A wake-up call for us all

We live in a time when it is easy to be discouraged with the news. All too many citizens are disheartened by today's political discourse that has not only become vulgar, but strongly polarized as well.

It can be argued that, in large part, this situation is attributable to the leadership of a master showman who is skilled in the effective employment of the dark arts of lying, exaggeration, manipulation, hate-mongering and scapegoating.

In the eyes of his followers, he is a hardworking, super-alpha male getting things done very much to their liking - no matter the increase to our nation's already vast debt as well as to the loss of its core values and reputation as a world leader.

Most troubling is the state of governmental affairs hallmarked by the apparently deliberate chaos, willful ignorance and strategic incompetence of an administration that literally dazzles the public and the media with an almost daily barrage of accounts of bizarre, if not outrageous, behavior that dominates the news cycle.

In the meantime, the structure of our federal government's institutions are being eroded or dismantled, while a distracted public sleeps and the media is played like a fiddle as it dances to the tunes of the showman.

Isn't it time for all Americans to take stock and come to understand that they have a responsibility as citizens to put aside their differences and wake up to what's really happening at the working levels of their government?

November 2020 will soon be upon us. Hope for a viable future of America's democracy will rely on a well-informed electorate that can help place experienced as well as competent and trustworthy men and women at all levels of government no matter their political affiliation.

Frank G. Splitt

Mount Prospect