As I wade through the neck deep social media fury in response to the election of Donald J. Trump to be our 45th President, I’m emboldened by friends that believe that we can push through the intellectual and political morass, and by my 16 – year old daughter and her cohorts who marched in protest of his election in the streets of Philadelphia this past Thursday!
However, I’m more shocked by the rampant cognitive dissonance of the particular Americans who voted for him. I’ve read statements like “America needs a wake-up call,” or, that “Hillary is an elitist, pompous and duplicitous crook,” and that “she would have increased our national debt even more,” as reasons for voting for Mr. Trump. People have literally ignored facts and data that there is no bigger crook or con man in America than Donald Trump. He is on record stating bold, orange-faced lies on television and in print about a myriad of things large and small, he has a history of bigotry, chauvinism, misogyny, and has a legacy of bilking insurance companies and welching on debts to thousands of little people who live life just like the hordes of folks that view him as a savior and/or the person they want to be Commander in Chief. I mean, a man that brags about using bankruptcy as a common business practice, is the very man you want to reduce our national debt??? Really?
The notion that one can separate or remove themselves from Trump’s past actions, statements, deeds, and beliefs is preposterous. I’m sorry, you may think you are not a racist, but if you support a bigot, you are in the very least… okay with his bigotry, if you voted for an admitted “coochee” grabber you are somewhat fine with how he used his little hands – if you suspended disbelief and voted for Trump, there are no words or phrases, statements or intellectual ladders that can lift you or lead you out of Trump’s historic pit of wickedness and folly. He is yours. All of him and most importantly all the Ku Klux Klansman and homophobes that are clearly a part of his “revolution.” Period.
After my 15th glass of bourbon in the last four days, I came to grips with this reality and I stopped wondering how this election could happen and realized in my haze that “Make America Great Again” is just the latestpopular slogan in a long line of blood-soaked catchphrases that justified bad or evil policy in America.
In the past, we have used “Manifest Destiny” to validate the annihilation of Native Americans…. Southerners and their supporters proclaimed “State’s Rights” to justify the enslavement of Africans… the Supreme Court came up with “Separate but Equal” to intellectually buffer the brutality of racial segregation and apartheid…. “Conservatism” was appropriated as a direct response to thwart any real or imagined progress associated with civil rights… And last but not least, “Trickle Down Economics” was the mask sported while the middle class was obliterated.
This is who we are. The question at this point is…what are you going to do about it?
I will remain vigilant and pray that as Donald Trump “shakes up our country” he doesn’t blow up the world in the process.
Please God, please bless America.