The following YouTube link is the speech that President Obama gave the day after the 2016 election when it was clear that Donald Trump had won the race. I encouraged you to take a few minutes and watch this.
https://youtu.be/a_qg4svvSvU
My immediate thought was "OK, so this is what a true president sounds like." He touched on all the important points and immediately tried to focus the country on the fact that the "united" in the United States of America was very important moving forward. He spoke about the importance of a smooth and cooperative transfer of power and assured everyone that he would do everything in his power to make that happen. You don't realize the greatness of this speech until you've endured four years of tweets, lies, insults, and tantrums from Trump. Pick any former president and find a speech he gave. You'll see many of the same common elements. They all focused on trying to unite the country and presented themselves in a dignified and 'presidential' manner. Trump has never done that. He has great difficulty forming a single coherent sentence or thought. He has an extremely limited vocabulary, uttering the same nonsensical words over and over again; tremendous, bad, amazing, loser, dangerous, terrific, and everyone's favorite... fake news.
Truth be told, I didn't vote for Obama in 2008 or in 2012. But it wasn't because I hated the man. I just happened to think at the time there was a more qualified candidate outside the two-party chokehold that would make a better president. Still, I have a great deal of respect for Barack Obama and there's no doubt in my mind that he will be well-remembered and well-regarded in the history of the United States. As a president, he walked the walk and talked the talk. He was dignified and commanded respect. Not simply because he was the president, but because he imbued that same respect when he spoke and in the way he acted. It's very hard to look back on any of Barack Obama's recorded appearances or speeches and say, "Man, he's acting like an idiot!" or "Whoa, that wasn't very presidential." With Trump, that sort of behavior happened every single day of his presidency. So much so that we became numb to the embarrassing and outlandish behavior while the rest of the world just shook their heads in disbelief.
It's been an extremely embarrassing, stressful four years to be an American. There have been many moments of extreme sadness and fear seeing just how many uninformed, ignorant, uneducated, hate-filled citizens think Trump is a great president and some sort of a hero or patriot. It was bad enough to discover that millions and millions of Americans voted for him in 2016, but it was downright jaw-dropping to see as many, if not more, voted again for him in 2020. I mean, after witnessing four years of his trainwreck of a presidency and administration, the constant divisive rhetoric, his refusal to speak out against racism, the daily blatant lies tweeted, and the characterization of fact-based media reporting as 'fake news'-after witnessing all that, there are still around 75 million people who think that Trump did such a great job that they voted for him again in 2020. America, we've obviously got a long way to go when it comes to education and communication. The good thing -if you can call it good- is that Trump has served as a major wake-up call for all of us Americans who believe in and strive for equality, democracy, and an end to racism and hate. According to the votes cast in this latest election, that only accounts for a little over half the country, which means the other half of the country somehow sees Trump's behaviour as acceptable and worthy of another four years. I don't know about you, but that scares the living shit out of me. Even now, with the election over with and Joe Biden clearly the winner, Trump refuses to concede. He's claiming election fraud with zero proof and there are legions of supports who believe it. Even some notable Republican politicians are echoing or supporting Trump's claims. This is just unbelievable and unbelievably sad and embarrassing to me as an American citizen.
I've previously written how I believe the monster that is Trump was allowed to be created thanks to the two-party chokehold that has gripped our democracy for decades. Garbage in equals garbage out. A president like Trump was only a matter of time. But have we, as a nation, learned anything? I'm just not sure. The only thing that really gives me any solace at this point is knowing that soon, somehow, some way, Trump will no longer occupy the White House. A new administration will take the helm and start the arduous task of trying to undo all the harm that Trump has done. We've got about 2 months until Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States. Those will probably be the longest and most embarrassing two months we'll have to endure as American citizens. A two-month temper tantrum from a spoiled little brat who never actually grew up into a functioning decent adult. But, when it's all said and done, history will not shine favorably on this poor excuse of a human being. Trump will forever be the glaring shit stain on the legacy of the Office of the President of the United States. That's fine by me as long as we've learned something. As long as we never let another wanna-be dictator ascend to the highest office in the land. It's obvious a lot of us have learned nothing. It's obvious a lot of us don't deserve to be called American citizens. We've got our work cut out for us. God Bless the United States of America!
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