The beginning of the general election contest between President Biden and Donald Trump is no time to shade the truth. Let us be clear about something. The overwhelming majority of the American people have said, we don't want to see a rematch between Presidents Trump and Biden. Yet that is the choice the American people will get. And there is
a profound difference between the two men. One of them, President Biden, believes in the United States, American democracy, the values, ideas, and ideals of the Great Republic, and the other one does not. President Biden is an American and Donald Trump espouses an anti American worldview. His is a vision of menace steeped in a promise of retribution, which always leads to despair, death, estrangement, and ultimately loneliness. Donald Trump holds
out a promise that is premised in a lie. Now that lie is born from an impatience with democracy, with the work of ordinary men and women who are elected to the offices and often succumb to the temptation of the power, the prestige, the influence, the money that swirls around them. Our American system of government is profoundly corrupted by foreign influence, by the influence of billionaires who buy and sell politicians like little trinkets and totems on a
store shelf. The American system, though must not be torn down, must be repaired, not replaced by a lie that posits a man can substitute his judgment for the judgments of the people. That the impatience that makes democracy painful to go through in times of corruption and malaise in stagnation is worth overthrowing for the expediency of decision making that can come through the certitude of a strong leader who's in it for you. Despite all of the evidence to
the contrary, Senator Mitt Romney said it perfectly. Is there something wrong with the voter, the voter who would give their support to a man who has been found guilty of raping a woman by a jury in an American courtroom? What does it say about the collapse of character, of decency, of dignity around the office for so many tens of millions of Americans? How can it possibly be explained? How
can it be defeated? There is something that is essential to understand about a crisis and about despairing moments and how they have been overcome. Whether it was in the dark days of the Revolutionary War, the trying days of the American Civil War, whether it was in the early days of the Second World War, through the Civil Rights movement, through all the darkest moments, there was always amongst the
best and greatest leaders, a defiance against fear. Trump and his extremist movement are fueled by fear and by cynicism. The extremist movement requires fear and fear, not forget more fear, because fear inspires but one thing panic and panic prefaces defeat and collapse and often death. The simple truth is most people who drown don't do so because they can't swim. They die because they panic. Fear is an elemental human
emotion and a destructive one that can be weaponized. And in the United States, when it has been wielded as a weapon by men like Trump, it has been subdued by defiance, not submission, which is why Vice President Harris's comments on the view, We're so deeply worrying, it's so out of step with this moment and what is required to defeat it.
Let's watch, what are you going to do to stop the crazies? I am scared as heck, yeah, which is why I'm traveling our country. You know, there's an old saying that there are only two ways to run for office, either without an opponent or scared. So on all of those points, yes, we should all be scared.
There are signs of decay, collapse, selfishness, and a profound indifference to everything, it seems, except the algorithms that keep much of the American populations head down and glued to whatever device they're holding. Democracy requires the practice of citizenship lest it be taken away by someone who likes the power, absent the hard work required to earn the trust and
the vote of an informed citizenry. How we got to this moment will be the subject of much study, But the cause of politics in this moment must be how we get out of it, and it starts with assembling a great American coalition of people who are bound together through disagreement in a faith of the US Constitution as the law of the land that must be preserved and protected so that it may endure for our grandchildren's grandchildren.
Why is this generation somehow explicated from understanding the responsibilities imparted onto them with the birthright of American citizenship to defend the Republic against all enemies foreign and domestic, which includes the demagogues that seek to tear it down. There's a poem that I think speaks powerfully to the culture of this moment. It's too bad that so many of our institutions of learning in America don't teach poetry anymore, or really literature of any type, or require reading much
at all. But these words have meaning, and in them there should be a purpose to stave this all off and push it away, and to seek out something better. What is the remedy to all that is around us is hope and fearlessness. Here are the words to the Yates poem, The Second Coming, Turning and turning in the widening gyre. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The blood dim tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony
of innocence is drowned. The best lack of conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand. Surely the and Coming is at hand. Things do fall apart when the center cannot hold, And the answer to fear is not bowing towards it, it
is standing fast against it. This is an American tradition and it must be embraced by President Biden and Vice President Harris, because they need to confront maggot extremism every hour of every day, either directly or through their campaign. And the truth is, the campaign is not measuring up.
Here are some words from a democratic president. They should be heated and they should be understood because they occurred in a moment of grave crisis for the country, at a desperate hour, where there was real panic in the air. What the American people heard was a commanding voice, a voice of reassurance, of calm, with the power to communicate clearly, a simple message in an urgent hour.
And here it was, this is pre eminently the time to speak of proof, story of proof, frankly and boldly. No need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive, and will prosper go best at all.
Let me assert my firm belief that's the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified. Narah which paralyze is needed up but to convert retreat into it bad in every dark hour of our national life, Aimy the tip of frankness, and a figure has met with that understanding and the fault of the people themselves, which is espencio to victory, and I am convinced that you will again give that the fort to leadership in these critical days.
There is only one way out of America's current predicament, and it is through the defeat of MAGA extremism at the polls that, over time will rid the country of its malign influence and ability to take national power, particularly the power of the American presidency, which must be fortified against further encroachments by a talented and brilliant manipulator and liar and deceiver like Donald Trump, who dares to put
himself in campaign ads comparing himself to God. This is a dangerous movement and a dangerous man, and it should not be trifled with. Ever, it was an appalling moment when the Democratic National Committee attacked Governor Asa Hutchinson, a man who's dedicated his entire life to honorable public service. Democracy does not mean agreement down the line with a
Millennial at the Democratic National Committee. Democracy needs tolerance and respect and the ability to see patriotism manifested his courage. John Kennedy certainly would have understood what Asa Hutchinson was doing. He would have understood a profile and courage when he saw it, just like President Biden did, who had to take time out of his schedule to apologize for the arrogance of the Democratic National Committee towards an honorable friend
of American democracy. The president deserves the best in the fight ahead. The President of the United States is currently behind. There were two good events put on by the White House and by the campaign. One was at Mother Emmanuel Church and one was at Valley Forge. But the question hanging in the air is what's next? Where next? What
is the message of the reelection campaign? Because it cannot be as afraid as heck it must not be, because that message portends catastrophe, not just for the ambitions of the reelection staff, but for the nation as it approaches it's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of independence. The truth is millions live in Iowa. It barely more than one hundred thousand turned out, and of that one hundred thousand,
the majority, in a historic fashion, were for Trump. But imagine if people cared enough to turn out just to say no, even if there was only three hundred thousand or two hundred thousand. But it didn't happen, and it won't happen because the question that hangs in the air in America is does anyone care at all? Soon will know, but cow tewing to the fear in the air is
a certain route to despair. A year from now, as the next president of the United States gets ready to raise their hand and to swear the oath, the difference in this race is the man who will run under the banner of Abraham Lincoln's party. He raises his hand, won't mean a word of it, and should that happen. Four years is a long time to hold the line against a dictator and his cause, which wants power more than its opposition wants liberty.