Donald Trump's history lesson
Echo opinion by journalist Mike Barnicle published in the Daily Beast.
It seems easier every day to wonder if America has lost its memory.
And it seems even easier to believe that what many of us thought and felt about our country 42 months ago is different today as we sit in July of the 2020, election year.
Growing up, a lot of us took it for granted that we lived in the greatest country on Earth.
Indeed, it was an automatic—didn’t the Greatest Generation survive the (a) Great Depression, (b) defeat Japan and (c) Hitler’s Germany, and leave Europe without claiming any territory? We came home, implemented the (d) Marshall Plan, rebuilt whole nations, passed the (e) G.I. Bill, signed a (f) national highway act that opened up the country, helped create suburbs, (g) defeated polio, (h) matched Sputnik, (i) went to the moon, (j) applauded Elvis, said hello to (k) The Beatles and good-bye to (l) JFK, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy while so many had so much dignity stolen from them in places like (m) Birmingham, Alabama, Mississippi, and Massachusetts, and as too many lives and part of our soul disappeared in (n) Vietnam.
We got through Nixon, Watergate, gas lines and huge inflation. Reagan, Bush, the first Gulf War; Clinton “never had sex with that woman” and never explained why he pardoned Marc Rich. The Supreme Court elected George W. Bush and we nearly elected John F. Kerry.
We witnessed a cloud of fear covering a perfect blue sky on September 11th, with President Bush acting like a leader in that moment as he stood in the smoking embers only to turn and light up the Middle East where the fires still burn. We saw Barack Obama arrive carrying a gift of hope that remains largely unopened. We have been eyewitnesses to Russia, a sworn enemy, seeking to disrupt our elections and we go through the days as spectators on the sideline as the dead keep coming home to Dover, Delaware, in flag-draped steel caskets to tears and questions.
Through all of it—the good, bad, the memorable and the instantly forgotten—America has bumped along while millions of our citizens were left without equal access to pieces of their citizenship we take for granted: the right to vote, to be pulled over for a traffic stop without fear, to stroll around a supermarket or a department store without being followed, to expect children to learn in a safe environment, to walk a city street without being stared at, to never be hungry.
We were never a perfect nation but a lot of the time we tried. And failed. But then kept on trying.
We were and are an imperfect nation, an imperfect people, living in this huge, sprawling, multi-colored, open, free land called America. No matter the built-in defects placed in our story by our own hand and our own history it’s remained a land of opportunity, one that’s always in the process of re-working, re-making, re-defining itself hopefully for the better. And no matter what tragedy or inequity occurred, no matter how shocking, terrible or unfair it was, the sun kept coming up in the morning, optimism always emerged from the shade, the darkness and the embers.
Until now.
We got through Nixon, Watergate, gas lines and huge inflation. Reagan, Bush, the first Gulf War; Clinton “never had sex with that woman” and never explained why he pardoned Marc Rich. The Supreme Court elected George W. Bush and we nearly elected John F. Kerry.
We witnessed a cloud of fear covering a perfect blue sky on September 11th, with President Bush acting like a leader in that moment as he stood in the smoking embers only to turn and light up the Middle East where the fires still burn. We saw Barack Obama arrive carrying a gift of hope that remains largely unopened. We have been eyewitnesses to Russia, a sworn enemy, seeking to disrupt our elections and we go through the days as spectators on the sideline as the dead keep coming home to Dover, Delaware, in flag-draped steel caskets to tears and questions.
Through all of it—the good, bad, the memorable and the instantly forgotten—America has bumped along while millions of our citizens were left without equal access to pieces of their citizenship we take for granted: the right to vote, to be pulled over for a traffic stop without fear, to stroll around a supermarket or a department store without being followed, to expect children to learn in a safe environment, to walk a city street without being stared at, to never be hungry.
We were never a perfect nation but a lot of the time we tried. And failed. But then kept on trying.
We were and are an imperfect nation, an imperfect people, living in this huge, sprawling, multi-colored, open, free land called America. No matter the built-in defects placed in our story by our own hand and our own history it’s remained a land of opportunity, one that’s always in the process of re-working, re-making, re-defining itself hopefully for the better. And no matter what tragedy or inequity occurred, no matter how shocking, terrible or unfair it was, the sun kept coming up in the morning, optimism always emerged from the shade, the darkness and the embers.
Until now.
Labels: Mike Barnicle, The Daiily Beast, The Washington Post
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 5:39 AM
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