CARLTON FLETCHER: Politics has made us a nation of hypocrites

Look around, ya see so many social hypocrites, Like to make rules for others while they do just the opposite.

— Bob Dylan

Read on before you take offense: I have come to the conclusion that we are all — every one of us — hypocrites. Maybe it’s imbedded in our DNA, but we just can’t seem to help ourselves.

The funny thing is, though, none of us seems quite able of recognizing the hypocrisy of our own words and actions, only that of others.

This thought came to me when I overheard an acquaintance talking about how “Democrats and liberals just blindly follow Joe Biden, no matter how ridiculous his policies are.” And, given, there is truth in those words. There are people who are Democratic party loyalists who are OK with anything the current president proposes, no matter how it impacts the country as a whole.

Of course, the person who was making this claim is one of those folks Biden called a “MAGA Republican,” a person who defended Donald Trump even when he went off the rails and made comments that were vulgar, untrue and unfitting of anyone who holds the highest office in the land.

I think we’ve reached a point in our country where we believe hypocrisy is just part of politics. There are no more George Washingtons or Dwight Eisenhowers or even Jimmy Carters, men of integrity, whose words carried the weight of truth. Instead we get Bill Clintons (White House infidelity), Ronald Reagans (trading guns for drugs in Central America), John Kennedys (more White House infidelity), Lyndon Johnsons (lies to get us deeper involved in war) and Trumps (where to begin …), men who may have spearheaded significant accomplishments while in office but who were no angels when it came to truth-telling.

I actually watched a news documentary about Trump’s ascension to the head of the Republican party in which a woman — at a rally of “evangelicals,” no less — responded to Trump’s unfiltered comment about “grabbing women by their (privates)” by saying, with a giggle, “That’s just Trump being Trump. We don’t expect him to be a Boy Scout.”

Maybe not to the level of Boy Scout, but I believe Americans are within their rights to expect their political leaders to be decent human beings. But when we get to the point where we call ourselves Christians and yet make excuses for someone who had relationships with prostitutes, mocked handicapped people, made disparaging remarks about opponents’ spouses and just outright lied on any number of occasions, we’ve devolved as individuals and as a nation.

I’m flabbergasted when I read or hear people say they follow the party line by swallowing — hook, line and sinker — some of the most outlandish, and unproven, accusations imaginable, simply because that’s what they were told to believe.

I’m not going to continue beating that dead horse about looking into individuals’ records (real records, not improbable and unbelievable accusations … it’s pretty easy to do now) and voting for the one that you believe will do the best job, no matter his or her party. As someone told me during such a recent conversation, “People don’t want to have to do the work it takes to look into candidates’ records when they can sit back and listen to accusations or watch sensationalistic political ads and just vote for who they’re told to vote for.”

I just wish that we’d — each of us — check our own hypocrisy and maybe do something about it. It’s OK to change your mind. It’s OK to listen to or dig up your own credible evidence and decide that maybe you’ve been wrong about this issue or that. There’s a thing called compromise that used to be part of what made our country’s politics work. It was what led to give-and-take as the needs of the country were debated.

There’s no such thing anymore. It’s my party’s way, and scorched-earth consequences for any who differ. Which kind of helps me understand where our growing hypocrisy comes from.