The mind-boggling thing about Trumpworld is all the people insisting that “this is not America.” People are chanting it in the streets and pleading with the world to believe it.
But, this is America. Though he lost the popular election by nearly 3 million votes, Donald Trump did get millions of votes — enough to tip the Electoral College. The Russians hacked and partisans parsed. Important facts, but not nearly as important as we live in a nation where a Donald Trump presidency was possible let alone realized.
There’s no amount of erasers or whitewash that will eradicate 400+ years of oppression based on race and religion. This is an America that our society cycles back to every so often. This time, though, the world has left America behind and more Americans are self-aware of our inherent ethnocentrism. The difference now is it’s harder to hide behind an increasingly tattered flag that reveals a naked emperor desperate to cling to a national origin story that doesn’t square with historical facts.
Donald Trump, as horrendous and repugnant as it may seem, didn’t make American Great Again. He simply restored America to a version of its past that we haven’t found a way to confront, fess up to, and move on from.
Donald Trump isn’t Adolph Hitler. Donald Trump isn’t Richard Nixon. Donald Trump isn’t Andrew Jackson. Donald Trump is Donald Trump.
In some respects, the world has never before had a Trump and if we all survive this, I hope humanity learns from it and never repeats this monumental mistake. Trump arrived at the right time and in the right place to exploit people (and be exploited [by Russia, by white nationalists, by the Republican party desperate for a win at any cost]) to be elected President of the United States of America. It is the perfect political storm for which we don’t have a scale to measure its strength and predict its damage.
© 2017 D.S. Rotenstein
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After reading this article I am again reminded that there are just sometimes that I wish this country did not have free speech so I wouldn’t have to listen to idiotic rantings like this article is.
Nice perspective on a nightmare we created. I think “karen” is a bit mixed up. She read your blog David and obviously chooses to do so. I’m sure she’s a closet fan.