America Needs Integrity, Not BS

“Donald Trump is a salesman. He’s a talker. He’s a boaster, a booster, a compulsive self-promoter. At times, he’s a full-blown BS artist.” If you assumed a liberal or even a conservative “never-Trumper” made that statement, you’d be wrong. Tucker Carlson, one of President Trump’s most loyal and vocal supporters, said that on his Fox TV show in late November of 2019. Carlson openly admitted what everyone knew, but that 35 percent of Americans still deny.

Carlson also admitted, “One of the reasons progressives say they hate Donald Trump is because he lies a lot.” Whether progressives hate Trump or not could be debated, but that Trump is a liar is now a settled fact, as attested to by one of his most-dedicated defenders. In that same broadcast, Carlson further acknowledged that Trump’s boast that his inaugural crowd was the largest in history was a lie: “The crowd at the 2017 inauguration was not the largest ever measured on the National Mall. Sorry, it wasn’t,” Carlson conceded.

Despite those candid concessions, Carlson went on to defend the president by stating that many of Trump’s controversial remarks are true but politically incorrect. Haiti really is a dump; Baltimore really is crime-infested, he contended. Even if those claims are true, do two truths atone for 16,000 lies? Would 16,000 truths atone for 16,000 lies?

Carlson concluded, “… thinking or talking about mass immigration … or any of that might point out their own [Trump’s opponents’] egregious failures and selfishness’s, which are profound.” His point apparently was that Trump’s critics need to remove the logs from their own eyes before criticizing the splinter in Trump’s eye.

So the latest Trump defense is that all politicians are liars; get over it. I don’t know of any Trump critic whose critiques of the president come from a place of personal perfection. I admit I am a flawed human. But should we then extend that truth to the point of declaring no offense off limits? We’re all sinners, so quit trying to improve? Honor a president who lies, cheats, and steals to achieve his goals? Is that the depth to which Carlson and his ilk are willing to sink?

Donald Trump sought the nation’s most prominent leadership role. Leaders lead not just through directives, but also by example. Like it or not, as the Leader-in-Chief, Donald Trump is in the preeminent place to set the example for the nation’s citizens. Do we want this nation to be made up of boasters, boosters, self-promoters, and full-blown BS artists, as Carlson described the current president?

The late Elijah Cummings declared of the American people, “We’re better than this [referring to the effects of Trumpism].” But we won’t be if we fail to defeat the president Tucker Carlson admits is a “full-blown BS artist.”

I was a faithful Republican for 44 years, but Trump’s election ended that run. Now I’m willing and eager to unite with other reasonable people—regardless of their political affiliation—to defeat the most-corrupt president in this nation’s history.

Restore integrity; reestablish truth; rekindle compassion. Unite behind Trump’s general election opponent—whoever it is.