Joe HonickJoe Honick

As we approach spring, when so many opine about what this season brings, the nation has little for which to be proud of and much about which to be ashamed. Many of the proposals our politicians are presenting, and the ways in which they are brought forth, are simply embarrassing.

Looking for heroes these days, we might find them in towns hit by storms and other natural disasters, where people regularly commit selfless acts and help others. Good luck finding such heroism in our current national leadership and the loud antagonists seeking election to join their ranks.

Nor is this circus passing for a presidential campaign our only repository of ignobility. It’s only natural for many of us to forget historic events when so much goes on daily that consumes our ability to notice, digest and retain.

While thinking about such matters, it’s necessary to consider what highly paid and otherwise financed PR talent and communications armies are imperative elements engaged in these powerful and seemingly endless propaganda campaigns.

To be sure, there’s nothing illegal in these operations. Perhaps whatever ethical limits might prevail don’t forbid using professional PR operations from achieving one of the most powerful citizen expressions at any time. It’s certain, however, that our current tragicomedy represents such corruption and shameful representation of the democracy in which we believe.

Among the confused and shady images we represent to the world are editorial expressions in traditionally conservative media like the Wall Street Journal and carefully neutral but respected Economist, both of whom virtually scream at the notion of a Donald Trump presidency and what it would represent the Grand Old Party in one of the most critical presidential elections in many years. Among other worries in the usually Republican-supportive WSJ comes this editorial’s closing paragraph:

“All of this comes late in the race, and it’s possible none of it will stop Mr. Trump’s momentum. But it’s important for Republicans to hear (his) record because they certainly will hear about it from Democrats if the GOP makes Trump their standard bearer.”

The highly respectable Economist goes even further. Featuring a front cover with Trump in an Uncle Sam costume with the red question “REALLY?” the magazine’s key editorialist screams: “Time to fire him … adding Donald Trump is unfit to lead a great political party.”

Beyond all this, there is the fascinating and surprising commentary from the Republican party leadership, whose banner Trump wants to carry. U.S. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has laid out a plan to sabotage any Congressional support. Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tried his anti-Romney hand and lost.

Yet despite all this, Trump continues not only to beat for the nomination but to shamelessly defy the chutzpah of anyone demanding the release of tax and other records, typically a route candidates use to prove their minimal levels of honesty.

On the Democratic battlefield, in the campaign oratory between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, some Republican sabotage is also afoot. There the effort has been to condemn the former Secretary of State for alleged misuse of her private laptop, as well as some other inappropriate efforts. Of course, they won’t admit that the timing of their probes during a presidential campaign is hardly coincidental.

It would be useful and instructive to probe the works of the PR professionals across the board behind one of the most embarrassing campaigns in memory. When this campaign’s history is written, and a new president is elected in November, with the rest of the world worried and wondering at their own fears and embarrassment of their most powerful ally or enemy, how will we see ourselves?

As I wrote nearly a decade ago: “The idea that voting somehow gives automatic birth to democracy is not only a myth, but a dangerous one at that. It is but the beginning of democracy. In fact, even the word ‘democracy’ gets tossed about promiscuously, even here in the United States. It should also be remembered that Adolph Hitler was in fact elected to office in a free and democratic election.”

One word remains at this point to characterize what we see now: “shame.”

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Joe Honick is President of GMA International.