Making Sense by Michael Reagan

“The more we learn about the 2020 election the more ILLEGITIMATE it becomes. America deserves to know whether we have a FAKE president in the oval office.”

How could Republicans in the House struggle for three weeks and then unanimously elect a man who said this kind of irresponsible stuff to be their new speaker?

How could the hapless House Republicans –

Oh, wait a minute. My mistake. There’s a typo in that first sentence.

It should be “the 2016 election,” not the 2020 election.

Oh, and another thing. It wasn’t the new Republican House Speaker, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who questioned the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election.

It was Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the leading House Democrat – the nice guy who welcomed Johnson by calling him “an extreme right-wing ideologue.”

Jeffries’ knee-jerk negativity was the kind of bipartisan hate mongering that has made Washington such a nasty place.

The Washington Post and other liberal DC/NYC media outlets joined with Jeffries in looking for reasons to degrade Speaker Johnson for being what he is – a religious conservative Republican.

They pointed out that he is liked by Donald Trump, voted against more aid to Ukraine and publicly cheered when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The fact that Johnson is the son of a firefighter, refreshingly young and not a charter member of the GOP’s ruling cabal didn’t count for the Post and its ilk.

Johnson was demeaned as “a fifth stringer.” He was branded a MAGA extremist and, worst of all, as one of those kooky rightwing 2020 election deniers who were such an existential threat to our democracy.

With Johnson, the lopsided liberal media have continued to push the false narrative that Trump Republicans like him invented election denialism in late 2020.

But the Republican National Committee has easily proved how wrong – and dishonest – the media are with its hilariously damning 24-minute video highlight reel of wild statements top Democrats made about the 2016 election during the Trump years.

Poor Hillary – who has made a career out of repeatedly saying her presidency was “stolen” from her and that the Trump presidency was “illegitimate” – is the video’s Denier in Chief.

But Nancy Pelosi, Jeffries, Jimmy Carter, Kamala Harris and assorted other Russia Hoax-pushing politicians spit out variations of Hillary’s claim that Trump and his evil pal Putin robbed her in 2016.

With this level of partisan hatred in DC, and with Americans being split in half on so many important political issues, it’s no wonder we’re so mad at each other all the time.

“I hate you because you support Trump.”

“You’re wearing a mask, you’re an idiot.”

“You support Ukraine, I love you.”

Today’s national hatefest is Israel and Jews vs. Hamas and Palestinians.

We actually have members of Congress, college students and tens of thousands of Americans charging Israel with war crimes and openly defending – even cheering – the slaughter of 1,400 Jews by Hamas terrorists.

The fierce public debate over the war in Israel has shown us that some dangerous people have infiltrated our schools and colleges and have been teaching our kids to hate.

“Hate 101” is probably a college class by now. “You want to major in ‘Killing Jews’ this semester? We have a professor for that right here at Hate U.”

So is anyone still teaching our kids goodness and decency and tolerance and love for our country and its cherished ideals of personal freedom and equality under law?

Prager U? Sorry, Dennis Prager is great. But we’d need a thousand Pragers to turn back the country’s rising tide of hate.

Americans seem so pissed off at each other all the time that it no longer surprises me when we have a mass shooting like the tragedy in Maine this week.

The way things are going – downhill – it wouldn’t surprise me if hundreds of Americans a day were killed by angry murderers.

That’s what happens when people are raised on the politics of hate.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Reagan, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. Send comments to [email protected] and follow @reaganworld on Twitter.