Which side will you stand with?
The side of culture and compassion, equality and economic opportunity? Conservation and connectivity, altruism and acceptance, mercy and magnanimity, justice and judicial integrity? Principles and predictability, science and sharing, diversity and dialogue? Inclusion and intellect, freedom and facts, truth and tolerance?
Or, will you stand with corruption and contempt, abuse and antagonism, fealty and fanaticism? Intolerance and indifference, greed and grossness, hero worship and hate? Disruption and denial, bigotry and baseness, nastiness and name-calling, lies and lewdness, mockery and mayhem, falsehoods and fictions?
In our land of abundance children go to bed hungry, yet politicians eagerly strip them of helpful meals and early childhood education, all so millionaires and billionaires can possess more, more than they could rationally spend in a lifetime.
In our land of intellectual excellence and scientific discovery, revenge would deny advancement of medical research. Lives are at stake, but lust for vengeance seeks to fracture our collective future.
In our land of free elections and dynamic economy, betrayal of our history and foundational principles threatens to remake us into a closeted, bigoted, selfish and self-centered nation.
The choice is ours: Civil or contemptible? Miserly or magnanimous? Guiding or guarded? Caring or conceited? Egocentric or ecumenical?
Increasingly I have been hearing people—friends and TV commentators—say there are many points on which they agree with Trump. They just wish he voiced them in a more agreeable fashion, with no, or less, abusiveness, anger, vindictiveness. I sometimes fall into that abyss, as well.
Then I recall what they said about Mussolini, that he made the trains run on time, as if that success justified his fascist rule. Hitler put Germans back to work, too. Mao eliminated most hunger in China.
But those are extremes. Let’s not paint Trump as their evil successor, just yet. A more realistic comparison might be to Richard Nixon.
Lest we forget, Nixon did some good things: He created the Environmental Protection Agency, signed important environmental legislation, ended the military draft, signed the Title IX act prohibiting gender discrimination in federally funded education programs including sports, and ended the forced assimilation of Native Americans.
Nixon, of course, had his dark side, chief among them the Watergate scandal and its various tentacles including an “enemies list” evocative of Trump’s compendium of people on whom to wreak vengeance.
And it was Nixon who, during a post-presidency 1977 interview with David Frost, voiced what Trump has taken to heart—“When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.” Sadly, almost 50 years later, the Supreme Court has rubber-stamped that extreme, imperialist position.
The future of America as a beacon of good depends on everyday Americans, their choice of a country defined by a vindictive, absolutist Trump or by the words of the Declaration of Independence—“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
