The Growing Credibility Gap

I keep a list of objectives I’d like for this president to accomplish, if not him then his sucsessor, or the succesor of that president, and beyond that we’re talking about a time when it’s very likely that I won’t be alive, but for the moment I still have this list and it’s very unlikely it will happen unless the American people have faith in the United States President, and at the moment, according to two polls last night, the majority of the american people believe that the president, or people working in his agency “faked” or “staged” the shooting at the press dinner last night, made considerablly worse by repeated comments that this now justifies four hundred million tax dollars to complete the construction of a ballroom that the president promised to build with private donations.

I personally dislike this president. That’s public knowledge. I supported Christopher Crisite. That’s also public knowledge. Dead or alive, every single person I know in New York couldn’t stand Donald Trump, but all of this is irrelevant because I cannot blame this on Trump; this massive credibility gap is too big for one person to accomplish. The only way for a presidential credibility gap like this to exist is for us to work on steadily for at least a generation, which we certainly have, and certainly had opportunities to turn it around, but didn’t.

“I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman.”

“It depends on what the definition of is is.”

“I do not recall.” Repeated 184 times.

“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.”

“Read my lips: no new taxes.”

Time and time again, the president responded to a crisis by whiffing it and delivering what at least seemed to be what we all recognized as a lie, compounded by the fact that we have steadfastly made the office of the president far more powerful than the Constitution originally intended—all of which happened before Trump even announced his candidacy.

My position on the presidency is that I do not owe allegiance to them; they owe it to me. I do not want to be led; I want to be served. Certainly, the president should inspire and encourage, but make no mistake, they work for us. We have no gods or kings, only men.

So, rather than point fingers, how do we get out of this?

The first thing I would do is open public congressional hearings on political violence, including every attempt on this president, the Charlottesville killing, the assault on Jan. 6, and Charlie Kirk. No closed-door sessions, put the entire thing on television. Investigate these incidents as plainly and as publicly as we can. State Secrets aren’t on the table. Expose everything.

As this progresses, repeat the model with the so-called “Epstein files.” Expose every page without retractions and let the chips fall as they may. Trump actually ran on this. Do it. While they may have been minors at the time, these women are all adults now, and at least unredact the segments related to the ones who have gone public. Whatever it takes. However long it takes, dispose of the Epstein matter in such a way that even the most critical of us agree that it’s disposed of.

It’s impossible to have a country unless we share some sort of mutual reality, and right now we don’t have that. We’re so divided that we can’t even agree on what did and did not happen on nearly every subject. We call these people our “leaders,” but is this where they led us? An objective, shared reality is our most precious asset, and at the moment, we simply don’t have it.

I understand that I’m often considered a divisive character. That’s not entirely an accident. One thing I insist on, though, is that I don’t care even the least if you believe what I believe, but it’s critical that you at least see what I see, and we can discuss it from there—and at the moment, we can’t even decided what the facts are, without that, how can we have any sort of meaningful debate about what they mean?