The Real US Problem is NOT Trump – It is Something Much Deeper than That
Varna, Bulgaria, December 22nd, 2019
Salaroche

Greetings from Varna, Bulgaria, always hoping we may always know how to keep in check the harmful influence that our own possible prejudices and resentments may have on our perception of reality. In other words, just hoping we may always be in possession of the highest possible degree of mental and spiritual health.

I wrote these words driven by the unfortunate spectacle that we have been observing on a daily basis in our beloved USA for the past few years. Partisan attitudes swarm everywhere in the news and in the national press articles and as of now it is difficult to foresee a point in the near future where a rational encounter between the two political parties may take place with the serious intention of arriving once and for all to the bottom of the Impeachment matter.

As many of us know, that whole issue could be resolved in a definitive way if the American people came to listen with their own ears and see with their own eyes through their TV screens, the testimony of Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton and others.

In that regard, I can very frankly say that, if Mulvaney and Bolton came to testify under oath before the Senate and said that Trump never ordered anyone to freeze the military aid funds for Ukraine, which had been previously approved by Congress, with the intention of bribing the president of that country in exchange for announcing they would investigate the Bidens, if either or both of those two characters without a doubt declared that, I would cease once and for all to talk about this matter.

But if those characters were brought before the Senate and refused to answer any crucial questions by taking refuge in the 5th constitutional amendment to protect themselves and, by extension, protect the “President,” then everything would change radically, as, in general, people take a 5th as a veiled way of accepting some or all of the responsibility in whatever case may be at stake.

One serious problem, however, is that many of those hallucinating Republican individuals like Mitch McConnell and others, seem to be horrified at the idea of unveiling once and for all the truth about this matter and do not seem to have the slightest intention of allowing Mulvaney and Bolton to come declare before the American people.

And that is where some of us see that the cancer which is the increasingly alarming socio-political situation that afflicts the country at the moment, does not reside solely in the person of Trump, but has already metastasized in a very serious way across a good portion of the American society.

And it is also there that some of us see the deep and perhaps irreparable damage that Trump’s amoral influence has been inflicting on the country in recent years. In the perception of some of us, a country that is deeply divided in a socio-political manner is a country facing a considerable risk of eventually disintegrating.

The above brings to mind something very accurate said by the French historian, linguist and philosopher Ernest Renan (1823-1892) during a conference entitled "Qu'est ce qu'une nation?" (What is a Nation?), Which Renan gave at the University of La Sorbonne in March 1882 and was published a few days later in a bulletin of l’Association Scientifique de France (see here: https://www.amazon.com/Quest-ce-quune- nation-Ernest-Renan /dp/2842051785)

During that conference, Renan said that:

“The real consent, the desire to live together, the will to preserve with dignity the undivided inheritance that has been transmitted” are the main elements that hold together the members of a people in such a way that they form a nation.

And that is precisely what in the long run is at stake in the US at this time, the desire to live together and, particularly, the will to preserve with dignity the political-cultural heritage of the nation, that is, the idea of ​​a Democratic Republic, which has been transmitted through generations and along the history of the country.

For the moment, though, much remains to be seen, so let’s just wait and see what the wheels of destiny tell us about all this in the coming months.

Be well

Salaroche