In December of 1972, a nearly new Lockheed L-1011 aircraft (Eastern Flight 401) descended into the Florida everglades killing 101 souls because the crew was distracted with fixing a burned-out landing gear light. The most important job — flying the airplane — had been forgotten while all the attention was given to an annoyance.
Flight 401 is an excellent analogy of the danger presented by the current political climate in the United States. Today, real threats to our existence are in abundance, including an increasingly militant China, a hot war in Europe, mounting national debt, increasingly destructive natural disasters, and unrelenting global warming. Yet, our national political dialogue is almost exclusively focused on drag shows in public facilities, battling over what can be said in classrooms, gay marriage, abortion and whether America is a Christian country. With our politicians focused on what are social annoyances, no one is “flying the airplane,” that is, paying attention to strategic events that could destroy our country.
Make no mistake, the focus on culture war issues is almost entirely one-sided. MAGA conservatives have given up on traditional issues of governance to win elections through stirring up their torch and pitchfork base over culture war issues and fabricated lies of election fraud. The other component of this issue is the broader Republican pivot to “performance artists” as candidates instead of pragmatic, skilled leaders. Candidates like Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz are completely unqualified to hold national positions in the Senate and would be of no use in battling forces that could lead to our demise. To the extent that the Republicans are successful in electing food fight, reality TV politicians and focusing on cultural war issues, it will result in the destruction of our country from something that would have been avoidable with competent and focused leadership.
Rod Perry, Ogden
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