After the Battle - The Aftermath of 2016

The Blame Game

After this is all over, what will we do? This has been the most controversial and heated election seasons of our time, and it’s not even really gotten going yet.

The protests (better defined as riots) taking place at Trump rallies, the busted, bloody lips over politics, the vitriolic hate, name-calling, and straight-up nastiness being blasted back and forth on social media, all of this shows no signs of stopping.

The finger of blame assignment is being wielded without discretion even prior to any results. Right now, I see many people angling and analyzing, deciding who will be the recipient of the blame.

Are people truly standing on what they believe, or are they positioning themselves to end up on the winning side, the side that won’t get the blame?

#NeverTrumpillary

For instance, the #NeverTrump people will get blamed and hated if Clinton wins. The #NeverHillary people will get blamed if Trump wins. The Trumpsters will get a ton of blame if Trump gets into office and becomes as awful as advertized. Clinton supporters will get a ton of blame if Clinton gets into office and opens the borders, stacks the courts with radical leftists, and generally does her typical liberal thing that damage the country.

And that’s not even mentioning whatever might or might not happen with Congress and local elections.

After Bush left office, the GOP was in the dog house, even those who didn’t necessarily support him got a bad rap. All the blame got put on Bush, and some of it still is being put on Bush. So we blamed and blamed, then turned to the “pure-as-the-driven-snow” Democrats, the innocents, and placed our trust in them.

Now, as 8 years of Obama draws to a close, are we really going to play the blame game again?

Has playing the blame game ever helped or caused anything to get better? Now we are blaming the very Democrats we turned to in 2008, and add to that “hate list” the ever-hated, ever-reviled and despised, evil overlord operation called the “establishment”.

Yelling and screaming that “It’s all Obama’s fault!” or “It’s all Bush’s fault!” does not solve anything. The fault rarely rests on one pair of shoulders.

No, blaming does not work, nor does it solve any problems.

A Real Life Example

Take Obamacare. Suppose we we stop blaming Obama, the Democrats, and any Republicans who may have had a hand in it and ask instead, has Obamacare worked?

The evidence of nearly 50% of Obama health care exchanges closing, and probably more to come would make one think that it has been less than successful. Plus the fact that health insurance costs have risen in many areas and that you actually couldn’t necessarily keep your doctor or your plan if you liked them, all point to a lack of success, or, dare I say, failure of Obamacare.

So, without blame, we’ve identified that it did not work. Then we must ask why? The simple answer is because Obamacare was overstepping the proper role of the federal government. Anytime this happens, bad things also occur. Freedom shrinks, government encroaches, debt increases.

Now, in order to move on we must learn from this experience. Government operating outside its proper role is bad, harmful and damaging. So next time we face a situation where we must consider whether to go outside the Constitution’s parameters, the answer will be an obvious ‘no’.

Theoretically.

Parting Thoughts

When I say to forget who’s to blame, I do not mean forget who’s to blame in that we should forget that liberal policies hurt America, kill jobs and innocent children, etc. I mean that we cannot blacklist people who were our opposition.

Also, never forget that people must be held accountable for their actions. Trust should be earned and we must learn from our experiences, not only in policy, but also with people. The key is people learning from their mistakes.

A person with a long record of unrepentant trashing of the Constitution just needs to be voted out. On the other hand, a person who supported Obamacare, saw the awful results, and now does not support Obamacare, is someone that may be to blame, however blaming them won’t help and will most likely destroy any chance of working with them in the future.

It’s time to stop blaming the people and instead start addressing the real problems. How about instead of playing the blame game, we forget who’s to blame, take an honest look at what happened, determine whether it worked or not and why, and then move on with a long, hard lesson learned.

Yeah, I know I’m dreaming. But you can’t deny, it sure has heck would be nice.

Jonathan Paine

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