group. So he faked a bunch of wealth. He bought things he couldn’t afford: a Rolex, Armani suits, a fancy car — you get the picture. He took trips that he couldn’t afford. And all he accomplished with those efforts was a whole lot of debt. There was really no incentive for the members of the circle he wanted to penetrate to let him do so. As far as they were concerned, he didn’t bring anything to the table.

Truth: to work with people to get anything done, one must find commonalities and similar interests. But it goes much further. Even if commonalities are there, both sides must be willing to and want to share those commonalities with each other!

That does not mean one must agree with everything other people believe to be friends and get along. What it means is each must share a willingness to ignore others’ differences, respect others’ right to have differences, and push through those differences to build a relationship based on commonalities all the while accepting the differences of each other.

Sounds simple, right? Nope: Politics!

Politics

I’m uncertain who made the rules of politics in America. Our forefathers penned the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but they didn’t write the official book of politics. No one wrote an official book of politics, and there are no certain rules that govern politics. But there certainly are those who act like they not only know all the do’s and don’ts of politics, they determined all those rules. And in that lies the rub we face today.

Political discourse in the U.S. today is not based on commonalities and finding ways to work within differences. Fortunately for Americans, it did that formerly. No doubt there were serious and even lethal disputes in the 1700s and 1800s. But there were far more differences worked through with often long and loud debates, screaming matches and even threats. There was even once a famous duel. But, on the most part, early American political leaders found ways to if not put away differences, work within differences for the common good of the nation. And thankfully it worked. Today is a different story. Political differences have changed the discourse of Americans.

In the last decade, we have watched the rapid decline of any desire of political leaders to work together with party opponents to craft and implement rules, laws, and policies that work for the good of America. Examples of this are immigration, Second Amendment rights, Free Speech, Right to Life and Abortion, foreign policy, economic policy, pretty much everything that is critical to everyday life for all Americans. When and how did it begin? That I don’t know. But somewhere in that process, former President Obama evidenced his position when in a public disagreement with Republicans said this: “Elections matter.” He was referring to the fact that more Americans voted for his reelection in 2012 than did for Mitt Romney for president. In other words, “the other side can want what they want, but we won. The winning means we don’t have to consider what anyone else thinks or wants, we’re just going to do it our way.” He didn’t really say that, but his actions then and after showed that is what he meant. And in the Trump presidency, more and more evidence proves that in politics, consensus on any and all political matters probably is not going to be found most of the time.

In fact, politicians have perfected a new way of interacting with each other in Washington. Neither political party has an exclusive on this process, but Democrats have certainly perfected it. It’s called “Divide and Conquer.”

How It Works

First, truth left the Capitol a long time ago. Oh, it’s there, but it’s hard to find and seldom seen. It’s been replaced with “political correctness.” I could give you example after example of how it’s used, but you already know what I’m referencing. When the President says something that others do not like and therefore do not accept, they’ll trumpet that he said something else entirely or they’ll scream to hills what his meaning in saying it was. And his purported meaning almost always is, “He’s a racist!”

Name-calling is a common American art of deflection. But there have always been people that fall easily for it. Remember as kids when someone claimed that Susie had a crush on Johnny and Johnny was a nerd? By the end of recess, everyone at school was calling Susie a nerd because she had a crush on Johnny! That certainly simplifies what I’m talking about, but it illustrates today’s subject. To reach a desired objective without the truth, one must rely on pure emotion AND convince others to fall in line with the lie, or Divide.  I promise that at my school when Susie was labeled a nerd because she liked Johnny, if Susie could ever shake that nerd tag it would take a long time.

I don’t know how many times since the 2016 campaign I have heard Donald Trump called a racist. For one to believe that, one would be required to dismiss 50+ years of very public daily Trump interactions with hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world. Certainly, in that career any racist would have sowed his oats of racism again and again: he couldn’t possibly not do that. And if he did, there would be hundreds of those offended standing in line at the courthouse filing suit against the billionaire, especially abused employees. Have you heard of any? Nope. Why is that? Because Mr. Trump has lived a life of evidence that he is not a racist. In fact, his life shows just the opposite! Leaders in the Minority community have even given him humanitarian awards for being such a help and guide in the African American community. They stood in line to be with him at public events of all kinds — people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. But they all stand far away from the President today. Being friends with Donald Trump would mean you’d be a friend with a racist.

But that’s not enough. It’s not sufficient for the Left to attack President Trump as a racist. Now the cries are against all Americans who voted for him.

White supremacist “foot soldiers” perceive President Donald Trump’s rhetoric as “subliminal orders in their head,” warns MSNBC’s national security analyst Malcolm Nance. In an interview with MSNBC’s Hardball during a segment on the massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, Nance claimed mass shootings in the United States are fueled by far-right, white supremacist ideology by shooters who want to eliminate liberalism. Trump is fostering a culture that facilitates white supremacist terrorists, Nance argued.

“These people feel that they are the foot soldiers and executors of what the disenfranchisement that the white race is feeling, and Donald Trump is giving them subliminal orders in their head,” he said. “They are no different than the mobilized, self-starting, self-radicalized terrorists of ISIS here in the United States and Europe, who take cars and drive down streets. It’s just that they have a permissive environment in which they can get firearms and go out and attack their perceived enemies.”

The push to Divide moves ever forward. Certainly, there’s a messenger, OR someone who controls the message AND the messenger of Division. Who could that be?

Well, the Left-leaning mainstream media would be a great place to start, right? How about the New York Times — that bastion of journalistic integrity that still calls itself “America’s premier news source.”

Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, said recently that, after the Mueller report, the paper has to shift the focus of its coverage from the Trump-Russia affair to the president’s alleged racism.

“We built our newsroom to cover one story, and we did it truly well,” Baquet said. “Now we have to regroup, and shift resources and emphasis to take on a different story.”

Baquet used the gentlest terms possible — “the story changed” — but the fact is, the conspiracy-coordination allegation the Times had devoted itself to pursuing turned out to be false. Beyond that, Democrats on Capitol Hill struggled to press an obstruction case against the president. The Trump-Russia hole came up dry.

Now, Baquet continued, “I think that we’ve got to change.” The Times must “write more deeply about the country, race, and other divisions.”

“I mean, the vision for coverage for the next two years is what I talked about earlier: How do we cover a guy who makes these kinds of remarks?” Baquet said. “How do we cover the world’s reaction to him? How do we do that while continuing to cover his policies? How do we cover America, that’s become so divided by Donald Trump?”

Summary

So where’s the “Conquer” in the “Divide and Conquer?”

That’s what they’re all promised will happen! All of the Trump-haters from every news organization, political party, people in office, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike seem to all take their cue for political beliefs from the propaganda distributed by the New York Times and its informal satellites around the nation. All of them are convinced that even if not true, a majority of Americans will believe what they are telling Americans if they tell it over and over again. Democrat Pary leadership have realized there is no hope for a Democrat Senate, White House, and probably the House unless they are successful in their very obvious ploy to destroy any shred of credibility which Donald Trump possesses. And when they’re through, their prayer is their propaganda will destroy him, his family, and each and every Trump supporter in the country.

How sad is that? How could anyone — especially leaders in Washington charged with shaping every segment of America and supposedly doing so at the will of Americans — be so consumed with hatred for one man they would abandon the foundation of the U.S. and all it stands for, the millions who have lived fruitful and constructive lives here through several centuries and who have done the same for millions of those overseas, and launch some campaign to destroy this one man!

That indeed would put the “Conquer” in place they lust for.

I don’t know why they’re doing it. Do they fear something? Do they so hate what Donald Trump stands for that they would almost in unison find devious ways to run him out of office? Or do they simply hate the fact that they may be being exposed for feeding their flocks the lies of propaganda that are good enough to pacify those lambs while they feast at the table of luxury and power in Washington they have crafted on the backs of their flock?

I’m not sure. But one thing of which I am certain: Americans are not asleep. Americans understand far more than D.C. thinks we do.

Maybe that’s what they’re afraid of. Maybe we’re the fly in the ointment of that war to dethrone Trump of which they’re certain they will win.

We’ll see.

 

 

 

 

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