I’m disgusted with the comments by the President. Truthfully, that’s probably a weekly opinion of mine. As an American who clearly supports the 1st Amendment and the concept of pushing Free Speech to its outer limits, I’m not one seeking to shut down someone’s speech. The President is allowed to shout, tweet, bellow, bluster, berate, malign and insult anyone to the same extent that the rest of us are.
However.
He is also supposed to set a course for our country. The office of the President goes beyond any single person who occupies the Oval Office. And this is where the limits of the individual’s free speech meet the boundaries of the duties of the office, at least in my book.
I’ve have lived through nine Presidencies at this point and am midway through the 10th. I did not like some of them, I thought others were okay and one was fantastic. At no time, in the previous 52, (53 next month) years have I felt the occupier of the White House was as contemptuous, dismissive and intolerant of the country they were leading.
For those who are not aware, over the weekend, the President tweeted out a rather insulting set of tweets about the conditions in Baltimore. Calling it a ‘rat and rodent infested’ city. To think that a President was attacking and demeaning the living conditions in a city that is a mere 30ish miles from the White House is appalling to me.
Rather than shedding light on a condition that probably does need attention, he chose to throw insults. Rather than provide solutions, as leaders should, he chose to insult those with whom he should be working to make a better future.
I know we can’t expect more from this President. He is after only one thing – chaos. It’s how he runs his companies, his White House and Press Relations. He wants the 30% of the population that would vote for him to live in a state of perpetual frothy anger. The point of his tweets and comments is not to teach, educate, lift up, or inspire anything but hate, anger and to act as bait to get people talking about him. Not about the subjects that need to be addressed, but about him.
He doesn’t provide solutions for the infrastructure that would fix problems for the people of Flint, Michigan. He’s not offering Federal Assistance with vermin problems in Baltimore, Maryland. He just wants attention.
It’s sad, disgusting and disheartening. I was told by many a fan of the President that he would be fine. That the bureaucracy would temper him. That nothing was going to change that much.
It’s been 2 years and 6 months, and we have accomplished little besides changing the course of the Supreme Court for the next 30 years. Which is what the Pro-Life lobby and the Conservative Fundamentalist Christians wanted. It was a backlash against President Obama and the leap forward in race relations and representation.
In theory we may have only 18 months to go with this current President. I hope that is the future. I would like to see us return to a Presidency that respects our citizens, engages in meaningful conversation that brings two opposing sides to a more moderate middle ground that would provide solutions and a better way of life for all of country.
On the other hand. We may have 5 years and 6 months of this. It’s not inconceivable, but it is distasteful. I’m not a fan of this constant attacking. I live with it in my law practice, I see the damage it does to families who are fighting all the time. The trauma that is caused, the loss of money, love and time all so someone can continue to feed a fight that will never make them whole.
One of the major lessons learned after 20 years of fighting in family court with countless divorces and child custody battles is that emotionally damaged people don’t get better without a tremendous amount of will and work. You can judge how damaged a person is by the amount of damage they are willing to perpetuate. With this President, I think someone clearly damaged him greatly – unfortunately the country is paying the price.
David Pisarra is a Los Angeles Divorce and Child Custody Lawyer specializing in Father’s and Men’s Rights with the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He can be reached at dpisarra@pisarra.com or 310/664-9969.You can follow him on Twitter @davidpisarra
