Voices in My Head
Replay: The Death of US: The Tearing Apart of the American Ideal
From the moment that Donald J. Trump was elected four years ago, I have lived in a state of shock and bewilderment. How could a man with such a shady financial, racial, and sexist past (well known if you just Google it) and willing to drool dumb, and I mean dumb, statements become President of the United States? How could 62,984,828 Americans have voted for him? I mean that’s a lot of votes. Not quite the 65,853,514 votes that Hilary Clinton received but still.
The why has been hashed over and over the past four years by political scholars and pundits so it’s no use repeating their conclusions (Google it). No, I’m now trying to figure out why, after the last four years of scandals, missteps, chaos in the Oval Office, the greater division of our nation (not that we were sleeping with each other before him), a pandemic out of control (No, it isn’t disappearing), a wrecked economy, loss of foreign allies, and increasingly bizarre statements and conspiracy theories, that he still has 42-45% of voters still wishing him well? What the hell?
What is it they see that I don’t? I’ve scanned the right-wing blogosphere and news channels and social media universe, and I shake my head over what I read, see, and hear. I mean talk about an alternative universe stretched thin. What country are these people talking about? And then I realize it isn’t the same country that I inhabit. It isn’t the United States of America ideal that I and millions of other Americans live in and envision as our future. No, this is the other America of macho man race-baiting selfish Americans who stand up and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the Star-Spangled Banner and act as they live in the land of the free and home of the brave and my country right or wrong. It’s an America where they only get to choose who lives in this country. Only they get to decide who is a real American and who isn’t. This is not for those who live on the other side of town or the other side of America.
I spent so much time analyzing Trump that I ignored the real cause of his presidency: my fellow Americans. The ones that have created an alternative universe, an alternative America. The other America that finds his boorish behavior and fourth-grade vocabulary attractive and qualifying enough to want to vote for him again. They are the ones that are the problem (Yes, it has come down to us vs. them). And don’t think for a moment, they all are the caricature you think they are: racist white men in clown suits at his rallies. No, there are white women, people of color (more than you want to believe), old, and young waving their signs, proudly wearing their made in China Trump gear and screaming “Four more years!” They will not hesitate to tell you the reasons why and believe me, I’ve heard it all.
Paraphrasing here, the list seems endless: He tells it like it is. The economy, stupid. He took care of those bad hombres from those shit-hole countries. He cut my taxes. He’s the only thing standing between freedom and socialism. Pandemic, what pandemic? He is working with Q to save us from those pedo blood-sucking democrat elites who are stealing our children and drinking their blood (I can’t believe I wrote that). They’re willing to ignore or deny issues of corruption and bad character because well, they have to believe in something that justifies their support. Otherwise, the last four years have been a waste of their lives.
In the 19th-century, there was a political party called the Know-Nothing party and they believed in, well, let the Smithsonian explain it:
“At its height in the 1850s, the Know-Nothing party, originally called the American Party, included more than 100 elected congressmen, eight governors, a controlling share of half-a-dozen state legislatures from Massachusetts to California, and thousands of local politicians. Party members supported the deportation of foreign beggars and criminals; a 21-year naturalization period for immigrants; mandatory Bible reading in schools; and the elimination of all Catholics from public office. They wanted to restore their vision of what America should look like with temperance, Protestantism, self-reliance, with American nationality and work ethic enshrined as the nation’s highest values.”
(Read more Here)
I bring them up because they are but one of the many examples throughout American history where our fellow citizens fell down a rabbit hole of delusions and craziness in pursuit of hate, anger, and a mission to destroy other human beings, whether American citizens or not. This is nothing new. It’s the story of our history. The genocide of native Americans. The exploitation and in some cases the genocide of Chinese Americans. The American Civil War. The internment of Japanese Americans. I remember the red scare of the fifties, the civil rights era, the anti-anti-Vietnam war movement, the Hard hats of the sixties, the silent majority, the pro-Iraq war fever, and every other mania of the past seventy-two years of my life when Americans were willing to turn on each other. From the KKK to the American Nazi Party to Proud Boys to Trump’s GOP, there is no lack of people or organizations willing to sacrifice those ideals mentioned earlier to do whatever it takes to blame a convenient someone else for their troubles.
Before you think that this is only about white people, stop. People of Color who are on the Trump train will gladly affirm that it isn’t. They too will claim that this is about protecting all of us from THEM. They too share the same laundry list of enemies. They will gladly tell you about the need for a strong leader. A really strong leader. Someone who is not afraid to tell it like it is. To point out the enemy and do something about it. It’s those other people who are the problem. Those other Americans who want to turn us into a socialist country like Venezuela or Cuba or are communists (what?) trying to destroy our American way of life (I’m not one of those people). Anyone on the other side of their political divide is the enemy. And if it takes anger, hate, bullying, and maybe a little violence to protect us, then so be it. The only states that matter are the Red States. The only people that matter is those that support Il Duce, I mean, Donald Trump. He knows how to push all the right buttons to get them stirred up and they don’t know why they feel this angry, but they know who the enemy is.
If Trump is re-elected, this will only get worse. If he is not, this will not go away. His cult of know-nothings will not fade thanks to the right-wing media and the social media rabbit hole they have fallen into. They will continue to tear at the fabric of the ideal, ignore the reality of a nation that has always been a work in progress, and propel themselves and the rest of us down a hole from which no lifeline will be able to pull us out. This could be the beginning of the death of the US, the United States of America. Or not.
I know what future they want. They will stop at nothing (and I mean nothing) to ensure their alternative universe future is guaranteed come next January. The rest of us who live in the real America whose ideals include diversity, decency, accountability, respect for human rights, compassion and community have an awesome responsibility. We can either stay home and stay quiet or we can get steely-eyed and empowered and carefully choose this November 3rd the future of ideals we want for our country and each other.
