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Letter to the editor: Dangerous popularity contest

Tribune-Review
| Sunday, November 22, 2020 8:00 a.m.

Politics is one of the least trusted professions in America, yet politicians are constantly involved in popularity contests. The dichotomy is deliciously ironic. How do you become popular within such a play? Act out what the audience wants you to be, not what you really are. That type of character would usually be the two-faced protagonist.

Yet Donald Trump is not a politician, so how did he become the protagonist in this play? He is not acting out the play we wanted. Is he crude? Yes. Is he uncouth? Yes. He is also genuine. What he says is what he thinks, and he acts accordingly.

Let’s look at a hypothetical. Who do you respect more at work? The two-faced co-worker who showers love in your presence and slings arrows behind your back, or the cantankerous boss who tells you why you did so awful on your last assignment? Is he eloquently scripted? No.

Thus, we are provided with a character that is imprecise in his language on the world stage, with every sneering eye taking the worst interpretation of such language and labeling him all the terrible things humanity has manifested. When everyone is Hitler, no one is Hitler.

It appears almost certain that America has decided to turn back the hands of time and place power back with the career politicians we supposedly despise because they provided us the hollow words we wanted to hear. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Greg Maita

Burrell


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