F*** Trump was plastered on overpasses, billboards, and sides of vacant buildings after Donald Trump’s first election. The remnants still remain and should be appended to include the Democratic party and maybe even the Supreme Court as well.
After a presidency that showed such utter ineptitude handling the COVID epidemic where over a million Americans lost their lives, the country virtually grounded to a halt. Makeshift morgues were created in major metropolitan cities, ending in an attempted insurrection. The Democratic party was too enamored with nominating a younger candidate, in this case a Black woman, that it lost site of the real mission – win at all costs!
This is not a Kamala Harris bashing or insinuation that she wasn’t up to the challenge. It is an indictment on a party that wasn’t up to the challenge. It misread the appeal Trump had garnered during the campaign and over analyzed his miserable debate against Harris. It then proceeded to put on a democratic convention and presidential campaign that was visually appealing, had all the energy of a Broadway show and flash of a star-studded musical. Yet it fell short where it really mattered – the ballot box.
Even President Biden tossed Harris out there and receded to the background like a hurt puppy. He selected Harris as his replacement, but didn’t sound the alarm that the goal was to win at all costs. And now we have crazy 2.0! So, what do we do now? The first thing to do is recognize that the politics of grievance isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon!
It’s too easy to dismiss Trumpism as purely white grievance. Having covered a Trump rally in DC in 2019, I was stunned at the number of African Americans – notwithstanding the clowns on the Trump stages – proudly wearing Trump hats. There is an undercurrent of discontent with American politics that party allegiance alone will not solve. That didn’t go away when Trump launched his third attempt at the White House, and Biden start looking like an aging grandfather, babbling through the debate which sealed his fate. Maybe he stood too long in the “I alone can beat Donald Trump” afterglow to recognize that the party had said thank you for your service and moved on.
America has been at the crossroads before. Starting when it made its first decision to place Native Americans on reservations so white settlers could confiscate their territories, to enslaving a race of people to work their fields. From the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, to the civil rights movement and Vietnam protests of the sixties. From its response to 9/11, the election and subsequent “blacklash” following the first African American president, to now, being on the precipice of authoritarianism and kleptocracy (those that have, get; those that don’t…. well, too bad). The question before us now is, where is the American will?
If Gil Scott-Heron thought “democracy was ragtime on the comers” in his 1974 recording of Winter in America, what would he think now? In a country barely recovering from a pandemic, now facing another virus of uncertainty and doubt, the decisions we make at every level will have major consequences. The warning bells are ringing. America is at yet another crossroad in history and it will take more than a single democrat or republican to right this ship.
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Huffington Post: This Guy’s Got 2 Words For The President, And He’s Putting Them All Over D.C.
Featured image/photo courtesy of Jose M on Unsplash.