How Kamala Harris fell for the oldest temptation – Latest News
August is normally downtime in Washington, DC: Congress is in recess, the heat and humidity contribute to the need to flee city for cooler climate, the president is generally some other place and cable information is targeted on shark assaults.
Not this August.
Cable information particularly, together with some newspapers, appear to be fixated on the particular person Democrats will nominate for president in 2028.
We are simply eight months into President Donald Trump’s second time period — and we’re being compelled to pay attention and browse hypothesis about an election a political lifetime away.
Part of it may be blamed on former Vice President Kamala Harris, who acquired headlines for saying she just isn’t operating for governor of California and won’t search the presidency again.
Harris advised Stephen Colbert on his soon-to-be canceled “Late Show” the motive she won’t run again: “The system is broken,” she mentioned
Funny how Democrats declare the system is damaged solely once they lose.
The bigger half of the media’s preoccupation with politics is that many “can’t stop thinking about tomorrow” as a substitute of residing in the current.
For many, politics has turn into a false god.
Like these historical gods described in the Old Testament that might by no means ship what the people claimed to need, the political “gods” are worshiped no matter how many occasions they fail to keep their guarantees.
If, as Harris claims, “the system” is damaged, a lot of the motive is that we’ve requested the authorities to do what it was by no means created to do.
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Even as Trump, nonetheless imperfectly, is attempting to repair it, too many citizens nonetheless put an excessive amount of religion the place it doesn’t belong.
It is right here that CS Lewis provides priceless insight.
In his basic work “The Screwtape Letters,” a demon-in-training named Wormwood is assigned by his Uncle Screwtape (aka Satan) to distract his “patient” (aka us) from the plans of “the enemy” (aka God).
Kamala Harris would do effectively to learn this excerpt, since she blames a damaged system for her loss, and her resolution to not run again.
“Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics,” Lewis’ Screwtape advises.
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“Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they’ve by no means met serves as an glorious distraction from advancing in personal advantage, character, and the issues the affected person can control.
“Make sure to keep the affected person in a fixed state of angst, frustration, and common disdain in direction of the relaxation of the human race as a way to keep away from any type of charity or interior peace from additional developing.
“Ensure the patient continues to believe that the problem is ‘out there’ in the ‘broken system’ rather than recognizing there is a problem with himself.”
William Shakespeare had his own evaluation of the human situation.
Students could keep in mind this remark by Cassius in “Julius Caesar”: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
It signifies that destiny and future don’t control us, however quite the good or dangerous decisions we make are the end result of our own actions, decided by the worldview to which we cling and wherein we consider.
Imagine if politicians started talking like Lewis and the Bard, telling voters, “I can’t do more for you than you can do for yourselves.”
With so many hooked on politics and “the system,” voters may rapidly drive the profession politicians from workplace — and the rankings on cable information would drop like a stone.
Cal Thomas is a veteran political commentator, columnist and writer.
