Nearly all of us are immigrants
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
This election has been an embarrassment to the United States, its citizens, and history itself. We’ve spent the past year swilling in sewers as we experience and all new low in politics. Not to say that the political arena is honorable in any way, shape, or form. Admittedly, when Donald Trump threw his hat into the race for president, I thought it was a joke. After all, this man’s history is spottier than a leopard. With numerous bankruptcy, failed businesses, and questionable taste. For several years, he’s been the host of a “game”—a show posing as a “reality” show. It seems that the majority of his “celebrity” endorsements are former contestants on his show, yet I haven’t heard a peep from the media questioning their statements. His campaign slogan is “Make America Great Again”. I wasn’t aware that this great country was no longer great. Oh, he must be referring to a time where immigrants came through Ellis Island in New York and read The New Colossus at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty welcoming them to their new country. No. That can’t be what he means because his entire campaign is built on racism, sexism, and religious discrimination. He brags about beating the system by not paying taxes—and his fans applaud him—but they don’t seem to realize that he wasn’t required to pay those taxes because of the monumental amount of money his business ventures lost.1 We’re talking about nearly a billion dollars; that’s billion with a ‘B’. It’s no doubt that we’re a nation suffering financial troubles, but do we need someone in the Oval Office that can’t successfully run a casino in Atlantic City? Yet he walked away with a profit of $39 million.2 And his employees? How did they fare?
By all means, let’s make America great again. Interesting that Trump was most financially successful—and unsuccessful—during the 1990s while Bill Clinton was in office and America was truly enjoying prosperous times. In other words, under a Democratic president. Yet he has gone out of his way to demean and undermine the current Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, using her husband’s marital missteps as fodder. Is he trying to convince me that having one unfaithful husband is better than having three wives? All three of whom have been immigrants? After all, immigration is the only issue that I’ve ever heard him take a stance on. In all honesty, I have no idea where he stands on the real issues of concern to this country. Between Trump and Clinton, there’s been so much mudslinging and dirty politicking that it’s become an international joke.
That’s what makes this country less than great. The fact that we allow our politicians to compete for such a powerful office using such underhanded and disgusting techniques. Sneaky and low methodologies that scream for change.
My Trump-supporting friends claim that the Clintons are corrupt, yet they turn a blind eye to their own representative. His misogyny alone is deplorable. Why any female would vote for this man is beyond me.
mi·sog·y·ny (noun)
dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.
I guess I just don’t understand how the citizens of this great country—and dammit! It still is great—can support someone so blatantly offensive. He’s rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. The one thing he has in common with most presidential candidates, however, is that he has absolutely no idea what it’s like to go without, how to live paycheck to paycheck, or to have to choose between feeding a family for a week or taking a sick kid to the doctor. Donald Trump says that he’s made sacrifices. Really? What sacrifices? When? It’s insulting to hear him state things like: “My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.”3
It’s sad that we live in a world where this behavior is still not only acceptable, but that our potential political authorities use it as a tool to further segregate a society on the verge of a second civil war.
Maybe we’re not as great as we used to be, and maybe we’re a nation divided and fractured, but we certainly don’t need someone magnifying our faults. What we need is unification. Remember the United States of America?
2
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/03/496314538/trumps-financial-moves-in-the-90s-genius-or-colossal-failure
3
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/donald-trump-father-loan-1-million-dollars-215154