This year, as I do most years, I went to visit my parents
for the Fourth of July. There is an
amazing fireworks show we watch every year that is quite literally in their
backyard, put on from an island in the lake behind their house. As per usual, we all got in the boat, found a
place, dropped anchor, sat back, and watched.
It was an amazing show, as it always is, but I found myself
contemplating where we are and where we are going as a country.
I am a patriot. I
love this country dearly because it is one of the most unique and most
remarkable ever created. Normally, when
I watch fireworks, I feel at least some sense of pride and awe at this
wonderful country. But this year, I
honestly felt nothing. As I watched
those beautiful flashes of color light up the night sky, I could not feel any
pride for this country.
At first, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t feeling
anything. Were my anxiety meds to
blame? Was I just in a non-receptive
mood? Was I just not letting myself feel? All of these questions and more floated
around my mind, but I quickly realized that the truth of the matter, which was
that it wasn’t an internal problem, but an external one.
The problem is that I, like so many, am horrified at what
America has become. We are selfish,
greedy jerks who don’t care about anyone outside our circle of friends and
family. We have allowed our politics to
polarize and bitterly divide us. We have
allowed ourselves to be led by people who care only about exacerbating that
divide, generally through bullying tactics (Trump and Christie, I’m looking at
you), for personal and political gain. A
truly terrifying sense of nationalism has arisen, which threatens to tear this
country apart, from people who believe that nationalism and patriotism are
synonymous (they aren’t; patriotism is loving one’s country, whereas
nationalism is believing that one’s country is inherently superior to all
others, which inevitably leads to hatred, racism, sexism, and other bigotry,
all of which in turn beget violence, which creates a cycle that is nearly
impossible to break) and that they are the true patriots.
America was once a great country (though whether or not we
were ever TRULY great is, at best, debatable).
It was once the image of dignity.
It was once respected around the world.
But decades of bad leadership have tarnished our image. We were starting to remove some of those
stains under Obama, but Trump clearly intends to obliterate that legacy, which
is already greatly damaging our reputation.
We have had very little truly great leadership in my lifetime.
While the lack of real leadership has been detrimental to
this country, equally problematic are the people who follow these leaders. This is true now more than ever, with Trump
giving a voice to the worst dregs of society.
Among his most ardent fans are the worst racists, sexists, and bigots
this country has to offer, and Trump feeds their paranoia just as they feed
his. They see nothing wrong with being
led by a man rife with incompetence and narcissism, a man who believes dissent
against him should not be tolerated.
They actively support his tyranny against this country.
With the country tipping dangerously close to becoming an
authoritarian regime, how could I possibly feel any pride for it? How could I want to celebrate it? The answer is that I cannot. We are losing everything we value, everything
we stand for, yet so many are either blind or willfully ignorant of this. Instead of standing for greatness, for
freedom, for peace, and for equality, we are becoming what we hate. We are becoming a country where dissenting
opinions are crucified. A country where
extremism is embraced by the same people who decry it. A country where ego is the only thing that
matters.
This is not
the country I grew up in. This is not
the country I love. We still could be
that country, but we’re at the tipping point.
If we don’t act soon, the damage to our country will almost certainly be
irrevocable. The road to authoritarianism
and fascism, as documented by numerous scholars over the last century, is a
long one, but we often don’t recognize it until it is too late. It begins with simple things such as
intolerance of dissent and demonization of the news media, and ends with revocation
of basic freedoms, resulting in a State ruled by a tyrant. We are on that road now, and that is why I
feel no pride for this country.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. We are on the edge of a terrifying abyss, but
we can still pull ourselves back. We can
still make this country truly great. We
start by reclaiming those values that are truly American: freedom, equality,
and democracy. We rid ourselves of the
nativism and nationalism gripping this country by fighting hatred with
love. We fight xenophobia by opening our
hearts and arms to everyone, most especially to those in need. We elect leaders who actually believe in
these values instead of leaders who use semantics to justify fighting against
them. Most importantly, we have real,
civil discourse instead of flinging insults and epithets; that we actually
listen to people and then respond in a respectful manner instead of dismissing
things out of hand.
We could be a country I am proud of again. We could come together by setting aside our
egos and seeing every person for what they are: human. That is, after all, what the founders
believed, and what they wanted for this country. The question is whether we want to follow
their vision, or risk losing everything.
To me, the answer to that is as plain as the stars and
stripes on the flag.
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