America Deserves Better Than A Twit

I write this on New Year’s night, 2017 having arrived about 20 hours ago on the east coast of the United States. And the occasion for me writing it instead of watching my taped library of “Homeland” episodes is an email I received from a friend who wanted me to respond to our president-elect’s New Year’s greeting to the 320 million people over whom he will soon preside as the highest elected official in the land.

As the rest of us were expressing our best wishes for the New Year to loved ones and friends alike, this is Donald Trump’s idea of an appropriate first New Year’s greeting to the American people (in 140 characters or less, of course):

DONALD J. TRUMP @RealDonaldTrump "Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!"

Any number of folks used their twitter feeds to respond to this classless, clueless Twit’s tweet. Attempting to show the great divide between the character of many of America’s past presidents, some quite fairly tweeted out statements made by great statesmen and stateswomen of both our time and that of others:

MICHAEL SKOLNIK @MichaelSkolnik "As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, 'we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection...And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.'” 2/2

DAVID FRUM @davidfrum “We are all Federalists; we are all Republicans...With malice toward none, with charity for all...Ask what you can do for your country…”

DAVID FRUM @davidfrum “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” Different time. Different president.

RUSTY INMAN @RustyInman Abraham Lincoln: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

RUSTY INMAN @RustyInman Barack Obama: “We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.” 3/3

RUSTY INMAN @RustyInman John Fitzgerald Kennedy: “And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help to make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” 2/2

And then there were those who, rather than provide the luminous words of some of the luminous figures who have occupied the Oval Office, provided their own, perhaps lighter commentary on Trump’s tweet:

JON COZART @JonCozart Looks like somebody woke up on the wrong side of humanity this morning.

And, my personal favorite:

KIDPRESIDEN @iamkidpresident You could have just said “Happy New Year.” Or nothing. Sometimes nothing is good too.

Perfect.