Looking Ahead to the General Election.

​The South Carolina Republican primary will be held this Saturday, followed by Super Tuesday ten days later when fifteen states and one territory will vote. Short of a strategically placed lightening bolt, Donald Trump will soon be the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

​Despite the fact that nearly 70% of registered voters don’t want a Biden-Trump rematch in the fall presidential election, that’s what we will be faced with. There are staunch partisans on both sides of the aisle who will vote for their party’s candidate regardless of who they are. But a large portion of voters in the middle will decide the election. These are the people who need to be persuaded to vote, and vote for the right reasons. That requires education about the candidates and the policies that are important to this country.

The next president will determine how our country engages with the outside world and the domestic policies that will impact our everyday lives. This election is too important to sit on the sidelines and take a wait and see attitude. That is why it is so important to educate ourselves and others about the two major presidential candidates and their policy priorities.
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For my small part in educating people, I will make source material recommendations over the next several months. I have recently finished a book by Liz Cheney and watched a documentary by Frontline that I feel every voter should at least be aware of, if not immerse themselves in. 

​I found Liz Cheney’s book, “Oath and Honor” to be very readable and compelling. It is an insider’s look at the current state of the Republican Party, and provides a detailed account of the events leading up to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. As the vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot, Cheney provided intimate details of the hundreds of hours of witness testimony and video footage that were uncovered during the investigation.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to read Liz Cheney’s book, then I urge you to watch the Frontline documentary “Democracy on Trial”. I thought I knew a lot about the 2020 presidential election and the final days of the Trump Administration, but this documentary opened my eyes to a lot of details that I was unaware of. The documentary investigates the roots of the criminal cases against former President Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss. It digs into the House January 6th committee’s findings, and brings the evidence to life through interviews with the people who had first-hand knowledge of the events.  This is a must see for everyone before they cast their vote in November.
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​Depending upon where you get your news, Liz Cheney’s book and the work of the January 6th committee may be labeled as partisan hit pieces, if they are reported on at all. Or they may be heralded as heroic and essential for protecting the future of our democracy. That is why it is important for all of us to broaden our perspectives and be open to other points of view when evaluating our choices for national leaders. The future of our country is too important to rely on partisan talking heads and social media posts that are pushing a particular point of view. 

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Thanks,
Armchair American