It was a strange kind of perplexity, one that made the adventure kind of fun, exciting and a touch intimidating.
I entered Moscow’s Red Square on a hot July afternoon in 1956. The Square was crowded. It was a hot time in the Cold War. And my first thought surprised even me. “Look at all these Russians,” I thought to myself, “and there are many millions more where these came from. Here I am, alone among all these people who believe that South Korea started the Korean War in l950!”
That was the worldwide Communist line, which declared that the American-backed South Korean fascists had invaded peace-loving North Korea, but the peace-loving peasants of North Korea had quickly transferred the action southward!
The truth, of course, is that the Russian, Chinese and Communist world attacked South Korea, which was totally unprepared. It was never explained how the peace-loving North Korean peasants somehow turned their plows into Soviet-supplied weapons and took the South Korean capital of Seoul within two days. I don’t think that contention has ever been repudiated by the Communist Party, but it is no longer believed by anybody.
Now, as the great Yogi Berra might say, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
I now find myself looking at millions of Americans who believe President Donald Trump broke his major campaign promise – the erection of a wall on our Southern border. That is not only a lie; it’s a “stomp-down” lie – which means a lie made worse because the pushers and the promulgators of this lie know good and well they are lying in order to damage President Trump by any and all means possible.
When you accuse a politician of breaking a campaign promise, you’d better be able to prove he deliberately lied about his intentions and made no attempt to bring his promises to fruition. A good example of a lying politician is Gavin Newsom of California, who promised to abide by the result of a referendum on the issue of capital punishment. The people of California clearly voted to keep the death penalty. Gov. Newsom then announced he wasn’t going to execute anybody, because he couldn’t bear the thought of executing over 700 convicts on Death Row, knowing that some of them would be innocent. Would Newsom execute perhaps half of them? Or perhaps only 99 of them? The governor did not say. He just brazenly told California and the world that he was breaking his word. History is, sadly, filled with Great Betrayals, and this will go down as another of them.
President Trump, on the other hand, is the opposite of a lying politician who shamelessly breaks his promises. In his efforts to get the funding required to buttress the security along our pitifully penetrable southern border, the president wrestled with Congress and the Constitution like a Seminole Indian wrestling alligators at a tourist fest in Homestead, Florida!
Yes, President Trump wants that wall, craves that wall and will use every tool in his executive kit to get that wall. At the same time, the president is telling the nation the truth about the crisis on our southern border. President Reagan scored high marks for going up to the Berlin Wall and demanding, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” That was the beginning of the end of an evil wall that turned East Germans into virtual prisoners. President Trump is shouting, “Congress, give us that wall!” That would work wonders in easing the crisis on our southern border by presenting an actual, physical barrier to the relentless tide of those seeking to enter our country illegally.
The success of leftist Democrats and major media in brainwashing by stealth the average American into believing that President Trump “broke his promise” is scary.
I now feel as if I’m back in Red Square in l956, and the Big Lie that South Korea started the Korean war is joined by today’s Big Lie that Trump broke his promise to the American people. This time my “visit” to Red Square is not particularly exciting, nor is it “kind of fun.”
It is, however, definitely intimidating.
