It's circus season in America

I have always said I hate politics. I despise its way of turning amnesty into enmity and building battalions instead of bridges. I wanted to write this week about anything besides politics, but right now the nearly 337 million of us living in this country are all crammed into this big-top tent, watching the circus show that is the 2024 presidential race. I like circuses. Always have. But I never wanted to go to one every day. The Republican National Convention convened in Milwaukee this week, if you hadn't heard, on the heels of an assassination attempt at a rally for former President Donald Trump last Saturday in Pennsylvania. Trump he told attendees he was struck in the ear, during in a 90-minute speech Thursday night just before accepting the party's nomination for president for a third time. It was also the longest candidate's speech at a convention ever, according to people who track such things. The previous long-winded guy? Also himself. For a man famous for branding arrogance, the speech began on a remarkably subdued tone. Many commentators speculated that perhaps Trump, a man for whom courts bend the Constitution, had been humbled by this experience. At the RNC it seemed — for about 15 minutes — he was a milder Trump as he started speaking using a teleprompter, and a measured tone. "We must not demonize political disagreements," he said. I could not agree more. Another Republican once believed that wholeheartedly, too. Abraham Lincoln in 1860 won his party's nomination for president, stunning many who felt certain his much more connected and wealthier political rivals would win out. Then, in another twist, Lincoln did one even better: Once elected, he asked three of his most prominent challengers, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase and Edward Bates to accept cabinet positions in his administration. His thinking was that the country was facing its most critical time, and it needed its strongest thinkers. The American people should not be deprived of those talents in a tornado of infighting or retribution, said Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian and Pulitzer-winning author, who wrote "Team of Rivals" about the relationships Lincoln had with his cabinet in an interview with the National Archives publication, Prologue Magazine. That required extraordinary emotional strength, character and self-confidence. "The qualities we associate with human greatness — such as sensitivity, empathy, compassion, kindness, honesty — are also keys to political success," Goodwin recounted. "When something went well, Lincoln always shared the credit. When something went wrong, he shoulder his share of the blame. When he himself made a mistake, he acknowledged it immediately." Would this — could this — be true of Trump? Trump is a ringmaster, knowing full well the power of spectacle and substance. He knows the power of words, or at least the power of the volume and deluge of particular words. Will voters trust a man who used his words to tell the white supremacist Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by"? Do they trust a man who blithely posted on social media in September — two and a half years after he left office—- that the retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley committed a "treasonous act" that was "so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!"? Will we trust a man who, just two weeks ago, posted on Truth Social for military tribunals for former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., because she helped lead the Jan. 6 committee investigation? Oh, and televise it. For ratings. Can we trust a man who sprinkles dehumanizing words like "vermin" and speaks openly, loudly and on the record that retribution is his goal to shift his focus to un-demonizing the machine he plugged in? The good news is this: I absolutely believe we can stop the demonizing of political disagreement in this country. It starts with leadership. If you can stand in front of the Capitpl building and encourage angry throngs of "tourists," some of whom then violently rush in, storm police barricades, deface it with feces and build a scaffolding for Mike Pence, using the power of your words, then you can use those same powers to rein it in now. Show us. If you really wanted to make America great again, you might want to start by making it a little more calm. This circus tent is ragged. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.