Citizen’s Lament

The results of the election for President of the United States on Tuesday Nov 11, 2016 is a day that brings me great sadness.  I regard it as a regrettable turning point in the rather short history of the American Republic.  On this day, the American electorate – or at least half of them – have knowingly chosen a man who has exhibited, during the campaign, behavior that clearly shows him to be mentally disturbed, a person lacking in moral principle, almost completely devoid of compassion for his fellow beings, bigoted towards huge portions of the American population and especially lacking in the intellectual acuity to appreciate the complexities of the modern world and the legitimacy of science.  To have such a personality replace a man of such stature, poise, acute intelligence, compassion and understanding is almost too much to bare.  President Obama is a true statesman and will be regarded as such by future historians.

The nation has apparently chosen the darkness.  The nation has apparently chosen “leadership” that has maintained that climate change is a hoax.  To accept such an idiotic and destructive point of view is to consign future generations to a hellish environment.  This is no small matter.  We should all be deeply concerned about the future of the planet we share with all of humanity.

The nation has apparently chosen a man who has little or no understanding of the complexity and nuances of international relations and has a distorted affinity to those authoritarian world leaders that he regards as strongmen.  He has already enlisted members of his cabinet who are outspoken advocates of violence and aggression as a legitimate tool of foreign policy.  They have shown themselves to be extremists that look upon all of Islam as the enemy and are bound to get us into war once again.  They are bigoted men who seem to look favorably upon torture and wholesale destruction.  They are individuals that operate on principles that can be likened more to fascism than a supposed democratic republic.

The nation has apparently elected an administration that insists upon finding scapegoats to explain the complex issues that surround the realities of economic life in America.  The flaws in our economy have as their source the fundamental reality of a system that is almost completely devoid of compassion and has created a grossly inequitable distribution of wealth in favor of the powerful.  Interestingly, Trump and the economic class he represents is closer to the source of the issues that befalls us than immigrants or Muslims or Blacks could ever be.

The nation has apparently decided upon a President that could quite possibly lead us down the dark road to Fascism – the man possesses all of the qualifications that clearly indicate his affinity towards such a worldview.  One need only study the rise of Nazism in Germany to see the disturbing similarities.

If we are not vigilant, the nation could face a deeply dark and devastating future from which we may not easily recover.  I am saddened by this possibility, for we have chosen a path to decline when so much more is possible.