The long and agonizing political campaign leading to the
Presidential election of 2016 is
nearing its torturous end. The
candidates for the President – Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party and
Donald Trump of the Republican Party could not
hold more disparate political, economic and social points of view regarding the
American future.
For me, Donald Trump represents the antithesis of my worldview, my
personal outlook and my political philosophy.
This election is like no other that I have ever experienced. It is my conviction that it is an indicator
of the tragedy of 21st century America. The nation is dramatically polarized and the
differences seem irreconcilable.
In my judgment, Donald Trump has managed to give credence to all
the fears, disappointments, feelings of personal inadequacy and sense of rage
that have been festering within the minds of those who find his message
appealing. He has opened up a Pandora’s Box
within the national psyche. The
repressed feelings and personal conclusions that have found release reflect the
endemic racism, prejudice, sexism and xenophobia that have haunted the American
scene since its very inception. They
represent exceedingly volatile feelings of resentment and personal inadequacy
within this rapidly changing modern world of humans held for so long by a
significant portion of the American population especially within the white male
community. Furthermore, it was the
national ascendancy of a remarkably intelligent and successful Black man as
President that more than likely helped reignite these perceptions.
In fact, the American system of education and American-style
capitalism have failed this population completely. As a consequence, they feel left-behind and
disposable within an economic system that regards nearly everything as a
commodity to be exploited.
What is currently unfolding in American life is reminiscent of
what occurred in pre-World War II Germany.
Adolph Hitler found scapegoats for the economic and social malaise that
gripped Germany during that era in the Jews, Gypsies and the Communists. For Donald Trump, the “villains” have been
identified as the Immigrants and the Muslims for the most part.
Whatever side manages to become “victorious” in this election will
not prove to have any curative value in regards to the sickness that haunts
this country. These forces, once
unleashed, cannot be contained or restrained any longer. There is a new norm that is arising on the
political scene that is quite unsettling.
In spite of any well-meaning optimism, America is not the
country we would like to envision and probably never has been. Historically it is a nation steeped in
feelings of intense racism, an endemic fear of difference and a mistaken and
severely overblown sense of exceptionalism within the world arena.
America seems to possess all the hallmarks of a civilization on
the decline. It has become a bloated militaristic
state with a well-armed citizenry where the economic spoils are going to an
exceedingly small proportion of the population leaving a huge wave of
deprivation in its wake. Ironically, the
person chosen to soothe the angst of those that have felt abandoned is exactly
the person that has taken full advantage of his position of wealth that is at
the root of the nation’s ills.
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