MIRROR ON AMERICA
- laurencedbeck
- Jun 11
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 14
FINDING A VOICE IN A SEA OF INDIFFERENCE
Good morning, America, how are you?* The good news America is that you are showing the world your unique version of “exceptionalism” in a choreographed shitshow with a corrupt, cruel, dangerous ringmaster at the helm. The bad news, America, is that you are going to be living that unique brand of exceptionalism. So hang on for the ride.
Trump brought overt racism out from under the rocks in his first term, and America did nothing meaningful in response. Instead, Americans elected Trump a second time so that he could fully expose that unique brand of “exceptionalism” for all to see. It turns out that “Make America Great Again” is coded language targeted at White people to ensure their enthusiasm for a new America somehow modeled on the old America without any defined parameters.
It should be easy for all to recall those wonderful days of yore when Black people understood that they were second-class citizens and loved every minute of it. And how the immigrants swarmed to America so they could work in sweat shops, meat packing plants, and agricultural fields for little pay and no benefits. And don’t forget all those children appreciating every dollop of charity food they could scrounge. It is also worth noting that the good old days included millions without access to meaningful healthcare in that America. So if I am right about making America great again, the nation has a lot to look forward to.
For entertainment, those of you blinded by the “light” of all the wonderous adoration in America for our precious children, beloved seniors, honored veterans, and welcomed immigrants are being treated to an hypocrisy carnival like none before. It is easier to feel the collective enthusiasm for the increased quality of available dog food than it is to have confidence that our “precious” children will be better fed, better educated and healthier than their pet dogs. And, with a little imagination, soon we will be seeing some of those precious children, dirty and abused, pimping a $19/month pledge campaign to adopt a SNAP** family, replete with an autographed picture of a grateful child to hang on your refrigerator.
I am laying all of this out for a purpose: so that the Republican Party lap dogs, who just can’t get enough of the insane cruelty at the heart of the Trump world agenda, won’t be able to say anymore that no one told them about it. Since their demented focus is limited to tax reductions for those who don’t need them and eliminating any semblance of a federal regulatory framework, the rest of us will have to up the ante by never giving any Republican any comfortable space to cut the nation’s limited social safety net and to further undermine the governance essential to meeting fundamental human needs in this country.
Many on the progressive left in America have worked for decades for an America that is so much more than what America has become in my lifetime, never mind the mythology of what it was before then. For sure, Americans have delivered some shining moments. However, as a nation, we have consistently failed to realize our national promise and to cohesively and compassionately confront the preventable inequality, poverty, hunger and gun violence that plague the nation. It always seems easier to pimp our precious capitalism as the path forward, yet that path forward consistently fails those who need help the most.
And this doesn’t even get to the national myth of a beacon on a hill that is splattered across every noble slogan used to provide cover as America arms the world to do our bidding and the bidding of anyone else who will buy the armaments that we sell. Not surprisingly, our real international face to large swaths of the world is the bombs that rain from the sky that are proudly made in America and sold for use anywhere else but America.
For now, we have to do what we can to openly confront too much suffering and too much cruelty and too much flat-out corruption. The nation seems to be in full retreat from the incredibly limited national progress of recent decades. Working to halt that retreat must become a priority for all who say they care about America's future.
The Department of Health and Human Services alone has, in just four months, become an ongoing national and human tragedy that will take years to reverse, maybe decades. What we are doing to immigrants is only the most sickening display of the humanitarian outrage at play. Look just a little deeper and that disgraceful list will grow, maybe even finding its way into your neighborhood. There are no silver linings. Meanwhile, America’s longstanding and across-the-board governance deficit is only deepening and spreading to so much of the limited previously-functioning institutional infrastructure. What to do about it is the challenge. So far, our political system and social fabric have again proven to be far beneath the task.
Sadly, in these times in America, it is fitting to shame everyone who stands silent. To gain the conscience necessary to find a voice, try telling someone you don’t think cares enough about these issues that their caring more matters to you.
How many silently looked away as Trump singled out for derision, in his role as president, a transgender high school junior competing in a track and field competition in California? It is enough that Trump routinely preys on those most in need of praise, support and encouragement from the nation’s leaders. But this time, he chose to publicly despise a high school junior, someone’s child, for little more than seeking to be the best that she believes she can be. Then, just to make sure he got everyone’s attention, Trump threatened California federal funding if state officials allowed her to compete in the competition for which she had clearly qualified. The cowardly state officials let her compete, but changed the rules so that no “real” girl would lose out if the transgender girl medaled. And medal she did.***
If that story, and the stories of so many others, do not reach your conscience, and want to make you scream or cry, you will never be on any team capable of making an America that at least tries to be what it says it is. A failing nation will always seek to find enemies within to obscure the corruption, greed and incompetence of those in charge of the nation’s ongoing demise. That is what America is today.
In this context, try to remember that Trump is the symptom, not the cause. Ridding our midst of his cancer will leave us no better off as a nation than we were before he showed up. And that has never been good enough for me.
Historically, non-violent resistance and civil disobedience have provided an urgent catalyst for some meaningful change. Unfortunately, I find it hard to imagine a collective American citizenry willing to sacrifice much of anything for any cause.
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