This is not a blashing of President Trump, or Republicans, or conservatives, but it does some express concerns that seem to be driven by a hostile ideology. This festering ideology seems to hold to some nostalgic ideas, such as America's divine authority to lead the world, a notion fueled by the concept of American exceptionalism, fueled in part by the shining "city on a hill" rhetoric borrowed from Puritan John Winthrop's sermon "A Model of Christian Charity" (1630). However, the slogan "Make America Great Again," which originated in a speech made by President Ronald Reagan, has taken on a tone of darkness that contrasts noticeably with Reagan's cheerful, friendly tone. Under Trump, "Make America Great Again" has become more of an authoritative mandate than an optimistic aspiration. It instead seems to express a callousness and disdain for other nations, even our traditional allies, and it is an attitude that has developed more deeply in American culture over the last two decades. It is a sentiment that is reinforced by the positions of the current leadership in the Trump administration through the proposals and resolutions that seem to extend the simmering cultural hostility that many Americans hold for the rest of the world. The agendas and rhetoric Trump tends to promote and use is generally exclusionary in its tone and cynical in its ideology. He seems to desire a nostalgic return to the world order that existed in the past, a fantasy of America that used to be "great." America really is great in a lot of ways, but it was never the perfect utopian society the Puritans sought to establish when they came to the American continent. It is a unique, imperfect nation, a great mad, wonderful experiment, but a return to some vague, mystical, dreamy vision of the past will not magically conjure up "greatness." The answers about "greatness" may indeed be shaped by examining the past to understand where we've been, how things have changed, and where course-corrections might improve a forwarding-looking future with fresh perspectives to make the nation "great." The cowboy frontier narrative is grandiose mythology; the jingoistic propaganda of the Cold War 1950s, post-WWII lifestyle has sunset along with the Cold War order, and the world has changed drastically since then. It's time to move into the 21st century. I wish things were as simple as they seemed "back in the day," but they weren't simple, and they never were. Not unless unless you're referening the dominate, European white male class of "Don Draper" types that could got away with whatever they wanted.
As a woman and a single mother, things are naturally harder, and I never expected it to be simple. I can deal with that. But even as a highly educated woman with lots of job experience and technical skills, I still struggle to get by in today's America. I worry about what's going to happen to me. I haven't been able get permanent, full-time employment since the Great Recession, and so I piece together a living by working several jobs. That means I have pathetic health insurance for myself (an aging person), and for my children. I have a 20-year old son who is lost about what to do with his future and is floundering and making many mistakes—a lot of it spawned by general cultural anxiety. I have a daughter getting ready to graduate from high school, and I don't know what to tell her to expect anymore. But going back to some fantasy of the good ol' days is the not answer. Dismantling the provisions in place to help struggling people like me is not the answer. I'm not dumb, nor am I lazy, but I am scared. I'm scared of the huge student loan debt that crushes my options for the future in many ways. I'm scared of being crushed by the corporate greed that grows ever larger and mows little people down and grinds them up. I'm scared of not fitting in "the box," and I'm scared for all the children that don't fit in these boxes of "success," particularly the oppressive standardized expectations written into America's educational system from pre-K to higher education. I'm scared of the penalties, financial and physical, that await the misfits of younger generations if they don't seem to measure up to the STEM-centric world. I'm scared of the selfishness judgments that drive these cultural attitudes. It is the same kind of selfishness seen in the ultra-conservative agenda, the selfish agenda the president has set before the nation, and the agendas that distance us from global alliances instead of fostering them. No one is successful alone in a vacuum, and that is true of nations, too. Success is not about being selfish. You don't "grow" by isolating yourself from people or, in America's case, holding yourself above the rest of the world. I am scared because there are many people in this country who don't seem to understand this fear.
We are going to have to become more selfless and more open if we are going to survive this globalization shift, because it's not going to go away. This president's message seems to be "Let's be selfish Americans, let's be ONLY about #1"--I can't get behind that idea, and I can't support it. I was not a HRC fan either for reasons that don't matter here, but the ham-handed posturing and rudeness of this man only increases my fear and makes me even more scared for the future—more than I ever anticipated it would. I knew when he won things might get bad, but I didn't expect them to get this frightening so quickly, and I didn't expect him to act so frightfully on the world stage, either. It's all very depressing and unmotivating. I'm desperate for change--but not change back to the past. I want to move forward.
I want to feel hopeful—but I become more sad every day. It was probably not a good idea for me to watch the Comey hearings yesterday because it only reminded me what a real leader looks like: a person who speaks with passion about his country and his fellow citizens, a man who thinks of how his actions affect others and not just himself, a man with integrity, intelligence, and principles, and yes, a man who is man enough to acknowledge his weaknesses—all things this nation needs desperately to guide us through the global miasma. Yet, these are all things that are demonstrably absent in the leader and the leadership in charge of the country today. I live day to day—in worry about what the future will bring. My best hope right now is to hope that I keep a roof over my head and food on the table, and that I and my children stay healthy. I don't expect the government take care of me or fix all my problems, but I never thought that in the United States of America I would have to worry about my government being the one of the reasons I worry about my livelihood or the world that my children will face in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment