The Anti-Griffith Show

In 1925, Bobby Jones lost the U.S Open golf championship by one stroke after calling a one-stroke penalty on himself earlier in the tournament. He believed that a ball had moved after he addressed it even though no one else saw any such thing. Over the objections of tournament officials and Walter Hagen, his playing partner and competitor, Jones insisted on adding the penalty stroke. When the press congratulated him for his honesty, his reply was, "You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.” To Bobby Jones and people like him, integrity was inviolable and not for sale at any price.

This ideal was common in popular culture when I was growing up, but of all the examples I could cite, first and foremost in my mind is The Andy Griffith Show. The show revolved around Sheriff Andy Taylor and the other residents of Mayberry, North Carolina, a typical small American town. While the show was very entertaining, it was also a moral compass and a celebration of our national character at its best. The show inspired us to be better people.

While I may not have had the words for it in my childhood, I was most impressed by Sheriff Taylor always being the bigger man no matter what. He wasn't only kind and unselfish when it was easy, but also on occasions when the rest of us might have retreated from our noblest ideals. People came first and his ego was no part of the equation, For instance, if he had to bring people together, Andy would try to promote peace and harmony without any need to take the credit, and he would even pretend he wasn't as wise as he actually was. He didn't need acknowledgement of his superior insight, and more importantly, he wouldn't buckle if people laughed at him and said. "Gee, Andy, you would think a smart fella like you would have known better!" He would just smile and take it, allowing them to laugh at him because he cared about others and he would do the right thing whether it was hard or easy.

We now have a United States president who is the exact opposite. His narcissism will always take precedence over all else. For this reason he has done everything in his power to erode and destroy the institutions of a free and civil society. Because he isn't man enough to admit the indisputable fact that he lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes, he'll stop at nothing to have people believe that our very democracy is compromised and unreliable. He has also made any number of jaw-dropping comments about our courts, for instance suggesting that no jurist with any Mexican heritage can be trusted in a case involving Trump or calling a well respected member of the federal judiciary a "so called judge." No judge can be considered legitimate unless he says Donald Trump is absolutely right about everything. Worst of all, his endless ranting about the media and his critics is designed to make us believe that real news is fake and fake news is real. This Orwellian nightmare come to power is the single greatest threat to our national peace of mind and cohesion I've ever lived to see.

I can't help but think of Superman, not only because that comic book gave us Bizarro World, a planet on which everything was the opposite of the earth, but also because I'm now witnessing an American president who is literally at war with truth, justice and the American way.