Fabulous Job, Mr. Putin

I would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin for doing a fantastic job polarizing our country, setting American citizen against American citizen by recognizing and promoting the most corrupt presidential candidate of the field in 2016, but one that also comes across as the only person blunt and direct enough to speak to the fears of many that we are devolving into an over-regulated and over-taxed society where any innocent and silly activity we may have participated in in the past could come to haunt us for the rest of our lives. These issues we are faced with could have been resolved amicably with a reasonable president who can see two sides of the coin and is willing to compromise. In that case, we would have continued living amicably amongst our neighbors knowing that the people in charge are working on getting us closer together.

Instead, we got a president who performs the most unspeakable actions, exaggerating and popularizing any minor offenses we may have been guilty of ourselves. Half the country identifies with him, despite the fact that his transgressions are so much worse than theirs, because they just cannot identify with the other side that appears to be completely unforgiving of even the slightest misdeed.

The other half of the country sees the lies and corruption for what they are and react accordingly, thereby clashing heavily with the half who refuses to admit that the only one who seems to be on their side is woefully imperfect.

Hence, there is no coming together here. Every imperfect and misspelled sentence or tweet out of the mouth of this president enrages one half of the country and encourages the other. Arguments blossom in all facets of life, people refuse to be associated with people on the other side of the coin and the unity this country was once so famous for has been left behind; FAR behind.

I wonder if Putin is also behind the transformation of Fox news from a news organization into a truth-challenged propaganda machine that blatantly promotes the lies of the president, and thereby further polarizes American citizens.

Even by looking at the viewpoints in this paper, I would say Vladimir Putin has done a marvelous job. It appears our enemy is winning.

Ellie Small, PhD

Byram Township