Under Trump, it’s the Divided States of America
Chasms on race, ethnicity and more may take generations to heal if we don’t change course
The day after the 2016 presidential election, protesters swarmed the streets of cities across America yelling such slogans as “Not my President, not today.” From L.A. to D.C., from Chicago to New York’s Trump Tower, thousands poured out to give voice to their rage and to their fear of the unknown. Jubilant Republicans sneered that it was just a bunch of pitiable Democrats who needed to suck it up and accept that elections have consequences: Donald Trump was going to Make America Great Again.
Then I thought of the millions who came out for the Women’s March in 2017, and again in 2018. I thought of the protesters who came out to counter the travel ban and to demand the end of the administration’s immigrant family separation policy. I thought of the Eagles’ Malcolm Jenkins, raising a fist as the anthem was played at an NFL preseason game in Philadelphia, one of several players still protesting against racial injustice … a full two years since Colin Kaepernick first kneeled at a San Francisco preseason game.
Finally, I saw this CBS News poll, which showed where America stands on race. A full 83 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of racial issues, while 90 percent of Democrats disapprove.
The unknown of November 2016 is now known. We are becoming two separate, distinct Americas. The Divided States of America, if you will.
Donald Trump didn’t create these divides. But he exploited them, first to get into office, and now to try to stay there.
We can’t accept this. We must demand more of our president and our presidency.
No man (or perhaps soon a woman, finally) can become president without Grand Canyon-sized ambition. Yet no president has forsworn any serious effort to govern the entire nation, playing to the base that got him elected and giving scant lip service to those who didn’t. It is tearing us apart, all for the sake of Trump’s unquenchable need to be a winner because, by definition, if you’re not a winner, you’re a loser.
Race. Immigrant status. Gender. Sexual preference and identity. He has taken a carving knife and ripped at every stitch in every seam that binds this nation together. Whatever our prejudices — the ones we know we have, and the ones we may have but be in denial about — the vast majority of us know this is wrong and want better.
That CBS poll can’t be where America remains, not if we want to avoid the danger of erupting like it’s 1968 all over again, when Vietnam and race tore the United States asunder. No matter your politics, you have to understand that when massive protest marches are the norm for the first time in a half century, something is desperately abnormal.
The poll is an eye opener to where Trump has nudged our nation. We’ve seen his dog whistles. There was the false “birther” accusations against President Obama dating back before the election, the exacerbated racial tensions after his “very fine people” statement about Charlottesville, the remark about “shithole” countries. He continued it yesterday against former White House aide/Apprentice star Omarosa Manigault-Newman, who’s no angel but didn’t deserve the combo racist/misogynist punch when he tweeted that she was both a “crazed, crying lowlife” and a “dog.” He claims to be on the side of blacks based on historic lows in their unemployment rate, but there was no strategy geared toward that. It was just a lucky byproduct of the economic trend.
The damage to minorities goes beyond psyche. People are dying or having their lives destroyed. While Hurricane Maria battered the brown-skinned people of Puerto Rico last September, Trump’s idea of being there for them was one supportive tweet during the storm and his famed paper-towel-shooting visit a couple weeks later. During the storm, he did have time to tweet about the ratings for the Emmys after he was skewered on the broadcast, and three days later he was back to a racial swipe, saying that NFL owners should “get that son of a bitch off the field right now” in reference to black players.
Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans were dying in droves. The original estimates of 64 are now at 4,600 — 2½ times greater than Katrina, 1,600 more than on 9/11. It took 10 months to fully restore power.
The other great stain was his zero-tolerance immigration policy that separated 2,500 Central American children from their parents. More than 550 kids have still not been reunited, possibly orphaned forever by an administration that had no plans for bringing them back together until forced by a judge.
The list goes on, including women galvanized by the #MeToo movement and appalled that allegations of sexual misconduct against him fail to stick, and angered at his attacks on Planned Parenthood along with his appointment of justices who threaten Roe v. Wade.
There are the gays and lesbians angered that the administration sided in a Supreme Court decision with a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, not to mention judicially blocked efforts to stop transgender individuals from joining the military.
But ejecting Trump from office is not the cure. While the anger he stoked has fueled his rise, at some point, the pendulum will swing back to the Democrats. And then, the rage may well produce an equal and opposite reaction to punish Trumpists. Then probably swing back and forth some more.
Adults in the Trump administration have been rare. But Nikki Haley, ambassador to the United Nations, is one. Attending a conservative conference of high school students last month, she said, ‘Raise your hand if you’ve ever posted anything online to quote-unquote ‘own the libs.’” Most did.
“I know that it’s fun and that it can feel good, but step back and think about what you’re accomplishing when you do this — are you persuading anyone?
“Real leadership is about persuasion, it’s about movement, it’s bringing people around to your point of view,” she added. “Not by shouting them down, but by showing them how it is in their best interest to see things the way you do.”
Unfortunately, that’s not the predominant prescription for how to heal the Divided States of America, not just politically, but for the buildup of scar tissue as well around race/ethnicity and more. But if we don’t get there, it may take generations to undo the damage caused by the man who hired her.
