Happy Birthday? He cant accept elections unless he wins. Does not believe the courts dropped the T from Kennedy. What happened to the good old days of civility? Why does it seem that nobody cares? Not aspiring to be strictly good or purely bad. A fundraiser headlined by him with the price of admission: $1 million per person.
What ever happened to the so called good old days when POTUS worked for US and we led the world and leadership was not beholden to any nations?
When my family arrived on American soil, I could not speak English. Yet one of the first things I noticed was the sense of community. Neighbors looked out for one another. People disagreed, but there was a shared belief that we were all part of a great society and something larger than ourselves.
Today, that spirit has significantly diminished. After decades of living in this great country, I find myself wondering what the United States truly represents and what, if anything, still unites us.
While writing this, I spoke with my news mentor, who is two years older that Trump. He says his POTUS was FDR and its been downhill since then.
Trump turns 80 today, becoming the oldest president in American history. He is throwing a large party at the White House, with security estimated around $20 million, most of it paid by taxpayers as we are told is a gift to America.
Too often, it seems we have become the “Grey or Purple States of America”, a nation divided into political, cultural, and informational camps, each speaking its own language and distrusting one another.
The forces driving this division are powerful: the spread of misinformation, the politics of fear and resentment, and the outsized influence of money in our political system. These forces have weakened our ability to solve problems together and eroded the trust that is essential to a healthy democracy. Rich people now own media empires, where before it was considered a public service not a propaganda tool to make the rich become more wealthy.
I was fortunate to witness a different era. I had the privilege of meeting and working with leaders such as Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, Jimmy Carter, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They held strong convictions and often disagreed passionately. Yet they understood that governing required compromise, respect, and a commitment to the US Constitution and the greater good. They recognized that political opponents were not enemies, but fellow Americans with different ideas about how best to serve as public servants.
Today, I fear that spirit has been replaced by a politics in which winning matters more than governing and blind faith to a political dears and loyalty to particular party often outweighs loyalty to democratic norms. Meanwhile, many wealthy and well-connected interests continue to prosper while millions of working Americans struggle with rising costs, economic insecurity, and a growing sense that the system is no longer working for all of us.
America's greatest strength has never been its wealth or military power. It has been the salad and the cultural melting pot. The US ability to bring together people from different backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences in pursuit of a common future. If we are to overcome our current divisions, we must rediscover that sense of shared purpose. The challenges we face are too great, and the stakes too high, for us to remain divided against US.
Meanwhile, the GOP is reportedly exploring whether elements of the $1.8 Billion slush fund can be reactivated while also examining alternative arrangements to make sure loyalists get compensated.
The question is not whether America can endure. The question is whether we are willing to do the hard work necessary to live up to its highest ideals. If we can leave a better nation for our children’s children.
