For my money, this is the best video of the morning for this particular Sunday.
Fareed Zakaria takes apart the Republican Party's view of America as somehow collapsing as compared to the 1950's and 60's. He points out that in terms of energy production, the terrorism rate, the homicide rate, victimization of children, the unemployment rate...
...and EVEN the migration from Mexico into the United States, which is now ZERO...
The United States is far better off than it was in the so-called "golden age" that Republicans promise will rise again if they are in power.
"I know that fed on a diet of hype, hysteria, and relentless attacks, people don't feel this way, but it is time to point out, that doesn't make it true. Facts are facts. There is no "golden age" to go back to. What America do we want to return to? The 1950's when marginal tax rates were 91%, and in many states women could not become doctors and lawyers, and African Americans couldn't sit at the same lunch counters as whites? The 1960's where the country was consumed by war and crises? The 1970's where stagflation robbed the average American of income and opportunity?
America IS great. A country of openness, diversity, tolerance, and innovation. Of course it has problems, as do all countries, of course it can be greater still. But not if it succumbs to anger, hatred, division, and despair."
Zakaria expands upon these thoughts, tying them directly to Trump's Republican Convention, in The Washington Post:
The convention has been dominated by hatred of Clinton because it is the party’s only unifying idea right now. People have chosen a candidate who does not believe in the ideology that has inspired Republican leaders for decades — free markets and free trade, low taxes, limited government, deregulation, welfare state reform and an expansionist foreign policy. In a breathtaking interview with the New York Times, Trump announced that he might not honor NATO’s guarantee of security to the United States’ European allies, practically inviting Vladimir Putin to destabilize Eastern Europe. That is a break not just with seven decades of Republican foreign policy but also with a core American commitment that has kept the peace since 1945. It is the most reckless statement made by a presidential candidate in modern times.
And yet, it is hardly surprising. Trump doesn’t even pretend to have an ideology. His main idea is that he is great, and if the country elects him, he will make it greater. “Share my glory,” cries Evita in the Andrew Lloyd Webber production, which is what Trump promises his supporters as well. It is ironic that Trump rails against Latino immigrants given that his campaign seems to mirror those of Latin America’s Peronists, believing in the strongman above any set of ideas.
