If You Think Trump Is The Problem, You Aren’t Part of The Solution

People ask me “when have things in the US ever looked this bad?” I reply, “1968, to name just the most recent time,” but I do understand their consternation. Things do look bad in the US and we need to ask why. Some of you will say, “Trump is why things are so bad,” but that’s too easy. America’s problems run far deeper than that bumbling buffoon. Trump is a symptom. Hear me out.

Is The US Falling Apart?

First off, yeah, it is sad to see what’s going on the US. The pandemic has vividly exposed the US’s structural flaws and social fault lines. Income inequality, white supremacist violence, climate crisis, runaway corporatism, and the siloization of Americans such that civil conversation is all but dead… it’s an unsettled landscape and few if any American leaders are remotely able to deal with the many problems.

And, yeah, about poor leaders: yes, especially Trump. Trump is a terrible president and worse, a terrible human being. I need not run off a litany of his many faults. All partisanship aside, the political sniping that dominates America these days is not only nonproductive, it is actively harmful. No one benefits from childish memes about Trump and his allies or Biden and his allies. Such attacks are just about all that we hear anymore, including from politicians. America isn’t solving its problems because the leaders are more interested in blaming their enemies than in solving problems.