Hello, and good Monday! Almost a week ago were the elections, so can you guess what it is I’m going to be discussing today? Correct: frogs. No, I’m just joking. I have nothing against frogs, but I would like to talk not necessarily about the elections, but about the ramifications of last Tuesday’s national decision.
Next year, we will see the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Some people are overjoyed at this. Someone from mine and my wife’s new Sunday School class sent out an email praising it, even going so far as to say that “Every American needs to get on their knees and thank our Heavenly Father!!!” Yeah, there were that many exclamation marks. While I agree with her statement, I don’t necessarily agree with her sentiment, for on the other side of the divide are those who are devastated by Trump’s victory, those who believe he will set up concentration camps for Muslims and non-whites, bankrupt the economy, start WWIII, etc. Every time I go on Facebook, I see people slamming and being slammed by others over the outcome of this election, and an equal number of people begging to know why everyone is being so vicious (hello, it’s the internet; it trolls people and names exploratory vessels “Boaty McBoatface”). So with this in mind, the question boils down to: what will be the real, true ramifications of Donald Trump’s presidency?
If anyone says they know the answer to that question, they are likely making huge assumptions based on powerful biases. I can’t tell you how many people believed that Barack Obama was the Antichrist set to bring about the end of the world, and yet we’re still here. So what changes to our country WILL be effected in the forthcoming reign?
I think the biggest danger lies in the very core of that question. What changes will HE make to our country? How will TRUMP change our nation’s culture? The problem is that this question totally removes us, all of us, from the equation. It puts us in a mindset of total passivity, where we have to sit down, shut up and let the changes to our homeland flow down from the big wig at the top (see what I did there?). But we have so much more power than that! You, person who’s reading this, YOU have the power to change this country for the better. Together, we can bring about the changes we want to exact upon our culture. We create the shifts, the transformations, the growth and progress that our country really needs to better itself. All social responsibility shouldn’t be left up to our leaders; it should be up to us!
In the 1960s, the government was oppressing, denying and oftentimes even lynching a large segment of the population, and Washington was doing nothing to address the issue. Then that population, those oppressed people, began to rise up and fight for themselves. Others joined the fight and formed great solidarity in an effort to fix a great evil in our country, and today that evil is waning. It wasn’t the president, or the governor, or the senators who broke this evil’s back: it was the people. It was the preacher who spent so many years in prison. It was the boy whose mother forced the world to face its own darkness. It was the college students who peacefully protested for their rights. It was those on the bottom who rose reverently and shook the world around them.
Is your neighbor a Democrat while you’re a Republican, or vice versa? You may think that this creates an irreparable rift between the two of you, that your neighbor has their sights set on the destruction of the country, but take it from this Libertarian: if you take the time to get to know that person, those differences typically don’t amount to much. Yes, my candidate lost the election, but am I falling into a despairing hopelessness because one of the opponents won?
There is still hope. The gap between poor and rich can be bridged by us. Much of the debt in our country can be addressed by us. The social issues of racism, ageism, crime and poverty are our responsibility to face. There are so many ways that we can positively improve our culture. We shouldn’t rely on our leaders, or our president, to make those changes. We need to be willing to fix this world, to rebuild it one brick at a time, one homeless person’s meal at a time, one bridge between opposing parties at a time.
There is still hope, my friends, and it lies in you and me.
Until next time, friends…
The Outside View 