Voter Expression
I don’t need to tell anyone how divisive things are politically in this country. This America. It’s not our day-to-day. It isn’t business as usual. It isn’t our best foot forward. I blame the majority of Republican politicians backing and including the President we like to call simply “Trump”.
It’s not like we’re fans of his. That we would shorten his name for shorthand in conversation is just a testament to how much we’re talking about how lousy the Commander In Chief is. I remember when we thought George W. Bush was lousy at the job. That was over a decade ago. But Bush was never interested in dividing the country on issues like racial equality, immigration laws, and boldly drawn party lines.
It wouldn’t even cross Bush’s mind to send armed services to US cities to stop a peaceful protest. Many of which turn violent immediately following the arrival of the military. But these days, it’s a Trump tactic. Not knowing how to fix a problem without taking money from it or throwing money at it, he throws his weight at it. You get the feeling that he tried tweeting about it, and is still trying but to no true avail.
What Trump is doing is out of hand, it is out of line, it has been creating a national divide between the political majority of 2016 and the rest of the country. It’s this majority that has tried to stick together since Trump was sworn into office that year. It’s the same group of people wearing Make America Great Again hats instead of masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, refusing to believe in scientific realities and choosing instead to put their logic aside, listening to conspiracy theories that treat scientific data as if it were designed to bad mouth their leader.
This majority, The Trumpsters, with their TV diva leader, Trump himself, are steadily and confidently giving this country, this America, a bad reputation around the world. Read this excerpt from an article in The Guardian written by Simon Tisdall who spoke with a Harvard professor about Trump’s handling of the pandemic, the article itself is from April, 2020:
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Call it the Trump double-whammy. Diplomatically speaking, the US is on life support.
“The Trump administration’s self-centred, haphazard, and tone-deaf response [to Covid-19] will end up costing Americans trillions of dollars and thousands of otherwise
preventable deaths,” wrote Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard.
“But that’s not the only damage the United States will suffer. Far from ‘making America great again’, this epic policy failure will further tarnish [its] reputation as a country that knows how to do things effectively.”
This adverse shift could be permanent, Walt warned. Since taking office in 2017, Trump has insulted America’s friends, undermined multilateral alliances and chosen confrontation over cooperation. Sanctions, embargoes and boycotts aimed at China, Iran and Europe have been globally divisive.
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This is new to us. This is America. We’re used to the best Presidents, the best approach to global crises, the best we can be. What we’re experiencing is a multitude of worse and worse. We were spoiled rotten, like Honey Boo Boo. Now we’re falling off of the tree and being eaten by squirrels instead of picked by the usual farmers. There’s little interest in us until we have new leadership.
Is that true? Or are we as a people louder than the words of our monstrous leader and his group of followers?
I think we are. I think this November we are going to turn heads with how many vote against Trump. I believe in a New Majority. This population of people contains a high number of groups and individuals who will affect change in a manner that will banish Trump, his regime, and his Trumpsters from the power they only cling to.
The Old Majority of Trumpsters clung to their power and since they only sought to use it to their own advancement, will see only the fruits of such labor. In alienating the American people, I believe it will be increasingly difficult for someone to mention their support for Trump and be extended any degree of help or sympathy. It is clear that the utopian plan for Trumpsters is this society that supports them and their money.
After the Trump presidency there will indeed be a sort of fraternity or some other named club that perhaps includes a MAGA hat and a matching tie, a shadow society that will aid each other professionally. But it won’t be American. It will be a shadow republic, a cult led by a former president of the united states. Desperate for power, terrible at holding it, thumbs pressed to their smartphones waiting for the next conspiracy idea to hold them over until they can make America theirs again.
Emmanuel Williams
September 3, 2020