My open letter to President-Elect Donald J. Trump the other day offered congratulations for his victory along with hopes for him and his administration.
Herein lies a postscript. After all, there are only so many points I could initially make.
I hope you realize, Mr. President-elect, how fed up to the nostrils Americans have become with all the deceptions shoveled out over years by their elected presidents. From "Read my lips, no new taxes" to "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," to "weapons of mass destruction," and "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," the scourge of presidential lying has spanned decades.
The last thing those who elected you (and those who didn't) want to hear from their president is a continuation of untruths in the name of face-saving and political expediency.
That's why I wasn't too pleased to hear the other day, after you took credit in another of your unwise and unnecessary "tweets" for supposedly saving jobs at Ford Motor Company, which decided to retain part of its production in Kentucky rather than moving to Mexico, that the company said keeping that plant open had been its plan all along and your election had nothing to do with it.
I realize that doesn't necessarily constitute an outright lie and could be construed as a matter of interpretation. Yet it did carry a whiff of mendacity. And it was wholly unnecessary. The campaigning is over. You won. Now I join many across America in hoping you'll give up the reactionary tweeting and focus on honorably, honestly and transparently guiding this nation to much better times, just as you've promised, and as those who elected you hope and expect you will.
The trust they placed in you had nothing to do with knee-jerk and unpresidential tweeting. It has everything to do with restoring the rule of law, stemming illegal immigration, restoring our economy, restraining a Muslim invasion, restoring our military and police force, appointing honorable, objective Supreme Court judges who strictly follow our Constitution rather than a radical ideology. In other words, seeing you succeed.
Please understand you have no reason to feel so insecure about yourself or your sacred position that firing off tweets is necessary. Using Twitter will in no way help and can only damage you with a mainstream media already desperately searching to inflame any of your missteps or hiccups into supposedly big news.
Surely you got a taste of that when having a private dinner with your family became a big deal in the hostile mainstream and now this Ford deal making further headlines.
If jobs are saved or returned to America, I promise you will not need to say a word, or issue so much as a peep or a trill. It's well understood here in the hinterland that your policies are behind any restoration of our long-dragging economy. Believe me, Mr. President-Elect, you will receive the credit, just as you will for all other positive reforms that lead this supposed land of the free away from teetering over the void.
Just please resolve now to always be honest with us. We've had so much disingenuousness, so many elected "leaders" conning us. Simply being a respectable and honest president will set you apart in a very positive way.
I'm basically asking that you not exaggerate to put yourself in a better light or feel the need to constantly react to every perceived affront. Having a thick skin is crucial to your new position. I'm sure you are discovering this responsibility is not remotely close to running major corporations. Your "customers" now are the American people who want you to make wise decisions for all Americans.
Please allow me to share the relevant thoughts of reader Sandy Wylie of Bella Vista.
"Two nights ago The Daily Show did a spoof funeral for facts, lamenting that truth-telling has died across our nation," he wrote. "People don't care about the truth. They just want to hear what they want to hear.
"My theology study group at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Bentonville has read books by Michael Shermer and Jonathan Haidt, psychologists/social scientists who ... observe that all of us somehow glom onto a set of basic beliefs--beliefs about politics, religion, etc. We get these beliefs by osmosis from people and things we are exposed to.
"We develop a ... visceral attachment to these beliefs and go in search of evidence that confirms our beliefs, brushing aside contradictory data as we associate mostly with people who share our prejudices so that we get little more than reinforcement.
"In other words, we're not rational creatures. We live out of our guts and visceral urges. Damn the facts! Those of us who value facts, truth, and truth-telling are in for a rough ride in this fact-free world."
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 11/26/2016