Over the past few weeks, family responsibilities have taken me out a lot, and I’ve traveled the highways and byways of America. This country, my country and yours, is changing.
For example, I saw a huge banner, perhaps 30 feet by 50 feet, in a prominent location along Interstate 81 in West Virginia. It was like those oversized flags you sometimes see above car dealerships that you can’t miss, but this time the price went up because of the fireworks business.
“F…Biden” is written in large, conspicuous white letters on a deep blue field, but the actual letters spell it out clearly and leave nothing to the reader’s imagination.
We have a language rich in ways to express political opposition. Something as simple as a “Trump Vance” flag would have sent a similar message. But the flag’s anti-Biden sentiment is not its true meaning.
The point of this statement is its vulgarity, its vulgarity. The point is that the norms and rules that once made us a civilized society are no longer valid or respected. If you don’t like that, perhaps the owners will reintroduce the flags that fly prominently along the busy street. This is the interstate highway that thousands of children, parents, and grandparents travel on every day.
You will have the same attitude as him.
A stunt like this would have been unthinkable 10 years ago, but a lot has happened in the last few years. Community sentiments that once would have found such public vulgarity unacceptable no longer have any force. Respect for one’s fellow man and decency no longer exists.
The “angels better than our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln once called them, have given up their white robes and wings in frustration.
The goal is not to make America great again. It is about destroying America as we know it and remaking it into something it never was and never should be. In this alternative America, elections are great if you win, but disposable if you don’t.
The Constitution is sacred, unless Donald Trump wants to abolish it.
In President Trump’s words, immigrants are “pests” who “contaminate the blood of our nation.”
He says political opponents are, again in Trump’s words, “enemies within” who are more dangerous enemies to the country than Russia or China, and therefore natural enemies for the U.S. military to crush.
At Trump rallies, licensed vendors sell shirts and hats calling Kamala Harris “Ho”. Some people proudly dress their children in it. A social media ad sponsored by Elon Musk’s America PAC warns, “Viewers are advised with caution,” and goes on to say:
“Kamala Harris is the C-word. That’s right. It’s an old and important word.”
The second half of the ad tries to explain that the C-word is “communist,” but if you want to call Harris a communist, you can just call her that directly. The real message of this ad is that Harris is another C-word, and it’s okay to think and say that.
At a Trump rally in New York City on Sunday, a “comedian” hired and vetted by his campaign attacked the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, calling it a “floating island of trash.” He said that black Americans cut watermelons instead of pumpkins for Halloween, and that Latinos “love to have babies.” There is no insertion or removal. They come into the country just like they do to our country. ”
The camp has since tried to distance itself from such remarks, but the “comedian” in question was notorious for his brand of “humor.” He was hired because of, not in spite of, his racist attitudes. It was planned.
And of course, the tone is set at the top. In his own speech, President Trump warned that “a lot of immigrants are coming from prisons in the Congo,” but this claim is far from empty because he can scare white people with the word “Congo.” It’s something I made up. He also recently said that the United States has become “the world’s trash can,” the place where the world sends its human garbage.
Let’s think about it. We, the United States, have gone from a melting pot to a trash can. And, as we can see from history, once it became okay to call humans “vermin” and “trash,” it also became okay to treat them as such.
Words become deeds.
This is not an election about policy. This is an election that questions who we are as a country and as a people. This is an election to honor or reject what we once thought was best about us, what is uniquely ours.
We are spiraling toward an America that would have horrified previous generations, conservatives and liberals alike. And the last and greatest hope to stop that spiral comes on November 5th.
You make our work possible.
