The
deeper we get into this politic season the more real the possibility that
Donald Trump may emerge with the nomination of the Republican Party for the
Presidency of the United States. Despite all of the pronouncements of the
talking heads populating cable news and social media, the momentum that Mr.
Trump is generating may bring to him enough primary delegates to require the
Republican Party to name him their standard bearer for 2016. What is horrifying
about what we are witnessing is not necessarily what is coming from Mr. Trump’s
mouth on a daily basis. As base and despicable as it is he is not the first
candidate for national office to espouse the type of nativist, anti-immigrant,
bigoted, racist and phobic views we are beset by on a daily basis. What is new
and particularly alarming is the amount of support that he is receiving in so
many areas of the country that is propelling his candidacy forward. That so
many of us are embracing Mr. Trump’s hatred of everything the nation has
historically stood for raises anew the same question Abraham Lincoln raised in
his address to that small gathering in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on the one year
anniversary of that critical battle.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure”.
Though
we are not engaged in a civil war of the type that tore the country apart in
1861 we are nevertheless in the throes of a battle for the heart of the nation
and without question its future.
There are certainly many reasons for why we find ourselves where we are today. The litany and complexity of issues that have conspired
over the past several decades to bring us to this point are too many to count or to analyze for the
purpose of this essay. Nevertheless what is clear is that there are a lot of people
who are afraid and tormented by fear of what the future holds. They have become
so fearful and so desperate for a way out that they will follow anyone whose
words give voice to the fears that rattle around in their heads. The louder
the words are spoken the more believable they become and the more the gathering
crowd screams its agreement as though witnessing an innocent being hung from a
tree in the center of town.
So much of what we are witnessing can be explained by a few lines in “The American President”. Acknowledging that the populace was so thirsty for
leadership that they would “crawl through the
desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink
the sand” to which the President, played by Michael Douglas, responds so
eloquently:
“We've had Presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a
coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand,
because they're thirsty. They drink it because they don't know the difference.”) https://youtu.be/HKTqS4bXug
People are quite simply drinking the sand. So desperate are they for something that provides a lifeline that they are willingly drinking the sand never understanding that they will not find anything life sustaining in the act. The Republican base has been told and has come to believe that
their lives have been ruined by a supposedly ineffectual government so much so that they
are desperate for anything and anyone who offers them even a glimmer of hope
for the future even if that future is completely antithetical to everything that
the country stands for…intolerant of non-Christian religion, intolerant of
non-white America, intolerant of personal freedom unless that freedom is
secured by openly carrying high powered automatic weapons. That much of what they have been told is either not true or highly distorted has no place in the echo chamber in which they exist. Neither truth nor facts are either sought or accepted if they do not fit the narrative that has so dominated their lives for so long. The consequence of all this is that they willingly drink
the sand never realizing that its consumption provides anything but nourishment
for their souls and the soul of the nation.
I can only hope that whoever stands before the nation in
November 2016 in search of the nation's vote is prepared to demonstrate clearly and unequivocally that there
is a difference. That is a responsibility that we all share. Our future may
depend upon it.
