By Ray Cardello for August 1, 2021 Season 2 / Post 50

I started this blog in January because I needed to focus on the events happening since the election and express my thoughts. People have asked me how I write five to six hundred words per day, and my answer is I don’t. It is my way of processing. I identify a topic and think it through. My thoughts manifest as my fingers hit the keys. It is a very simple process-I think while my fingers type. There also has been no shortage of material in the last 200 days. The issue is deciding which topic to focus on, and I sometimes have two or three posts I am writing at the same time. That gets tricky.

The challenge for me is trying to stay objective and not be constantly negative. That is why I sometimes have to break from reality and post about something light and positive. My favorite post and podcast have to be from season 1. It is episode 128, written on May 24th, titled “Golf…..A Game for Life”. It was a timely story, a personal story, and an emotional story to write and read. The comments I received on this post make me think I hit the same emotions in many followers of my work.

This literary journey has been a humbling and rewarding experience. Humbling because with each day and topic, I realize how easily things can slip out of control and how little say we have in our collective direction. I am rewarded by how the internet has spread my blog and post to so many. Over a dozen news websites and six podcast platforms publish my blog daily. This network has reached over 65 countries and nearly 400,000 views. I do not make a dime for the effort, but yet I feel rewarded.

One of the downsides to writing a political blog is the divisive nature of politics today. In the past, we were able to have a conversation and debate with people of opposing viewpoints. Today is not so simple. Friends and family members are not exempt from this new social dilemma. Relationships have been cracked or severed simply because of differing political views. I feel folks on the left feed this by labeling those on the right everything from deplorable to white supremacist. Politicians and the media often use these terms so frequently that they become fact for those on the left. How can a college kid be cordial with Uncle Charlie when Uncle Charlie is a white supremacist and only one step away from a hood-wearing member of the KKK? It’s crazy and sad. We can only hope we can recover from this chapter in our country’s history.

The left likes to use hyperbole, and everything is the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War. My thought is that this social division is a far greater threat from the inside than any threat from a foreign adversary. We need to move past this adversarial attitude and find our way back to the middle. We need to acknowledge that we are entitled to different views without being considered criminal or a danger. We have lost civility, and finding it again is one thing we can unify behind. If we are successful, we can begin to heal this country and Make America Great Again.

I thank everyone for your support, and I promise to keep my posts civil, but I will always work hard to keep the facts straight and my opinions sound.