(United States) Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

Given the fractious headlines that dominated news reports following the midterm elections, it will be easy to anticipate another two years of tit-for-tat, threats of more investigations, and continuing controversy swirling around President Donald Trump.

While one can pray that cooler heads will prevail, given the general climate of the past two years, my hopes aren’t high.

Yet, if we can stop long enough to breathe, we can learn from the voice of experience.

Dogging a sitting president by piling the demands of time-consuming investigations onto a plate already loaded with staggering responsibilities is not a good idea.

Listen to Wisdom

That the advice comes from our newest justice may cause many to turn a deaf ear to this wisdom.

But the fact that Brett Kavanaugh made this recommendation before his nomination hearings turned him into toxic material for many doesn’t void his good advice.

In August, NPR reported on the irony of Kavanaugh investigating President Bill Clinton and later voicing concerns about that.

Critics would sneer at that as a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

I would argue that the then-very young attorney may have pursued the case against Clinton with vigor as Ken Starr’s assistant, only to recognize the damage it caused. Not just to Clinton, but to the nation.

Endless Battle

It’s already been close to two years since Robert Muller started checking into allegations of President Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia in the 2016 campaign. It’s not hard to envision two more.

What will this accomplish in the end? To keep the already divided United States in a further state of frenzy as the president’s vociferous critics and equally-vociferous supporters continue lobbing verbal bombs at each other.

Meanwhile, truly important matters of state, from the nation’s staggering debt to threats to the future of Social Security and Medicare, will stagnate. All because we’re too busy fighting with each other.

It’s too serious to be funny. And from my reading of history, the impeachments of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 and President Clinton in 1998 were essentially fits of political pique.

Both presidents’ detractors stirred up enough of a firestorm to bring case that were ultimately doomed to fail.

Those who think history won’t repeat itself need only to imagine a similar failed impeachment coming against President Trump. Unfortunately, that doesn’t take much of an imagination.

Appreciation for Founding Fathers

As I watch the continuing ruckus in Washington, D.C., I gain increased appreciation for our founding fathers’ wisdom.

Our constitutional form of republican government (not democracy) and its inherent checks and balances are a primary reason our nation has survived for more than 240 years.

Fortunately, the president’s detractors can’t toss him out on his ear based on little more than, “We really, really don’t like you!”

Besides, there is a method for getting rid of any elected official people don’t care for: it’s called the ballot box.

Come 2020, there will be a chance to express your opinion. Until then, we have a president who was duly elected by the voters.

Like it or not, he’s there and will be there for at least two more years. Continuing to fight and fuss over that fact is like—as financial adviser Dave Ramsey likes to say about people criticizing their employer—peeing in your own corn flakes.