While Ginther panders and Trump smears, dying lawmaker teaches decency
Originally published in the Columbus Dispatch, this is a slightly expanded version that goes into more detail. I truly appreciate the Dispatch for their willingness to include contrarian voices and headlines that help to sell newspapers.
The ending of one year and the start of the next is often a time of reflection, promise, and hope. Recent comments by some in the public eye are a vivid reminder that our discourse continues along a malign course and lacks the seriousness we need today.
Elected officials from both parties sullied themselves — and us — while another, whose term in office was marked by courage and decency, told the world he was dying at the age of 53.
Two days before Christmas, former Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska announced that he had Stage IV, likely terminal, pancreatic cancer. While this wouldn’t typically be newsworthy here in Ohio, it was to me as he was one of two guest speakers last year — along with Claire McCaskill — at the New Albany Lecture Series civil discourse event my family supports.
I only spent a few hours with Mr. Sasse. But while talking with him and researching his career, it was clear we agreed on the importance of public service, speaking truth, and shared civic values. Those who view his speeches about the truth of congressional failures after his first year in the Senate and the difference between politics and civics will be richer for the time spent.
Mr. Sasse’s career wasn’t perfect. His intellectualism and stubborn fealty to objective facts over the vocal crowd’s preferences for the political fantasies of free stuff with lower taxes limited his Senate accomplishments. And his short tenure as President of the University of Florida was marked by some controversy.
But he was — and still is — a serious and principled conservative and a strong advocate for the rule of law, civility, and dialogue, rather than scorched-earth, ends-justifying politics. We need more of the former from both parties. We have few from either.
Columbus’s mayor Andrew Ginther could take a lesson from Mr. Sasse. On December 17, Mr. Ginther, a career politician, chose partisan political pandering over both the rule of law and the safety of the citizens of Central Ohio. Ginther stood before cameras to announce to his fellow partisans and any illegal immigrants hearing the news that no city resources would be used to assist the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are carrying out the laws passed by Congress.
The agents were successful without the city’s help but would have no doubt been more so — and we would have all been safer —with it.
The mayor and other officials posing for progressive photo-ops would better serve the public by making sure the nation’s largest-ever welfare fraud — at least $9 billion — recently uncovered in Minnesota doesn’t have parallels in Central Ohio. The culturally-based, industrial-scale fraud is centered in Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community, the largest such enclave in the country. The nation’s second largest is right here in Central Ohio.
Tim Walz, Minnesota’s governor and Kamala Harris’s former Vice Presidential running mate, aggressively promoted the progressive policies that allowed the rampant fraud to fleece state and federal taxpayers. Ohio’s pols need to be serious about rooting out any hint of similar activities here.
As the grandchild of legal immigrants, I’ve long argued for the benefits and necessity of thoughtful immigration of those who share American values and respect our laws. Those here illegally (which is a crime in itself) or who abuse our generosity and presume that our values should conform to theirs are rude uninvited guests. They’re like wedding crashers who most of us would have no hesitation to remove — by force if necessary.
I’m no fan of the strong-arm tactics being used by some federal immigration officials but such efforts wouldn’t be necessary if unserious and unprincipled pols like Mayor Ginther hadn’t created sanctuaries of lawlessness in the first place.
And then there’s our nation’s president. Readers will no doubt note my support for Mr. Trump’s election over Kamala Harris. While I stand by that binary choice because policy trumps personality, his too-frequent late-night social media missives are ugly distractions from important public policy matters.
Two recent posts were particularly egregious. The first mocked the brutal murder of Rob and Michelle Reiner, allegedly at the hand of their own son. If Rob Reiner was an obnoxious public thorn in Trump’s backside, Trump’s post was a dagger to the heart of public civility. His Christmas Eve post attacking Democrats was equally piercing.
While presidents Obama and Biden were dividers-in-chief in their own wrongheaded ways, President Trump’s need to raise the divisiveness bar by wallowing in the gutter smears us all.
We have serious problems that need serious solutions from serious leaders. My new year’s reflection and promise is to continue to advocate for real policy solutions to real problems. I’ll speak the truth as I believe the evidence reveals and call out those who fail to do so. I hope it helps.
While hope isn’t a strategy, it still springs eternal.