I can make a better speech than President-elect Donald Trump. It would be a speech without slander of groups of people who make a positive impact on this country.

It would be a speech without hats. It would be a speech without sentences being repeated two and three times, in case you weren’t paying attention.

It would also be a speech that is not so middling that it has to rely on the constant use of “amazing,” “incredible” and “can you believe it” to disguise its lack of credence. It, finally, would be a speech that would connect all Americans with the policies being planned for them after the pep rally is over. It would be oratory.

A leader who thinks he can shape public opinion through use of Twitter has no voice. His reasoning gives way to action/reaction in the digital medium – a quaint diversion from what is being said to his muckety-muck colleagues (the ones who are being selected to disassemble government agencies).

Only time will tell if our health, environment, standard of living and the national debt maintain. If they don’t, then somebody is going to have to start talking faster.

Douglas Yohman

East Waterboro