Golden – America’s Integrity Problem

Aesop was a wise fellow. His wisdom still works, even in politics. One nugget: “If you try to please all, you please none.” Modern politicians do that. Jared Golden (D-ME) is emblematic of what ails us as a nation, hole in the bucket, involuntary shapeshifting, integrity problem. The guy is a Maine Democrat, member of Congress – spendthrift, unaccountable, symbolic.

Despite a record that should make Mainers shiver, he makes a pretense to moderation, especially in an election year. Yet his decisions have put Mainers in rough waters. Condoning radical policies, inflation, debt, anti-gun rights, pro-illegal immigration – he shrugs and looks away.

Long ago, working with Colin Powell, I learned real stuff, how leadership really works. Fakers who say one thing or do another are not leaders. Golden is of a type, owned by the party.

Step back and you’ll see how they all operate, pose and preen, reshape themselves in an election year, ask enough independence of their party to make themselves look re-electable, then back to business, same old, same old. Democrat apparatchiks fake moderation, and slowly push left.

Here, then, is the modern plague, political shapeshifting, folks remaking themselves for appeal.  Leadership is not that. Integrity is not that. If you vote a certain way, forever more, you own it. If you are a border czar, you own it. If you vote to raise costs, taxes, inflation, or debt, you own it.

Assuming smart readers are also critical thinkers, you say “Show me.” Fair enough. Sit back. Golden is the type who – like so many – calculates how he is being seen, puts on a show, pretends frugality and caring while spending your future, your kids’ future.  Is that caring?

Call a spade a spade, look at this typical progressive, as he throws up flak. Apply it nationwide. The “Golden problem” is what plagues Democrats, posturing and thinking we are all dumb.

Who then is Golden? Like so many, a pol who defends incompetence, incontinence, and ill fitness as fitness – for the party. That gets him political money. He was all Biden until suddenly he was not. Finger in the wind about Harris. He defends the feckless, until no longer helpful.

He had a turn in the military, where we have “fitness reports.” So, he knows fitness. This guy is a faker, party-before-country, was all in for Biden before Harris and knew neither was fit to lead. BS.

What else? Long list. Progressive politicians put out what they think you want to hear. When truth hits, they duck. This guy – like many progressives – primps well, nice haircut, articulate.

BUT he voted in July 2022 for a tax and spending bill that drove inflation to 9 percent, trigging the highest interest in 22 years, crippling Mainers, doubling heating bills, making groceries, gas, and prescription drugs painful, and no cares. Interest on credit cards exploded, and housing was unaffordable. BS.

This guy, Golden, is the ultimate progressive, about power, disguised and dressed to look like us, anything but. He is – see the record – part of that woke mob, after semi-automatic weapons, no opposition to Biden-Harris remaking Title 9, open to violating Supreme Court decisions.

Leadership is not “trust me, while I rip you off.” Leadership is not pretending you did not vote for what you did. It is not paying lobbyists with “CHIPS” act money, 250 billion hard-earned tax dollars, taken from struggling Mainers to support Democrat vote buyers.

Leadership is not voting for a secretly negotiated gun confiscation bill, taking guns for “Safe Communities.” How did gun confiscation make people “safer” in the Soviet Union, China, Venezuela, Cuba, and India? Hint: It did not. BS.

Leadership is respecting truth, not gaming people. Golden voted against what most Mainers believe in, Biden-Harris priorities that robbed Mainers blind stoked illegal immigration, no stopping fentanyl, voted against pay-as-you-go fiscal discipline. He let debt rip… BS.

In the old days, people stood for something – you could like it, or hate it. Now fakers abound, tell you one thing, do another. Credit to pay for overspending, then tax you blind and blame others.

We can pay our bills and spend less, close the border, work to stop the fentanyl crisis, stop appeasing adversaries, or accept mediocrity and low-integrity leaders. Golden and his ilk are why many suffer, often in silence. He spends money your kids’ money and mine, then begs off.

What else? Like Golden, Democrats today vote against voter ID laws, quietly resisting accountability; vote against saving babies “born alive;” vote in favor of citizenship for illegals under 18. He did all that. He voted against Title 9 protecting girls, and called it “Equality.” Really?

Let’s get real – that is not Maine’s or our nation’s values, just craziness and hurts girls in the name of “equality.” Worst for Mainers, Democrats use scare tactics, saying Republicans who want honest government will “cut Social Security, Medicare, and … move against the national interest.” BS. You know it, I know it, and Golden knows it.

This guy – like so many progressives – pretends to be an honest broker but is for himself. He tells people what they want to hear. I prefer an honest broker with whom I disagree, a Harry Truman, JFK, Ed Muskie, or RFK Jr, over shapeshifting to please me. Truth is, it’s on us.

Old leaders, like Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Colin Powell, and Margaret Chase Smith stood for things. Words are cheap, and life is expensive. Democrats make it more so. Integrity matters. If not now, when? Pols like Golden are what ail us. “If you try to please all, you please none.”

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.