Sick & Tired
Imagine a world that Donald Trump was elected president instead of Abraham Lincoln. America probably would have never succeeded from the Union. In fact, our country would may have not taken a stand against slavery at that time. How much longer would we have slavery if Lincoln would have been replaced with Donald Trump?
Imagine a world that after Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson or Ulysses S. Grant would not have been there. Instead, we would have had a President Trump. I realize that the Great Compromise existed with Rutherford B. Hayes that helped usher in Jim Crow Laws, but if President Trump would have existed instead of Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, then KKK would not have been needed.
Fast forward and imagine if we had Donald Trump instead of Theodore Roosevelt, then we would have never had a 5-day work week that would be 8-hours per week. Child labor would probably still be rampant, and there would not be a maternity leave or the first sexual harassment laws. We would not have the Great Plains, or even the Grand Canyon free from business enterprise and under the Federal Government’s protection.
Can you even begin to imagine having Donald Trump instead of Woodrow Wilson, who has also had a troubled past with race and who also fought against the 19th amendment. Do you think we would even have a 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote?
Do you even want to think about an America with Donald Trump instead of Franklin Roosevelt? Roosevelt who would not have been inclusive to other races if it wasn’t for Eleanor Roosevelt. This was also the man who put the Japanese in camps. But, imagine if we had Trump, would he have been on the Allies side? You must remember that America accepted many Nazi’s and there was a history of Antisemitism in America, especially during the early 1900s.
We can move to a more recent time period of Trump replacing Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Johnson. There would be no Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act. Would Jim Crow even have ended? Martin Luther King, Jr. would have probably stayed in jail and fulfilled his hard labor sentence in Alabama.
As many times as Trump is compared to Nixon, it is easy to forget that Nixon began the Environmental Protection Agency and Title IX. Do you think we would have had an agency that protects the environment?
I have criticized the decisions of George Bush (Father) and George Bush (Son), but what if Trump was president during the Gulf War, we probably would have let Kuwait be invaded while making a deal with Iraq for Kuwait’s oil fields. Saddam Hussain would still be alive, and we definitely would not have killed Osama Bin Laden.
I sat for a week and thought of all of these scenarios and more only to say that Donald Trump was president at one of the perfect times to be the most divisive and inhumane. If he was president at any of the country’s turning points, then he would have made irreparable harm to our nation.
My argument is not that all of our former presidents were good – nope. I am also aware of all of these presidents (and more) shortcomings, but Trump will be remembered for a few things:
He will be worse than Hoover because Hoover had a belief that the market would correct itself. Trump believes that the economy isn’t really that bad. If we can’t operate in truth, then whatever Trump does is based on a lack of knowledge and not a fundamental belief.
He is more the dream of all racists and white supremacist groups. All of the former presidents, in all of their racist and sexist glory, still believed that the country would be better than when they found it. Trump does not have that inner belief of country first. The country is not first – it is his personal glory that is first. It is ego and leading from ego hurts everyone including his supporters.
America has entered a racist and class war. Instead of the race war, in which we are divided amongst various racial lines fighting against each other, we are in a non-racist versus racist war.
We have officially exposed the racists that are among us. We have also exposed the implicit bias that exists within racists. Like most of us who have dealt with racism all of our lives, we have been saying that many people are racists and it is seen in many ways. It is within the notion of “comfortability.” A person doesn’t hire a qualified person because they are simply not “comfortable.” Trump has exposed these people, and it is up to you to see if you are willing to accept their “preference.”
People are sick and tired of working long and hard for gaining very little. I earn more than my mother and some of my uncles when she was my age. But, she was able to do much more with her and my uncles’ income than I am. Why? A home in California in the 1970s cost under $50,000. You can’t buy a home for that amount. In fact, you can’t buy a good family car for that amount. We are crippling from student loan debt even though we may earn a 6-figure salary. The epitome of this problem is this, America has its first trillionaire (Amazon’s CEO), and yet Amazon pays its employees $15/hour and for 2 months, $17/hour for hazard pay. They will not even increase the salary permanently to $17/hour.
Let’s even talk about Black women who are the lowest paid out of all groups, yet one of the most educated minority.They struggle with finding a job that matches their qualifications, especially in leadership.People are simply tired.
As bad as Trump is, within the almost 4 years, he has not completely torn apart America’s fabric. Yet, if he does have another 4 years, then we will have a larger problem. One thing is for certain, we are beginning to demand more of our leaders. The first demand is to Joe Biden to not pick another person who is plagued with racial problems like Amy Klobuchar. One positive is that the voters are setting demands and government leaders are being forced to listen. Listen to the tired people.