Tuesday, July 25, 2017

An Eagle Scout’s response

In The New York Times, Jonathan Hillis, an Eagle Scout and a co-founder of Scouts for Equality, offers his thoughts about yesterday’s disgraceful performance by Donald Trump. An excerpt:

Even after prefacing his remarks by saying he “shouldn’t talk about politics,” he couldn’t stop himself from devoting the bulk of his speech to an unfortunately predictable combination of grandstanding, politicking and lewd inappropriateness. Seemingly egged on by a mass of adolescent boys, he became even more extreme than he is in his usual campaign speeches.

Reading through dozens of Facebook posts from my Scouting friends after the speech, I discovered an outpouring from across the political spectrum of disappointment and sadness: a nostalgic feeling of innocence lost. For myself, and I’d imagine for millions of other scouts who consider Scouting to be the greatest influence of their childhood, the president was breaking a sacred barrier we never thought he would cross.

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