as the 2018 winter olympics begin, a sporting event that is meant to bring the world together, our nation plays the worst political hand possible. to set the stage:

we have been fighting with north korea for the past year, blaming each other for tyranny,  nuclear proliferation, etc.  but it was our adversaries who won this past political joust by reaching out to their neighbours and sending a team of athletes and dignitaries to the games just recently and deciding to extend their hands in peace for at least this moment.

america, on the other hand sent mike pence and his wife (current v.p. who seems to be a puppet of the president) who instead of trying to have a dialogue with the north koreans, decided it was better to meet with a few dissidents who had escaped from the north recently and brought over another american whose son was arrested in north korea for behaving badly and ended up dying later on due to possible hardships he suffered in the hands of his captors.
the nytimes explained it perfectly:

WASHINGTON — They stood not 10 feet apart in a V.I.P. box: the 58-year-old vice president of the United States and the 30-year-old sister of North Korea’s reclusive dictator, representatives of two countries locked in a stubborn, ever more perilous nuclear standoff.
But Mike Pence and Kim Yo-jong stared fixedly ahead during the chilly, blustery opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Friday in Pyeongchang, South Korea. There would be no dramatic handshake to upstage the athletes, flag carriers, drummers or torchbearers.
The politics behind this near miss were set a week earlier in Washington, a senior administration official said, when President Trump told Mr. Pence, in a meeting with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, that he was open to a meeting between the vice president and the North Koreans — but only if Mr. Pence delivered a tough message, and only if the encounter was away from TV cameras.

he even ended up getting seated next to the leader of north koreans sister at the opening ceremony and he did not even acknowlede her existence much less shake her hand, he was on a completely different mission as the washington post goes on further: 

Nearly every one of Pence’s actions during his five-day trip to Japan and South Korea this week — his public declarations, private murmurings and scripted meetings and visits — have been aimed at combating North Korea’s shiny propaganda with gritty talk of his own.

what are we doing? arent we above this? how can the bully in the high school yard be so scared of the little boy we were picking on that we cannot even put aside bygones to try and get along during an event that is supposed to bring nations together.

as we fall from the world stage, and countries like china and india gain momentum, i watch our leaders and our nation struggle with pushing their agenda first. a flawed and outdated ‘we are right, you are wrong’ stance that shows both ignorance and weakness. a sad showing for what was once such a great nation.

let times change.

if you did not see the opening ceremony, the drones were amazing.