COCONUTS & COCO PUFFS
The obdurate are often the loudest voices in the room. They are wrong many times not just in their beliefs but in the idea that their thoughts supersede all others. When many people believed the world was flat or that a race is better or smarter then another it was held with an impenetrable stubbornness. Donald Trump has certainly filled his cabinet with a collection of stubborn ideological choices including the recent appointment of John Bolton as the new national security advisor.
There are other people who hold fast to their beliefs but if an issue affects them directly they will find a way for that belief to apply to everyone else but themselves. The best example are war hawks who found ways to get out of serving in the military. Our current president among others sought and received deferments so he would not be drafted.
Coconuts and coco puffs are in abundance in congress and this White House. There are politicians who hold staunchly to beliefs, and the same or others who believe those ideals do not necessarily should be applied to them. And the danger are these people develop and implement policy that affects all of us, where we cannot escape their authority. In essence we have people in Washington, a majority on the GOP side whose guidance system is locked into tribal rhetoric to complicated national problems.
It is easier to understand the red wave that started in 2010 and in 6 years brought majorities for the house and the senate and an election of a president who operated a campaign devoid of facts and a warfare of mendacious propaganda strikes. Their advantage was they played to an audience (primarily trump supporters) who are also obdurate to the point that facts and rational thinking has no place in their process of understanding or making good decisions.
To further the hypocrisy a large group who supported Trump and the GOP base is the Christian right.
A group who claimed that their religion, their values was the basis of not only how they lived their lives but of what they expected of the people they voted for. The caveat leaving trump and republicans immune from any moral wrong doing. It is well documented that trump has had several marriages, many sexual encounters, some perhaps not consensual. His companies over the years have gone bankrupt leaving thousands of his workers unpaid and stiffing contractors who were playing by "the rules"
In addition, trump and the republicans will lie in a repetitive way against a head wind of facts on policy and their own personal missteps willing to risk being caught as the only downside to their behavior.
Its little wonder that republicans who are against gay rights are often discovered to engage in homosexual affairs. Moreover, there are others in the party of Lincoln who say they support racial equality and then re draw the voting maps and support rolling back voting rights for minorities. Trump himself has made a crusade of saying Hillary Clinton perpetrated seditious acts with our national security even as he has allowed over 100 people in the White House to work without proper security clearance and is mired in a collusion investigation with the Russians.
This year a change election is coming. The Coconuts and coco-puffs will continue to appeal to its base that its "my way or the highway" approach to governing is essential to making America great again. The voters will once again have the opportunity to make a strong counter statement. That facts and diverse approaches to solving problems are far more effective and just, then autocratic zealotry. The common good and the common interest will always be greatly diminished if those in power commit only to intransigent agenda's. High school young men and women in Parkland "get it" with gun violence. Hopefully most Americans will follow suit.
