This past week was President Trump’s first State of the Union address and I suppose if you want to give him credit for staying on script and sounding presidential the low bar was met. A big deal was made about his comments of coming across the aisle and having both parties in Congress work together to “make America great again.” This language is nothing new. It is a sound bite administrations on both sides pay lip service to during speeches with varying degrees of success. Given the President’s treatment of members on both sides, that has set it up to be some words that were written for him to say and nothing more.
But this is not to say that Congress is off the hook. Over just my lifetime Congress has gotten so partisan and so petty that little to anything of substance gets done. Bills that millions of people depend on, from CHIP to DACA, are held hostage so party elders can hold onto their seats of power while we, the people who elected them based on their claims that they would represent us, are left to increasing cynicism and despair. So forgive me if I listen to Joe Kennedy III’s rebuttal speech and think yeah it was eloquent and struck the right tone but I can’t put hope in it. Presidents only last for a most two terms. We are often stuck with members of Congress for their whole lives and if the past couple of decades are any judge we should be more concerned about their lip service since it will be ultimately the most damaging.
Now I am one to talk when I speak of getting past talking the talk to walking the walk. I have certainly said things that I didn’t really mean or said things and not acted upon them since it would have been hard or not, if I may borrow a phrase, politically expedient. But I am tired of this behavior in myself and I am certainly tired of it in my elected officials who continue to be a source of embarrassment and, frankly, stress as I worry about what type of world I will raise my future children in. So for all our sakes I am going to do my best to walk my own walk and see if I can go about getting our politicians to understand that sometimes you have to make hard choices to live up to your promises. And although we might not thank you right away ultimately it will be more worthy of our respect.
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