A reader asked recently why we were ignoring the current American political scene. It is not that we are not following what is going on. We just feel sad about it. It is a travesty caught up in the guise of democracy.
In our book My American Mother (written in 1992) the principle character gives a speech in 1920s Chicago where she explains that the concept of America is an ideal—a work in process. That ideal seemed to reach its zenith during the Franklin Roosevelt presidency. It appears to have been rolling back downhill ever since.
Maybe America has hit bottom with Republican candidate Donald Trump. Trump might not be the first American with more money than brains but he is the first to make Ross Perot look like a Democrat. And here we thought that President Ronald Reagan was the final triumph of Hollywood over intelligence.
What really chills us is the wilful absence of thinking by Americans in their closed-minded adherence to one political philosophy over another. Can that many Americans be that ignorant? What really bugs us is that we have one brother in Massachusetts who is a Democrat and another brother in Ohio who is a Republican. These are not stupid people. Both have serious university degrees. The Democrat is disappointed with Obama and the Republican reviles him. Neither has conceded the man the opportunity to lead.
Listening to the Democratic candidates for president next year, you have to wonder at the shallowness of the leadership gene pool in America. And the Republican race is more like a colony of cats on their way to somewhere but they have forgotten the objective.
Seeing the stupid wall in the south of that country makes you wonder if they are dumb enough to build one on the north. And only Florida would complain about the loss of all those Canadian snowbirds.
But what really turns our stomach is that more than half American state governors have said they do not want any Syrian refugees. Yes, they are mainly Republican. And no, governors have no say in the matter. Their stand is not only bigoted and ignorant but this commentator would like to know where the hell those governors’ ancestors came from?
Those ignorant governors need to read something Emma Lazarus wrote in 1883. It was the following:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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