America's Gone Sheepish: BAnter, BAcklash, and Backstabbing

“There’s something crooked about that Hillary, she can’t be trusted,” commented my high school bff, sullying my pristinely optimistic Facebook page.

Really?  In this day and age of political civility?  How is this even possible?

I kind of get it.  On the surface, it looks weird.  The former First Lady moves to New York in order to gain residency so that she can run for Senator.  So what?  She wanted to be Senator.  She ran. She won.  Personally, I have no problem with that.  They elected her.  I, too, am a New York native, though I left and resettled in the warmer climes of Pennsylvania long before she became “their” Senator.  I would have loved to have her as my senator.  Still, I hear disgruntled rumblings from most New York State residents, so I had to do some detective work to find out more about the horrible things she did there to make that many people upset — apparently so upset that she still won the primary in “their” state.

What’s up with that?  Did she threaten to build a wall or something?  Does Hillary have an image problem?  Is shrill really worse than obnoxious?

Shall we take a look? I will try to remain unbiased.  After all, objectivity is awfully hard to come by these days.  Objectively speaking, Clinton has more experience than any other presidential candidate, no matter what conjecture says.  She has a proven track record, just by virtue of having endured as long as she has.  Doesn’t this count for anything?

Just today (April 27), the Washington Post proclaimed, “Clinton is the only insider surviving in the year of the outsider.”  The Republican party has chosen an outsider for their front-runner, and the Democrats are going with an insider.  Robert Shurm, a strategist who is a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns, explains why:  “I think Democrats really want to win, and they’re not willing to sacrifice winning to ideology and grievance, which I think in the Republican Party is the case”

Benghazi?  According to factcheck.org, “The Fact Checker previously looked into allegations that Hillary Clinton had told two stories after the 2012 Benghazi attacks that left four Americans dead — a private one that it was a terrorist attack and the public one that blamed Muslim outrage over a YouTube video. The evidence was mixed, open to interpretation, but we concluded that there was not enough for GOP rivals to make definitive judgments that she lied.“ “The Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Benghazi committee each distorted the facts during TV appearances to discuss the committee’s work.”

Campaign finance reform is overrated and could be yet another smokescreen to diffuse the real issues and the true merits of candidates that really matter and could move this country forward, merits and facts that could lead to making informed decisions.

The age-old concern remains:  What are we teaching our kids if we give in to this circus?  The OJ Trial was never put to rest, so what do they do?  Give him a reality show.  Trump’s Apprentice is off the air, so now he runs for President, making little distinction between his experiences as a businessman and reality TV star.  And we’re buying into the drama, the fluff, the freak show — hook, line and sinker.

We need to spend more time checking facts and less time listening to the endless circle of shouting matches on television.  What are we really hearing?  Is it anything of substance, or just the 24/7 barrage of 3 B’s (banter, backlash, and backstabbing) between candidates?

Instead of waving our Bibles around in lame ideological efforts to save our country in the name of God, perhaps we could look at 2 Timothy 1:7 (NRS) “for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” Let’s start using that power to make informed choices!


Lisa H. Thomas is a wife, mother, music director, and MDiv/MAR degree candidate at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. She lives in Northeast Philadelphia. LHThomas@LTSP.edu