Yesterday, the President of the United States pushed a message that one of his supporters was himself pushing--that 2 extra years be granted to this President’s term because the first two years had been stolen. It’s true that President Trump misspelled “stolen” (he wrote “stollen”) but that’s not the issue. The issue is how casually brazen this all is.
I am not going to recount how many things President Trump has done or said that are flagrant violations of the Constitution, or of the rule of law, or of longstanding convention. I’m also not going to get into the many, many lies he’s told (reports are that he recently topped 10,000 lies while in office--this milestone was reached on April 29), nor will I expose his blatant, obvious racism.
What this all shows me is how much I, and by extension so many of us, take this thing called the United States of America for granted. And I do mean, “for granted,” as in, “it’s been granted to me and it cannot be taken away.”
All my life as a boy, (then a young man, then a middle-aged man, and now a man straddling the line between middle-aged and flat-out OLD) I grew up believing in America. I don’t mean believing it was a special place to live or that things were good, no matter what little things cropped up to bother us. Much of my youth was a sheltered one--as a middle-class straight cisgendered white male, countless instances of discrimination and systemic maltreatment sailed right past me while I blissfully went about my life. Yes, I had a little red wagon into which I put my puppy dog (and eventually my younger brother as he served as the willing crash test dummy for our increasingly outre science experiments with mass and inertia); I played baseball and watched Saturday morning cartoons and had two loving parents who provided everything I could want. I had no reason to think life was anything other than simple, safe, and fulfilling.
Thus I thought of America. As my mother Gina and my father Jim were my immediate parents, America itself was a sort of third parent--one who provided freedom, security, and fulfillment. Even when I went off to Occidental College, a liberal arts college where a young Barack Obama had previously attended, and I read about the downtrodden in other parts of the world (and even in America) it didn’t feel real. Not in the sense that I didn’t believe it--in the sense that I had no comparable experience. I couldn’t imagine being harassed or denied opportunities or worse yet attacked or killed because of my race, or gender, or orientation. I read books and essays, about it, and even as my eyes were opening to the reality of my own upbringing, I was still not able to see America as anything other than “granted.” Flawed though it may be, I never considered that what America was, or what it could be, would ever change. Yes, I saw the wrinkles in America’s face, but I never thought she could die.
I liken this to the Biblical quote in 1 Corinthians, 12 and part of 13: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (13) For now we see through a glass, darkly.”
I can’t say that I can clearly see the end of America. I still can’t bring myself to believe that. But the difference now is that I can conceive it. I’ve seen enough of this President and his New Republicans to know that America is not granted. It is not immutable, or invincible, or even immortal. It can change, it can be conquered, it can die. This idea of Jeffersonian Democracy, the noble experiment in governance, this flame of liberty, is not inextinguishable. There are other paths America could have taken, and other paths she can still take.
Maybe my brothers and sisters in America who didn’t have the privileged upbringing I did, and who did share in the harvest that upbringing when they grew up have always known what I am coming to know, slowly. Maybe they have always seen clearly what I am seeing through a glass, darkly. If so, then perhaps the accidental benefit of this awful realization is that I have grown closer to those whom I have been alienated from due to my privilege.
If America survives, I will cherish that, at least.
Be seeing you!
I am not going to recount how many things President Trump has done or said that are flagrant violations of the Constitution, or of the rule of law, or of longstanding convention. I’m also not going to get into the many, many lies he’s told (reports are that he recently topped 10,000 lies while in office--this milestone was reached on April 29), nor will I expose his blatant, obvious racism.
What this all shows me is how much I, and by extension so many of us, take this thing called the United States of America for granted. And I do mean, “for granted,” as in, “it’s been granted to me and it cannot be taken away.”
All my life as a boy, (then a young man, then a middle-aged man, and now a man straddling the line between middle-aged and flat-out OLD) I grew up believing in America. I don’t mean believing it was a special place to live or that things were good, no matter what little things cropped up to bother us. Much of my youth was a sheltered one--as a middle-class straight cisgendered white male, countless instances of discrimination and systemic maltreatment sailed right past me while I blissfully went about my life. Yes, I had a little red wagon into which I put my puppy dog (and eventually my younger brother as he served as the willing crash test dummy for our increasingly outre science experiments with mass and inertia); I played baseball and watched Saturday morning cartoons and had two loving parents who provided everything I could want. I had no reason to think life was anything other than simple, safe, and fulfilling.
Thus I thought of America. As my mother Gina and my father Jim were my immediate parents, America itself was a sort of third parent--one who provided freedom, security, and fulfillment. Even when I went off to Occidental College, a liberal arts college where a young Barack Obama had previously attended, and I read about the downtrodden in other parts of the world (and even in America) it didn’t feel real. Not in the sense that I didn’t believe it--in the sense that I had no comparable experience. I couldn’t imagine being harassed or denied opportunities or worse yet attacked or killed because of my race, or gender, or orientation. I read books and essays, about it, and even as my eyes were opening to the reality of my own upbringing, I was still not able to see America as anything other than “granted.” Flawed though it may be, I never considered that what America was, or what it could be, would ever change. Yes, I saw the wrinkles in America’s face, but I never thought she could die.
I liken this to the Biblical quote in 1 Corinthians, 12 and part of 13: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (13) For now we see through a glass, darkly.”
I can’t say that I can clearly see the end of America. I still can’t bring myself to believe that. But the difference now is that I can conceive it. I’ve seen enough of this President and his New Republicans to know that America is not granted. It is not immutable, or invincible, or even immortal. It can change, it can be conquered, it can die. This idea of Jeffersonian Democracy, the noble experiment in governance, this flame of liberty, is not inextinguishable. There are other paths America could have taken, and other paths she can still take.
Maybe my brothers and sisters in America who didn’t have the privileged upbringing I did, and who did share in the harvest that upbringing when they grew up have always known what I am coming to know, slowly. Maybe they have always seen clearly what I am seeing through a glass, darkly. If so, then perhaps the accidental benefit of this awful realization is that I have grown closer to those whom I have been alienated from due to my privilege.
If America survives, I will cherish that, at least.
Be seeing you!
RSS Feed