America, a love song, or so at least I thought. When I first heard you sing it came from the words of honest Abe,

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

So much eloquence hailing the ideals of a nation laid out in a constitution brilliantly created by rich white men yet when I think about our modern status and rich white men I think more about Trump, and his statement about immigrants,

They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

The contrast between the statements is profound. One hearkens us to be great and the other hearkens us to blame a group of people that are here, by all accounts , because of push by our desire for cheap things and a dupe by capitalism to efficiently maximize profits. Trump is that desire within America that sirens from the depths, that compels us to be bigots, to be timorous, to be the things that gave us the worst of our history.

Our history is inextricably linked to racism, that thing that sits beneath our bed and once again it has reared it’s ugly head and the love song I once enjoyed is now a beating drum of delirium quickly turning downwards into outright lunacy. Small things like the candidacy of Bernie give me moments, brief moments, in which I see the link between my love and my longtime American dream. The dream that has come to be defined by my heroes including Abe, Malcolm, Martin, and Armstrong. Particularly, Armstrong because he sang the love song that made me love my country, that trumpet ebulliently blasting the tune that blew away the idea that we weren’t a country of manifest destiny but rather a place where ingenuity and creativity could bring about massive and great things.

This is to say that we weren’t the best country rather we were a country unique to values held together by a document, a flawed document, but a document that with the work and input of citizens could create great things like the space program, jazz, civil discourse, nonviolence, and social mobility.

Now, I look at the same document and I really do see a relic, a thing of the past that is used by a select few to propagate fear and bolster bigotry and finally slide our democracy downwards into a world where the banana is the only symbol that will really represent our nation.

America I want to hear that love song but America all I really see is the wrong and the worsening and that worsening becomes stronger and stronger and the wail is growing louder and louder and now all I see is a siren signaling our impending demise.