“And so, we’ve got groups here in town, members of the House and Senate . . . who whipped people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things that they know—they know—are never going to happen.”
—John Boehner, CBS Face the Nation, September 27, 2015

Politicians have always made promises they knew they couldn’t keep, declared in order to win elections. What is different about today’s elections is not only that the promises are especially outrageous. Even more amazing is that more citizens appear to actually believe them.

One candidate for president has promised to end the Syrian refugee crisis by sending all the Syrians back to Syria if elected president. And how will he do this? Take control of all the nations who have Syrian refugees? Force them to do his bidding? Set up some miraculous delivery system through battlefields for millions of refugees?

We have grown up listening to stories of World War II victories as though they were inevitable. In addition, post World War II was a favorable economic time for the United States. The nation had survived war with its factories and infrastructure intact, unlike Europe and much of the world.

American leaders from Eisenhower to Kennedy had known war, as had many members of Congress. The political parties had their partisan moments, but more often than not, they cooperated for what was best for the nation, knowing how close we came to losing it.

One cannot picture them risking America’s standing in the world by a willingness to bring the government to its knees over a single issue.

We live in a time of no perfect solutions, worsened by selfish political posturing. Yet we yearn for that magic bullet to solve our problems. It doesn’t exist.

To reach solutions, we have to listen and, when our turn comes to suggest, do so with genuine ideas, not quick fix solutions suitable only for sound bytes on the evening news.