My Hope For A Post Trump America
By: Marley K.
Tags: Equality, Politics, Government, Donald Trump, Racism

Donald Trump Laconia Rally, Laconia, NH by Michael Vadon July 16 2015. Source: Creative Commons

I have come to realize President Donald J. Trump and his gangster administration has done more harm to humans and the earth than we can repair in our lifetimes. Trump and his seedy underworld administration will continue to do unforgettable, irreparable harm to humans and the earth as long as he goes unchecked and unpunished. The longer Trump stays in office, the longer he’s allowed to exploit every weakness, crack, and crevice of the laws meant to protect the Constitution. Funny how we used to be a nation of laws until the lawmakers want to be the lawbreakers, then laws are for other people.

You better believe whatever he doesn’t do, there is someone else just like him already lying in wait to push America to new limits. He’s opened a Pandora’s Box on the ugliness and instability of American life. It will be hard to put it back into the box. I have hope for America, but those hopes will be dashed if we don’t get real with ourselves, and the world.

My Hopes For A Post-Trump America

America has been forever reshaped thanks to the most corrupt, inept, government in modern American history. I refuse to consider which American government was the most racist. As far as I’m concerned, every government we’ve ever had created racist, biased policies and engaged in racist tactics (covert and overt) that harmed Black and Brown people in the United States and internationally.

Racism and White citizenry’s support of inequality and inequity are the reasons we have a Donald Trump presidency. I hope America deals with its baggage before it’s too late. We can’t afford four more years of going

I hope America will get real about Whiteness.

White racism is terrible. Weaponized Whiteness is devastating. It’s in everything and I hope Americans will begin looking inside of itself and its fascination/dedication to all things White. Whiteness gave us Trump. It’s a preference of White rule regardless of its leadership abilities or mental stability. Whiteness needs to be examined, confronted, and rebuked. I hope Whiteness won’t continue to make the same mistakes it has over the last four-hundred plus years. At some point, White Americans must stop doing the same things and expecting different results because that’s insanity. The way Whiteness thinks is killing us.

I hope we understand equity and equality are huge obstacles.

Many people choosing to vote for a grimy, war-criminal President like Trump voted against American equity and equality. White zero-sum game voters thought taking back “their” country and all the services and protections aid America’s minority communities would give them “more,” because their group is in control of everything already just isn’t enough. Humans have a cognitive bias towards seeing situations as zero-sum, known as a zero-sum bias. What we’ve learned after the 2016 Presidential Election is that no one gains with these mindsets. Everyone is losing right now except the 1%. Even if you’re little savings plan or 401K is doing good, you don’t live in America and the world alone.

Our economies are global, so when White zero-sum game voters vote their interests, they do not realize their vote gives them something as it takes from others. Everyone may be well in the nice tidy suburban communities of these voters, but for the people in Thailand sweatshops making their favorite designer apparel impacted by our vote to take our jobs back, not so much. Or how about a vote to bring back mining jobs which will contaminate local water ways and pollute our air globally. Does one group’s desire to make money trump another group’s desire to have clean and water which are basic human needs for survival. The mere fact one group has the power to vote in such a way highlights how our politics sells inequality to us, and we buy it.

Voters who thought they were winning in 2016 in the short-term will lose in other ways long term. Our government and political system continues to sanction inequality and inequity. I hope America will take the time to examine all of ourselves, our systems, and our government’s support of inequality and inequity. Zero-Sum thinking helps no one and endangers the entire nation — hell the entire world. I hope when/if Trump finally leaves office; we all can learn from it.

I hope America gets real about our racism.

We have a Holocaust Museum in our nation’s capital to help educate new generations about the Holocaust that happened in Europe and its relevance today, but America doesn’t have a museum to help educate current and new generations about slavery, Indian massacres conducted in the name of civilization, Japanese internment camps, unethical government-backed clinical experiments, slave patrols, redlining, gerrymandering, our Jim Crow that occurred from 1857 to 1954 and segregation, unwanted sterilization and eugenics, anti-Black racism and classism by People of Color, blackface, White privilege, and the list goes on. There is no such museum focused specifically on the institution of racism in American society.

Read: How Did The Holocaust Supersede American Genocide and Slavery

Getting real about American racism and the history of our government keeping certain groups oppressed could prevent overtly racist men like Donald Trump from getting into office again. A museum dedicated to racism that included examples of soft racist like liberals who won’t vote for a Black or Brown person because of implicit biases could help reduce inequality in our society. There are so many ways we subconsciously keep certain groups from taking part freely in our democracy and economy, talking about it is the only way to reduce it.

Americans could make informed political decisions about political if we talked openly and honestly about racism. I hope our public education systems create and require curriculum to discuss national racism and race issues. It’s a public health crisis.

Solving America’s Problems

We are at this moment because America has failed time and time again to reckon with its racist past. Donald Trump and racist leaders before him have always been selected because America is heavily invested in supporting and denying racism. America will continue to go backwards if we don’t reconcile with our history. It’s the ghost that continues to haunt us.

A balloon can’t float with a brick tied to it. America will never soar if we continue to carry around our dead weight from the nation’s old baggage. I have hope in America, but hope also requires work. And while the progress America has made some towards equality and a more fair America since slavery, racism, inequality, division, segregation, and anti-Black sentiments continue to persist.

I have hope in America, but my hope is fading fast. I hope Americans wake up before it’s too late. We have little time, and we’re losing ground every day as we pretend things in the nation are getting better. Things aren’t. They won’t get better unless we do something.

Continuing to do nothing is not an option.

© 2019 Marley K. All rights reserved.