When Did America Stop Being Great & How Was It Great Before, But Isn’t Great Now?
By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
What Was The Year When America Was Great?
I ask myself, “When do Trump supporters think America was great and why?”
1965? 1970? 1975?
What Was America Like When It Was Great?
Back when
- Women weren’t allowed to have an abortion.
- Gay people couldn’t get married
- Homosexuals hid in dark corners and were treated as mentally-ill deviants
- Black people weren’t complaining all the time about being second-class citizens
- It was illegal for a black man to marry a white woman
- Black people understood that they didn’t belong in the same parks, stores, buses, bathrooms, schools and neighborhoods as white people
- There weren’t all these brown people, running around, speaking Spanish
- Bosses could fire female employees if they refused their sexual advances
- Men could sexually insult and harass women on the job
- You could keep black people out of white neighborhoods & schools
- Fundamentalist Christians were able to impose their religious beliefs on everybody else
- We spent over a trillion 2018 dollars, killed about 225,000 Vietnamese and about 58,000 Americans in the pointless, failed Vietnam war
- People could smoke anyplace they wanted
- Factories could spew any poisons into the air or water they liked, where some rivers were so polluted by industrial waste that they actually caught on fire
- Detroit was free to build polluting, death-trap cars with horrible mileage
- Companies were free to sell paint and gasoline full of poisonous lead
I think the MAGA people want to go back to a country where
- Fundamentalist-Christian values about women, abortion and homosexuality are again given free reign over the rest of us
- It’s understood that black people are just not quite as good as white people and that they need to be quiet and keep to their own places.
Who Wants America To Be That Way Again?
So, sure, if you’re
- A believer in the idea that white people, on average, are smarter, more hard working, more law abiding and less violent than the average black person, that is to say, a racist
- A fundamentalist Christian,
- A companies-should-be-able-to-pollute-as-much-as-they-want businessman
then, I understand why you might think 1965 America would be “great” — for you.
MAGA People’s Dream America
I get it. The MAGA people want to go back to a time where white, straight, Christian, males could:
- Keep the women in their place as dutiful wives and mothers.
- Keep the blacks in their place as out-of-sight, segregated, respectful, cheap labor.
- Keep gay people in their place as deviants who needed stay out of public view
- Keep the country under the control of Christian White Men and make everyone live according to their fundamentalist interpretation of Christ’s teachings
- Allow huge corporations to do whatever they could get away with
That’s their idea of a great America.
Make America Christian, Straight & White Again — MACSWA
I think that when Mr. T says “Make America Great Again” his core supporters hear: “Make America Christian, Straight & White Again.”
The MAGA people think that America should be operating under white, fundamentalist-Christian, heterosexual rules, and that black, brown, gay and independent female people need to just stay out of sight, do their little jobs, and keep their mouths shut.
Most Americans Are NOT Straight, Fundamentalist, White Christians
The thing is, a majority of the people in this country are not white, fundamentalist, heterosexual, Christians. I know the MAGA people don’t like it, but there it is.
This country is much bigger than these white, heterosexuals’ one little version of one religion.
And that’s what’s really pissing them off.
Everywhere they look, people are living in sin, doing sinful things, violating Christ’s teachings as they interpret them, and they’ve had to just sit there and let them do it.
They’re not in charge anymore. How the hell did that happen?
Trump Promises To Put Fundamentalist, Straight, White, Christians Back In Control Again
But now they have a champion, a guy who says that he’ll put them back in the saddle again.
- No more women demanding the right to have an abortion.
- No more gay people out there in public, flaunting their deviance, getting married for heaven’s sake.
- No more black people whining about being discriminated against.
- No more tree-huggers telling their companies that they can’t do this and they can’t do that.
- No more wussies trying to take away their wonderful assault rifles.
Boy, that really sounds great to them. All Hail The Trump!
White, Fundamentalist, Straight America Never WAS Great
As a white, straight, male who was raised in the Catholic church, I don’t think that this gays-are-immoral, keep-blacks-in-their-place, women-should-be-quiet-and-do-what-the-man-tells-them, no-abortions-allowed philosophy describes a great America or even a decent America.
In fact, it doesn’t describe a great or decent anywhere.
This hoped-for, male, straight, white, fundamentalist-Christian country never was a great America and most of us never, ever, want America to be that way again.
— David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
