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To the Editor,
I declare at the onset that I am writing as an Episcopal priest. In our musical repertoire the old-fashioned Gospel song, "Trust and Obey," was not a song we turned to, practically at all. But as I listened to several news channels over the past few weeks, it occurred to me that one of the all-encompassing issues with politics in America is a lack of trust and a revolt against obedience -- two key words in that song.
It appears that the United States as a nation has lost a great deal of obedience in the behaviors of its people, without regard to age. Gangs in some states smash and grab everything from groceries to diamonds. Simple disagreements in bodegas in New York City cause physical harm and death. Reports come weekly of the number of shootings and the number of deaths in Chicago, and they are on the rise. One television station tells you all the dirt on one candidate while another with equal vitriol tell you the same type of dirt on an opposing candidate.
Common sense has become less common as the years of the new millennium count higher and higher.
Many of us remember presidential debates which were debates; next week those of us interested will watch two candidates attempt to shout each other down and sling mud at the other with the intent of establishing the absolute worthlessness of the other. An old East Indian saying went something like this: "He who slings mud at an opponent will soon find that he himself is losing ground."
And speaking about the June debates, one candidate is being left out of the debate because he is a third party candidate, and we are a two-party country (not legally true.) He is being left out of the debate because of a lack of trust.
Democrat does not trust Republican and neither trusts a third party candidate to debate with vilification. We have seen those in the two-party system debate before to no avail. Without creating new rules, why not obey the Constitution and allow others their say? Lack of trust ... and it leads to a failure to obey.
Both major party candidates for the presidency in 2024 have baggage which amounts to matters that prove, at least until this June, disobedient to the law. That is precisely why neither trusts the other. And it is not only the candidates, but the voters. The voters have been rendered silent because of those who would disobey the law and take things violently into their own hands.
In 2020 I read a book whose title, "We Are Not Electing a Pastor," caught my attention. I would agree with the sentiment of that book. However, we are not electing a pastor, but a president, and of the closed two-party system offers us, not pastors, but certainly not presidential material. And each, in his own right is persona non grata, simply because neither seems to the public to either "trust" or "obey."
The Rev. Jeffrey A. Mackey
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