By Ernie McCray
I could have never imagined a president like the one we’ve got today. Is there anybody who is anybody on the planet as hateful as he is?
I saw him on TV the other day and he was spewing hate every whichaway, talking to the Homeland Security employees in his signature pose: his index finger and thumb forming a circle in the shade of three fingers that seem embarrassed to be on his hand, still basking in the glow of having made a sucker out of a country, a land, that has no idea as to who or what it is.
He spoke in “gloom and doom” tones of a country that’s breaking down at the seams, riddled with crime, overrun by “illegal immigrants” – but don’t worry he was going to take care of them and build a wall that will keep vermin like them where they belong and Mexico was going to pay for the wall after we paid for it first. Yeah, and it doesn’t snow in Minneapolis in the wintertime.
Oh, he was singing a hateful song. Anyway, I can only handle Trump for moments at a time and I was about to shut the TV down just as he started honoring families who had lost loved ones at the hands of undocumented folks who, he made it seem, crossed our border to do just that.
His deviousness took my breath away. I was watching a master brainwasher at play, painting images in a listener’s mind of people we had better start hating if we aren’t hating them already.
Then before I could fully digest his loathsome rant he got into how we, as a Country, need to be governed by the “Rule of Law.” Now that made me real cringy, if you will, because being a black man when you start talking to me about “getting tough on crime,” I know what comes next. Young black and brown brothers on the street better watch their step. There’s going to be a lot of “protecting and serving” going on.
This man is going to be a president for everybody? I think not. I accept that he is, indeed, my/our president but he just would not fulfill the needs of people like me.
And I don’t ask much from a president, personally. But this man does something that I just can’t stand: he whines.
He showed up at the White House whining like a spoiled child about unfair news coverage and being delegitimized…
He had a tantrum about size. Voter size. Crowd size. The kinds of things that let me know I’m not seen in his eyes, as I don’t care, at a deep level, about which president’s inauguration attracted more people, his or the last guy’s.
And please don’t get me started on how he and his inner circle try to trick us with “alternative facts” as a disguise for all their “lies,” something they do as often as a newborn cries.
Lying to a people is a hateful act, a distraction from the fact that what our leaders should be about is tending to matters that are essential to our wellbeing as a country: peace and justice, fair play, the environment, climate change… all the things that get in the way of us coming together as a people in a nation where all lives should truly matter.
How do we get these unsavory characters to care, to see, for instance, that when they clear the way for a pipeline to go through Standing Rock in North Dakota, they’re threatening the Sioux people’s water supply and the future of their grandchildren?
How can we get them to listen closely to what’s going on so they can understand that if they embraced or just tuned into the spirit of movements like the “Women’s Marches” they would find people of all colors and genders and beliefs together in solidarity for the protection of “everybody’s” rights, and safety, and health – in recognition “that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.” These are people who could make Trump’s job easy if he really wanted to be “everybody’s” president.
But it’s all about making “America Great Again” with this president and his people and to that I have to say I was around in the America of the 40’s and 50’s, the America they want to see again. And it wasn’t pretty from any angle.
They’ve made it so the only way for us, We the People,” to go is to never let up from the unifying we’re already making happen as we march and chant and make phone calls and write letters and send emails of our concerns to the oval office and to Congress and to our state and local representatives.
Such behavior is our only chance to keep these scoundrels honest to any degree and keep paths open to creating the kind of nation we want to see.
All, of course, in a spirit of love, love of ourselves and each other, because we’re up against a president and an administration that is filled with hatred for our aspirations.
But I hope we know that what we’ve been saying all along is true: Love trumps hate.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/101514866@N07/23353982929/sizes/m/
Ernie McCray
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Unifying through peaceful means. I know you wanted to say that. :)