on the home straight
The American Dream is personified by the long-held and oft-quoted maxim that states “Anyone can grow up to be president.” The idea is that from relatively humble beginnings, anyone can rise to the highest office in the nation and the last two incumbents, Barack Obama and Donald J Trump certainly prove this to be the case. Sadly, the American Dream resulted in a vulgar TV star and one-time property developer, with not a day’s experience at governing at any level, being given the keys to the most powerful vehicle on the planet. Mercifully, the reality of the last four years has given many pause for thought.
The current president has championed division, hatred and violence. He has openly attacked basic decency and violated their own constitution. The Donald has stoked paranoid conspiracy theories, groped women, praised white supremacists and sought to undermine public trust in both the voting mechanism and the free press. Notwithstanding the fact that everyone knew he was a racist, draft-dodger, sexual predator, philanderer, liar and serial tax-avoider, 40% of the country’s voting populace remained steadfast in their active and vociferous support. Even now, on the eve of his political demise, he threatens to not relinquish power and, with the evangelical Amy Coney Barrett, has bolstered the right-wing of the supreme court, a partisan Republican stronghold, to potentially determine the winner.
In ‘1984’ George Orwell warned us that the Ministry of Truth could brainwash and control the citizenry via the heavy-handed use of propaganda and torture. The shocking reality is that in 2016, within an apparent democracy, no such extreme measures were necessary, merely a red-hot Twitter account, a sassy way-with-words and a nice line in punchy slogans.
A study for the American Psychological Association has reported that more than two-thirds of Americans describe the current presidential contest as “a significant source of stress in their lives”. And so it should. Last time around sixty million people thought it would be either hilarious or disruptive to foist the class clown on the world and we have all spent four years living in the carnival he subsequently created. Please, don’t make the same mistake again.
