Wednesday, July 3, 2019

On July 4, recall disaster along with the glory

 

      Happy Fourth of July, in advance. On Thursday you’ll be picnicking, parade-watching, ooohing at fireworks, maybe setting off a few, carefully. If I’m going to get a word in, best do it now, so we can all kick back, relax and celebrate our beloved country’s glorious past and bright future.
     Her troubled present, maybe not so much. Independence Day, the third in the Trump administration. The twist this year is the president is hijacking the celebration in our nation’s capital and turning it into — what else? — a glorification of himself.
     And adding his own personal flourish: tanks.
     American tanks, one hopes. The participation of tanks in patriotic spectaculars is really more of a Russian thing — those May Day parades with perfect ranks of goose-stepping troops, plus tanks and missile carriers rumbling past the generals on the reviewing stand.
     Oh, Trump has ordered up generals, too, and commanded them to stand beside him. Maybe next year he’ll include gymnasts twirling ribbons on sticks.
     Grim stuff. But maybe we can find reason for hope instead of despair. But how? I could point out that there might only be one July 4 left n the Trump administration.
     Or five.
     Hard to say.
     It’s a holiday, almost. Let’s be optimistic. One, then. I’ll put out the flag, as a patriotic American. It is still a great country, despite all those determined to make the country “great again” by betraying its every value.
     Remember: We’ve had grimmer Fourths; four when our nation was divided by Civil War. It’s odd, to take comfort in low points of our history, but the present is so very, well, present, it tends to warp our perspective.


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4 comments:

  1. A minor concern that comes to mind: Trump has ruined the presidency for his successors. From now on, any excess of self glorification, any inane tweet, any vainglorious boast from a president will be labeled trumpean and all Trump's sins will be loaded on the poor guy or gal who dared to set foot on Mt. Trump.

    john

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    1. Maybe not...it will be pretty tough to trump Trump. But he may become a synonym for fucking up, as in: "The Bears really trumped that play."

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  2. Remember when people like John Kass were sneering at Obama as "the Messiah," etc.? Every time he spoke in public he was "making it all about him."

    Now we'll apparently have a tacky-ass July 4 display worthy of a banana republic, and what do we hear from the erstwhile Obama critics? Crickets.

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  3. Politics has certainly become mega polarized, but not equally on both sides. Trump is just an outcome of the process. I remember being reluctant to admit Bill Clinton's peccadilloes in real time. The definition of "is" speech was my tipping point. But if you list every transgression and weakness of the Clintons, real and imagined, you can find a more egregious actual offense by Donald Trump. It is not fifty-fifty situation, but a glaring abomination of deceit and low character that most republicans cannot oppose. I have no faith that it will change when he is gone. It would take a strong and charismatic man with an insightful message of bipartisanship to unite us in the era of "fake news". I do not see that happening. Happy Fourth of July, Sheeple!

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