Last week, I was going to reprise a report I wrote 11/2/92, the day before the U.S. elections, exactly 28 years ago last Monday. Ultimately, I decided not to post the report, because I simply didn’t feel like commenting on the imminent elections. As I began to write this report on Friday, the President Elect of The United States Of America had still not yet been determined. When I wrote the above-mentioned report in ‘92, the candidates were incumbent George H. Bush, running against Bill Clinton. Ross Perot had thrown his hat in the ring as an independent candidate, but quickly got chewed up by the press, melting down before he could pose a formidable threat. I think at the time, Perot appealed to many of the voters who ultimately became Trump supporters. He was the Washington outsider, who spoke “the truth” about American politics. He would take a sledgehammer to the status quo. Dana Carvey was still with SNL, and I remember his hilarious imitations of Perot (and Bush). The big scandals of the day involved allegations that Bush had had an affair with a co-worker and that Clinton admitted he had smoked pot, but that he but didn’t inhale. My, how far things have deteriorated since then!
I turned off the television last Tuesday night around midnight, upset, anxious, incredulous that the race was too close to call. I could not believe that, once again the supreme spewer of verbal diarrhea might be afforded another term to finally flush democracy down the toilet for good. With a record number of votes pouring in on both sides, the Orange Emperor was ahead in key battleground states. I could not bear to hear the bad news. I went to bed with the horrible feeling in my gut that Trump might very well take the presidency, and that we were all doomed to another four years of his ignorant, incompetent, chaotic, and corrosive madness. He made a joke of my country and I don’t think one single man in history has done so much to erode the sense of well-being of so many. We suffered a four-year train wreck, and watched helplessly as that poorly coifed buffoon dismantled what was left of American credibility. To the rest of the world America was the drunk uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, throwing up on Aunt Edna. I believe history (and facts) will prove that, by his incompetence, the Twitter-In-Chief unnecessarily sentenced hundreds of thousands of Americans to unnecessary death by his mishandling of the COVID-19 virus. I hope history judges the man harshly, but what is done cannot be undone.
I
read an interesting article the other day entitled The Unraveling Of America (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/?fbclid=IwAR1aazQxG6Ad1uMVs9C3CKDUFGCMSuSq6drSRCPaTAg5MnbnJYma3DN1jRI).
It was sent to me by one of my old friends from Alberta, and it clearly and eloquently
traces my country’s gradual decline in status on the world stage. After I read
it, I felt a little better apprised of how we got to the place we now find
ourselves. It is so easy to mock Rump, and to say that anyone who would support
such a man is stupid and uninformed. Certainly, I’ve felt that way, but here’s
the problem. Some people I respect voted for him as well. America was broken
long before Donald Trump was anything more than an amusing poster boy for
celebrity misbehavior. That almost half of American voters supported his
re-election is cause for concern. You can argue that those voters are “idiots”
and wrong-minded, but this begs the question: why are so many so strongly
against the status quo? If anything good came of the past four years it is that,
it exposed the glaring hypocrisy and dysfunction of American politics. I am
mildly encouraged that Americans voted Donald Trump out. To all of us hopeless
dreamers it suggests that more of us choose love and acceptance over hatred and
divisiveness. I know how I have felt for the past four years: hopeless. Joe
Biden is not the magic bullet. If we do not figure out a way to choose love over
hate, we are doomed as a species, regardless of the leaders we choose.
For
the past 4 years, I have felt completely out of control of my destiny, but I
feel a glimmer of hope today. In two days we celebrate the 102nd anniversary of
Remembrance Day, commemorating the armistice that ended World War One on the
eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It is a time to
reflect on and to show gratitude to those who died to protect our freedom. We
do a disservice to all veterans if we do not figure out a way to behave decently
to our fellow men and women. I am not a praying man, but it is my never-ending
hopeful aspiration that I will always choose kindness over cruelty, love over
hate, and acceptance over rejection. I may not always succeed, but these are
the things within my control to do.
- Written by Jamie
Oppenheimer ©2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No comments:
Post a Comment