People sometimes call me a pessimist. It comes from me seeing not just best-case scenarios, but worst-case too. Makes me sound surly, but if “pessimist” equates with “realist,” I plead guilty.
Over my almost 40 years periodically covering the Middle East, I’ve never been hopeful about prospects for region-wide peace. Sad to say, I’ve been right. Over the dozen or more trips I’ve made to cover news in the Soviet Union and now Russia, I’ve never been confident that our nations will ever see eye-to-eye. Over the seven American presidential campaigns I’ve covered, not to mention the victors on whom I’ve reported, I’ve never found perfection in a president. Sorry, but that’s an irrefutable fact.
Which brings me to this year’s race, especially since Colorado is now briefly in the cross-hairs.
The two contenders generating the most passion are also generating — in some of us, anyway — the most pessimism. Remember, in my book, pessimism is a synonym for realism.
Take Donald Trump’s seductive slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Sure, it has a nice ring to it. Only trouble is, America’s already great. Yes, we have problems domestic and foreign and some are getting worse, but here’s the thing: We’ve always had problems, we’ll always have problems, and no population in human history has ever prospered without problems.
If that doesn’t sound realistic, you haven’t been paying attention.
Some of our problems can be laid on the doorstep of President Obama, some are the fault of George W. Bush (which then fell into Obama’s lap, little things like war and recession), and some are simply the inevitable upshot of a diverse democratic society that historically is governed by imperfect compromise as opposed to dictatorial certitude.
That’s a ration of realism too.
However, after covering news in more than 80 nations around the globe, I can say with grateful certitude that we’re still the greatest on Earth. Does everyone agree? Not at all. But are we still admired around the world for our unending innovation, our moral compassion, our generous sacrifices, our limitless opportunities, and above all, our incomparable liberties? Yes we are, I have heard it from citizens standing on the world’s highest and lowest rungs, and seen it firsthand. As long as we don’t allow those attributes to ebb, we will be the greatest for generations to come.
And now to the Democrats. We have two running for their party’s nomination, and each is burdened with significant shortcomings. Hillary Clinton’s, while not to be discounted, are about her past. Bernie Sanders’ are about his future.
Free college all around? And single-payer health insurance? And a markedly higher minimum wage? And an epic war on Wall Street? Personally, my preference would be to live on the perfect planet that Sanders envisions. But that’s not going to happen. Obama has run into roadblocks just trying to implement Sanders-lite. Do you actually think this White House hopeful, tagged with the damning label of “socialist,” has a snowball’s chance of success? Let’s get real.
What Trump and Sanders have in common is this: they articulate an illness, but beyond unfulfillable elixirs, neither seems to have a clue about creating the cure. Or if either one does, he is keeping it very well hidden.
If more Republicans are backing Trump than any other candidate, they are being snowed, plain and simple. If more Democrats are excited about Sanders than Clinton, they are setting themselves up for a blizzard of disappointment.
It’s pitiable that presidential elections sometimes come down to who’s the least bad, instead of who’s the most good. But they often do, and we’re there again this year. That’s not pessimistic; it’s just realistic.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen was a correspondent for ABC News for 23 years, then for HDNet television’s “World Report.”
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