Apparently, our Legislature fawns over men lacking any semblance of morality. Remember Utah Republicans’ 2010 support for their own Rep. Kevin Garn following revelations of nude hot-tubbing with a 15-year-old girl and hush money payments? Now they’ve issued a “citation” (what does that mean anyway?) commending President Donald Trump, one of the most morally bankrupt men in government whose wrongdoings are too numerous to list.
It’s worth reminding the Legislature of the allegory children learn at church about a man who helps a wounded snake. The snake heals. Once it’s no longer in peril, it bites the man and says, “you knew what I was when you picked me up.”
The lesson? We’ve had ample evidence with this president.
Regardless of how often legislators embarrass constituents with ovations and public commendations of a man whose moral stature is lower than a snake’s belly, the story’s lesson holds: beware. A snake remains a snake regardless of the acres of public land he opens for extraction, the regulations he rolls back for their polluting donors or the partisan judges he appoints. The snake will bite you in the end every time.
Robert DeBirk
Salt Lake City