American can’t be great again until its government becomes honest.

When Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech in Cleveland as the Republican Nominee for the Presidency of the United States of America, he will repeat his campaign mantra, several times, saying how he will Make America Great Again. 

Before the echo of his words have finished reverberating off the walls of the convention hall, Democrat pols, media pundits, and his distracters inside the Grand Ole Party, all sounding remarkably like Elizabeth Warren, will cynically challenge him for details concerning how he’ll do that – make America great.  

How he answers can start with words hard to say, though they shouldn’t be.  Their voicing was made easier after our last Independence Day.

On July 5, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation paved the way for the truth.  And that truth is that our government is thoroughly corrupted. 

In his fifteen-minute address to the nation, James B. Comey did us a great service, although he perhaps irreparably damaged his once stellar reputation as the reincarnation of Eliot Ness.

The final minute of his articulate and compelling account of the methods and results of the Bureau’s investigation, cut the legs out from under his image as the lone remaining role model for high-profile fidelity to duty, honor and country in federal government service.

The clock struck thirteen, and we gasped as Comey became the bookend to the fall of General David Petraeus.

It hurt us to watch, on both occasions. But we needed to see it, remember it, and learn from it.

American can’t be great until its government becomes honest.

That’s what Trump needs to say – in one way or another.

One can argue that honesty in government has always been in short supply.  And, that government dishonesty has only become apparent due to the advent of the internet and its rapid and wide dissemination of information that makes dishonesty merely appear to be more prevalent today than in past times. 

That may be true. In fact, it’s probably true that government dishonesty is only perceived to be worse now than ever.  But, as some like to say, perception is reality.  And the reality is that Bill and Hillary Clinton are, for half the nation, the poster couple for a legion of professional grifters who siphon wealth out of a cascading waterfall of government levels – from city, to county, to state, and on to the big money pool in D.C.

The special genius of the Clintons is that they’ve expanded their unique style of corruption by marketing their influence across the globe. They can be bought because they’re for sale.  

On the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton on the day of Comey’s speech, President Obama said, “no one has been more qualified to be president than Hillary Clinton.” And so it seems that Dwight David Eisenhower’s role in bringing freedom from Nazi horror to Western Europe is eclipsed by Bill and Hillary Clinton’s global selling of influence. 

The Clinton Global Initiative brings a shame on the nation that should embarrass us all, but doesn’t. 

Meanwhile, three-letter acronyms in D.C. have become brands renowned for incompetence and/or corruption: IRS, TSA, EPA, CIA, DHS, HHS, BLS (Bureau of Labor Statics), etc.  Plus, we must not forget the one, two-letter acronym that represents the ultimate insult to those Americans who have most selflessly offered themselves for genuine service to the nation: VA.  

It’s hard to type “veterans” and “Veterans Administration” in the same sentence.

Now, as of July 5, 2016, we can add “FBI” to the list. It hurts to do that. Those postponing the pain by awaiting the mass resignation of agents from the Bureau, something they predicted in the event it dodged its duty to be fair and impartial, are waiting in vain for Godot.  He’s not coming because he doesn’t exist.  

Making American great requires honest government. We can’t wait for that.

Those would be hard words for Trump to speak to the GOP convention, because they also apply to the political party he’ll address, and then attempt to lead.  

Not since 1861 has the nation been as divided as it is today.  If the division was demarked by a Mason-Dixon Line, things might well have turned violent by now.  But it’s a different type of civil war. It’s one between two, irreconcilable, political ideologies.  Not among the parties, but among a geographically integrated citizenry.

It would be easier if the split were along clearly-marked political party lines.  But because there is no clear differentiation between the two major parties, there is a desperate truth that the GOP Presidential nominee needs to speak in Cleveland; he’s the only one who can say it aloud, and have a chance of making it stick.

To make America great again, the Republican Party must be honest about that for which it stands, because, to date, it has not collectively stood for much of anything beyond the National Anthem.

It must now stand for honesty in government because today’s government is thoroughly corrupted.

Say it Donald.  We are Americans. We can handle the truth.