I Want to Remain Optimistic about America’s Future but It’s Getting Harder By the Day.
Nha Trang, Vietnam, November 21st, 2024.
Salaroche

Given the clear mandate the Republican electorate handed to Donald Trump on November 5th, some of us have had no choice but to contemplate the possibility that, in the long run, something good may come out of this apparent catastrophic situation.

For a moment a few days ago, I thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a small chance that those 76.7 million people who voted for Trump may have been right in choosing him. But that thought only lasted for about a day.

The moment Matt Gaetz was nominated for AG, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of Intelligence, Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, and RFK Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, all my hopes for a decent, responsible Trump administration vanished in a second.

I was brought further down to the crude reality of the moment by the nomination of longtime Trump supporter Linda McMahon as Secretary of the Department of Education, an individual with hardly any qualifications for that job. And further still with the likely nomination of Anti-Vaxxer Marty Makary as FDA Chief.

And what about the Republican members of the House Ethics Committee basically blocking the release of Matt Gaetz damning report on his alleged sexual misconduct? Doesn't it make you feel like sex-offenders will be happily welcome in the Sex-Offender-in-Chief's Administration? So, the resulting question is, how can anybody remain optimistic about the future of our country in the face of such blatant mockery of our government?

It is plain to see that the real reason behind those individuals’ nomination is not their competence or their probity, but their unconditional loyalty to Donald Trump. If confirmed, none of them will dare to stand up and disobey or contradict him, for if they ever did they can be sure to get immediately fired. “Toe the Line or get out”. That will be the name of the game.

In showing such deliberate contempt for the Institutions of the American government, Donald Trump is placing himself above it all as the sole voice of authority, and this only projects ominous possibilities for the future of the United States. And don’t get me wrong. I’m not a pessimist. I’m not a gloom and doom kind of person. If I were such negative kind of guy I wouldn’t have been able to travel continually around four continents for the past 20 years. I look forward to the future.

I would really like to find something in that guy that I could consider a source of hope for a better future for the country, but I cannot find even the smallest of things in him that may be laudable and, given that the great majority of my fellow Americans even seem to adore him, such disconnect between them and me makes me feel like, at least for the time being, I wouldn't be able to fit anywhere within American Society anymore.

I have always engaged in constructive criticism when it comes to whatever shortcomings I may detect in America, but I have always looked up to the United States as the beacon of Democratic hope that during my lifetime it has always represented to the world.

And that’s precisely the inauspicious thought that keeps nagging at my mind, the thought that during the next four years and beyond, the light of that beacon of Democratic hope might extinguish itself, perhaps even for good.

I want to remain optimistic about the future of America, but the closer we get to January 20th, 2025, the harder it gets to keep that optimism alive.

Yet, who knows? Maybe that resilience that America is historically so known for, that well-known ability America has always had to pull itself up by its own boot straps will prevail again this time around. Wishful thinking? Maybe so. Only time will tell.

Salaroche