I have been incredibly lucky to have lived such a long and happy life. Until now there was never a day in my life that I didn’t wake up looking ahead and believing that the future would be even brighter. This is no longer true. Every day I wake up thinking that this Nation has taken another step into the abyss. This is merely the symptom of where we are. A Nation divided by racial hatred, wealth, greed, and poverty.
Trump has accelerated the decay. He has and continues to ride the tide of wealth vs poverty, success vs failure, rich vs poor. To some extent, this probably has always been true in America, but it was always balanced by the prospect of upward mobility. However, what we are seeing today is that it was not true for everyone. And it seems to have been stalled since. We are seeing this more clearly today than ever before. We are seeing that our system is broken. There is no will or desire at the top to support the prospect of upward mobility.
I do believe that almost every President from Roosevelt onward did make efforts to improve the conditions for people struggling to survive. Certainly Rosevelt introduced the WPA a Federal work program in his New Deal. Truman introduced the Fair Deal which part of it was the guarantee of a minimum wage. And Lyndon B. Jonson lunched the Great Society in order to wage war on poverty.
These Democratic Presidents did not destroy capitalism they enhanced it.
If this Nation is to survive – if tomorrow is ever going to look bright again for the United States of America – TRUMP must go. Not because he’s a Republican or a Democrat, but rather because he is a threat to the future of this nation. He serves only himself and the very wealthy. He will destroy this country if he is not stopped. But it’s not just Trump. Mitch McConnell and the lemmings who call themselves the present members of the Republican party must be taken out of office.
Actually, the best thing that could happen for this country at this time would be if the Republicans came up with a really viable Republican candidate to run against Trump. For his own party to reject him. The best thing for the Republican party would be for them to clean house and again become a party of Check and Balance, so that there could be real discussion on issues between Democrats and Republicans.
This should not be the mantra of a few; this should be an issue upon which the honorable Democrats and Republicans can agree. This is an issue to save this country and save our human values, and to improve the conditions for everyone.
Even during the great depression of the 30s there was hope that things would be better tomorrow. We must make tomorrow again brighter than it is today. This is called hope.
A well reasoned and passionate article. I’m intrigued by the thought of Republicans running a decent candidate to replace Trump. I know quite a few Republicans and none of them seem willing to do anything but cash-in their enormous tax cuts, revel in their dismantling of regulations that protect the environment and the entire social safety net and, of course, the Supreme Court Justices that make a mockery of the rule of law.. They hate Trump but they love what he has done for them. It is hard to imagine a more despicable party than the GOP has become. Shame on them.
I could not agree more with your eminently reasonable comments and suggestions. But I despair to see that the Republican Party has allowed itself to be taken over by a “movement” – of which DT is more a masthead than the prime mover – which deploys the very methods and tactics with which democracy was hollowed out in Italy, Spain and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Given the current constellation in Congress, impeachment is unlikely to succeed but may even solidify Trump’s “base” – so the only true hope lies in the ballot box 2020. Democrats must identify and unite early behind a candidate who can galvanize the democratic majority which was actually there in 2016 (3M voters more than the “winner”) but was frustrated by the obsolete electoral college system, further perverted by the now Supreme Court-sanctioned blatant gerrymandering.