Don’t give in to cynicism

Barton Swain’s Jan. 7 commentary (“Trump drops any pretense of truth”) compares Donald Trump’s “inventions and madcap exaggerations” to the mendacity of politicians past and celebrates Trump’s liberating discovery of “the phoniness of a myth that holds everyone else in check.” That myth would be “the obligation to express yourself with sincerity.”

When we become cynical enough to believe that true honesty is not a required ingredient of good government and permit our leaders to manufacture their own realities, however out there, for political gain, our republic’s hike to oblivion is well underway. Swain’s contention that American political rhetoric is always “platitudes and bogus phrases” bearing no connection to truth unfairly paints liars (we got ‘em) and honest folks (thankfully, we have some of them as well) with the same broad indiscriminate brush.

Hopefully, and particularly in these troubled times, we have not lost the ability to value the difference between chicanery and truth, and the willingness to treat each appropriately.

David Fietz

Springdale, Washington