the end of America

The following italicized remarks (and the title of this post) were spoken by the 45th President, at South Dakota’s 2020 Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration in Keystone, South Dakota on July 3rd, to 7,000 unmasked fans, with a dais of dignitaries, including his third wife. These remarks are peppered throughout this post to highlight many efforts (or rather his team of writers’ ideas and the Republican party dictating his campaign) and tactics to win re-election next November, while not discussing unemployment which is at a record high, or COVID 19 when infection cases are running right off the graft in the US. This man is on a course to bring the end of America, not a prosperous, generous, healthy, and united America, nor the one that would make my ancestors proud, but a place of fear and hate and worry for all of us who understand fact and science and reason. But I’ll let him tell you that.

 

Seventeen seventy-six represented the culmination of thousands of years of western civilization and the triumph not only of spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason.

And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure.

Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.

Patrick Campbell's Flag

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Say Their Names

Say their names as you scramble your eggs, as you walk to grab your coffee, as you start your work day. Say their names when you hug your mom or your son or your neighbor or your uncle. Say their names as you end your day in bed with your partner. Say their name when you start your car or brush your teeth. When you say your prayers say their names. When you preach. When you teach. When you dance. Or cry. Or talk to your grandmother. Or the cop who pulls you over. Just keep saying their names until this ends and even then chant them out loud. Burn your incense, light your candles, and say their names.

As we let those names linger in our air, let us also remember that, “Since Jan. 1, 2015, 1,252 black people have been shot and killed by police, according to The Washington Post’s database tracking police shootings; that doesn’t even include those who died in police custody or were killed using other methods” (A Decade of Watching Black People Die).

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high crimes and misdemeanors

“The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct by officials. Offenses by officials also include ordinary crimes, but perhaps with different standards of proof and punishment than for non-officials, on the grounds that more is expected of officials by their oaths of office” Wikipedia.

Perhaps there is the catch… in the very notion that this President took an oath to uphold anything expected. Or is his reign a venture into a new America where one man rules unchecked and applauded like the clown in the Dunk Bozo booth at your local fair where gawkers stand in shame listening to off-color taunts? Patterns are clear. Regardless of whether you voted for Trump or not, can you say that he is a role model for you or your teenager? Someone you would trust with your college-age niece? If you say yes, are you for sure 100% sure?

Maybe you admire his fuck-you approach, his drain-the-swamp rhetoric, his glossy but vacant third wife, or the fact that he is someone you imagine you might be able to beat on the links? I get it, no really I do. It’s not that complicated. You’re an all caps person too. Someone who likes to scream on social media with font size oversized: am I right? Someone who runs your business or manages your affairs by insults? He’s your guy.

 

I really can’t say that I fully understand how electricity works, but I know how to turn the dimmer switches in my living room. While I’m not a constitutional scholar, I know enough to know not to bargain over illicit political gains via a party phone, but more than that, morally speaking, I know not to insult a beloved community member whose widow is facing her first Christmas without her person of almost 4 decades, and I think most of us get that is just shitty behavior which I would not tolerate in my classroom or home or pew yet every Republican suit-wearing political secretly smiles about. (Do you really smile and like his frat boy locker boy prattle? Please explain!) His party will not call this guy to task over anything. Not high crimes or misdemeanors or crash and unrelenting rudeness or documented infidelity or tantrums in the Oval office or ignorance on basic knowledge or any of the misleading misinformation that he tweets by the hour. Seriously? I’m struggling.

(Philip Bump/The Washington Post)

I wish they would though. I just wish someone close to him might remind him that he is leading a nation. Our great nation. And I get that it bothers him that people disagree with his version of climate change, military policies, international concerns, maybe even what to eat for dinner, but many do. Disagree. Take health care for instance. People have differences on the topic, so that to bridge that gap, a sensible debate is needed to navigate though it all. But that is a distant dream, one born from my ultra liberal and highly educated stance on the basic needs of humans to grow and develop and become the very best that this nation desperately needs to face our challenges.

Please don’t assume I’m happy about these headlines. I’m not. I am frustrated by the party divide, our paid-by-us politicians (including the President) who do nothing except fan the fire of division. I want a better world. One where all the students who sit in my class room arrive with a full belly and warm clothes, coming from a home of books and love that let’s them imagine a terrific life ahead for themselves, where whether through trade or commerce they build their future and extend our community in ways I can yet imagine. Ways that bred betterment.

What I don’t want is a President who is supported by the world’s favorite dictator. Any of them who he admires.

 

Vladimir Putin says Trump was impeached for ‘made-up reasons’