I was a child growing up in San Francisco during the 60s. We lived near Golden Gate Park – a hub for demonstrations. If my mom had to go out on days there would be a demonstration, she would tell us, rather forcefully, we were to stay out of the front room and in the back of the house.
Of course, once she was gone, my sisters and I would race to the front room and peek out the window. We would watch the throngs of people heading into the park. Our day was made when a group of Hari Krishnas, with their flowing clothes and long ponytails, would pass by.
It was an age of unrest – civil rights, Vietnam War, the assassination of our President, a presidential candidate and a civil rights leader. Being in San Francisco, we were living in one of the prominent centers of protests. I knew what was going on. I was just too young to understand the time we were living in. This was just life – hippies, demonstrations and so on.
It was more exciting than scary or worrisome. In San Francisco, I wasn’t aware of demonstrations regarding civil rights. It was all about the Vietnam War. Our family had no connection to the war – or more accurately “conflict.” No one in our family or friends was of age to be drafted.
Still, I knew people were unsettled.
I hadn’t had that same unsettled feeling again until 2016 when Donald Trump was elected president. This time, though, I understood what was happening.
While I found his politics concerning, it was the hate that was most disconcerting. Hate was being normalized, as if this was how we should treat our fellow human beings.
Elections should be about politics.
I can think of plenty of politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, with dubious moral standards. We shouldn’t expect perfect people to be our leaders. Perfect people simply don’t exist. So, we weigh political platforms against morality. How egregious is the level of immorality to justify ignoring it in a leader?
Until Trump came along, I hadn’t experienced an election where the question of morality weighed so heavily on my mind in terms of fitness to serve in the highest position of the United States and maybe the world.
If that weren’t enough, there seemed a level of inhumanity to him that, to me, was inconceivable in a leader. It is hard to digest we are here again with another Trump presidency.
I question people’s assertion that Democrats have lost their way and Republicans have the answer. My reasons probably aren’t what you would think. I feel this way because I don’t think there is a Republican party or platform anymore. It would now appear to be the party and platform of Trump. Compare the 2024 Republican Party Platform to their 2012 platform. The change in tone and priorities is both astonishing and jarring.
I also suggest looking up the 2024 Democratic party platform and compare to 2024 Republican party platform. Again, the difference in tone (use of aggressively provocative language) and substance is striking.
While you are looking things up, look up the characteristics of a cult. It would seem the Trump Party is really the Trump Cult. I have read numerous statements from Trump supporters who justify, trivialize or ignore his shortcomings, like being a convicted felon and found liable for sexual abuse, in their reasoning for supporting him. I believe there is nothing he can do that would dissuade many of his supporters. They are all in. Trump goes over a cliff, they go with him.
If there is nothing someone can do to make you think again, you have lost perspective.
When I think of the government dollars being slashed, these two quotes from “A Christmas Carol” come to mind:
Marley speaking to our obligation toward mankind: “‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’”
An image of Elon Musk gleefully waving a chainsaw to symbolize the thousands of jobs lost (and people tossed to the curb) doesn’t evoke any thought of common welfare.
Regarding the poorest children of the world whom some of the richest men in the world decided are unworthy of our assistance: “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
I can’t imagine any American who doesn’t think government could run a lot more efficiently. If there was a thought-out plan for the decrease in government, I doubt there would be any pushback. But, that doesn’t seem to be what is happening.
Slashing anyone who can be fired because of their probationary status is not a thoughtful plan. Maybe it is cutting waste or fraud. And maybe it isn’t. There is no way to know without some serious analysis. It is just cutting salaries – and people. The numerous fired employees who have had their firings rescinded because the slashers realized we really do need these people supports this.
While there appear to be plenty of Trump supports who remain all in, many are thinking again. Some are federal workers had previously been told their performance was exceptional but were now being told “that based on your performance you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Department of Transportation would be in the public interest” (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/federal-workers-exceptional-reviews-fired-performance-issues-rcna192347) and then callously, and maybe illegally, fired.
It is difficult to muster sympathy for these people, though I try. Many have made statements like I didn’t think Trump would actually do all he said he would, or I didn’t think I would be one of the people fired, etc.
I didn’t think . . .
Those who find themselves targeted are finding out “I didn’t think it would happen to me” was a really bad reason to not care about the fate of others. Maybe they should have tried to think before casting their vote. Reading Martin Niemöller’s poem “First they came” might have been a good place to start.
We are bombarded with mis- and disinformation that has had a startlingly negative impact on our elections, in our society and in ourselves. And yet, we choose not to think and, instead, believe lies and shun the truth. A good word for this is ignorance.
In this age of the internet, there is no justification for ignorance. The truth is at our fingertips should we choose to find it. Too many, though, choose to blindly believe instead of doing their due diligence in fact finding.
Whatever reasons or justifications people give for their choice in a candidate, at some point morality and humanity need to take precedence over everything else. Prioritizing politics at the expense of the lives and/or the dignity of people is wrong.
We are supposed to be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” Disregard for humanity has no place in a free country. And, it certainly has no place in government.
Mankind is our business. Even Marley realized, though on his deathbed, “We were wrong.”