Time To Wonder: Who Will Calm The Country?...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | A long time ago, CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite was often described as the conscience of the country. Cronkite was there when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The calming effect of his reassuring words is still remembered and often noted by historians writing of our past.

There is no Walter Cronkite today, no one individual the U.S. can point to as someone who can keep the national heart rate in place, even when disaster or worrying movements spread across the so-called fruited plains.

A very good case can be made that Donald J. Trump is doing his damndest to turn this country upside down, to empower racism to the max, bigotry in church even and deliverer of a mood the country can only endure for so long.

Where's the president?

Why isn't Joe Biden speaking out about any of this? I neglect to assign him his proud Democrat badge because this writing is about being an American leader first and foremost. We all know that Trump is NOT a Republican; he merely plays at one for his advantage.

Should Biden go on national TV and say something about this whole Trump mess? I mean, it stinks full across the world. What do foreign leaders (and people) think of the United States now? When Biden won the 2020 election, a sentient writer in France wrote: "Welcome back, America. That was weird." You think Trump hasn't devalued the American brand? He has.

Thursday, after Trump's appearance in court for his third indictment, reporters caught up with Biden while he was riding his bike (see photo atop this story) around his neighborhood in Delaware. They kept asking him about Trump's court appearance, asking if he would take questions.

"Probably not," the president told them.

Biden is not talking. Perhaps he feels it would only incite Trump's noisy, always-threatening supporters. But he should take into account the entire population, not just fear a certain group going all-political at the mention of the name Trump.

It's a cop-out on the part of the president. He is the nation's leader. He has the only megaphone that counts during emergencies, and this Trump insurrection is an emergency. Things can devolve into street warfare with only a few words. Someone needs to tamp down wild emotions. But there seems to be no one around to do that. Even hardly-glib Gerald Ford said a few words after he pardoned President Richard M. Nixon on September 8, 1974 to bring an end to the Watergate break-in mess.

There is quite a bit of writing out there on where this Trump stuff will end up, whether resolved peacefully and legally or whether Trump will fuel an armed revolution in the streets. And don't think that he can't do it. His words after every court appearance are always about revenge if he wins the 2024 presidential election. Trump does not want to go to prison; that's also clear. He is the one dangerous wildcat with his back to the wall, and he does not want to be there.

The well-known historian Douglas Brinkley had this to say about the country needing a calming voice: "There’s nobody that the public at large is willing to listen to, because the trust in government has corroded to such a low degree. And the polling on journalists, the Supreme Court, Congress, the presidency - they’re all low. People aren’t admiring our public servants."

That's both cold and damning.

Where is America these days? Are we more North Korea and South Korea than a Star-Spangled union?...

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