The Tribune

THE land where I was born and stood tall as a child, head held high, beaming and proud to be part of the greatest nation on earth, no longer feels like the place of high moral ground it once was.

What has happened to America?

The land of the free and the home of the brave feels more like the land of the gullible and the home of the vulnerable.

What has happened to the country that tried to save the world after World War II? The country that passed Civil Rights legislation nearly 60 years ago, led by a president who was so determined to get the Act passed he kept Congress in session for the summer until the last shred of resistance faded.

What has happened to the country that gave birth and voice to a John Lewis and to a JFK?

What happened to the principles of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, protecting freedom of speech, the press, the right to petition government for a redress of grievances? Did it drown in the piercing sounds of gunshot blasts of the 2nd Amendment, the right to bear arms? How did America get to a place where the records it holds are so heartbreaking, records like mass shootings, more than 400 so far in 2023. According to one report, the Gun Violence Archive projects that if the current pace continues there will be more mass shootings in 2023 than in 2019 through 2022. The fact that there is a Gun Violence Archive is disheartening enough.

Where leadership is wanting, the people fail to expect better – fail to demand more of what is right, fail to question more deeply what is wrong, retreat into their own world behind their own closed doors and lock out what they no longer care about outside.

Where leadership is wanting, complacency slips in and slowly ascends to fill the space until complacency gets comfortable and the people get comfortable. Complacency is easy. It takes no work to slink down into it. Expecting nothing creates a tolerance of everything.

If not for complacency, where is the shock that the front runner candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, the former president of the United States, faces never before witnessed or heard of accusations - 41 charges in indictments across various jurisdictions? If not for complacency, where is the shock that the man who said he would make America great again may be convicted of trying to make it less than it was by allegedly attempting to overturn a democratic presidential election? Where is the wide-eyed wonder that his popularity only grows with each indictment or that he has said, in his own words, he only needs one more to seal the deal? Where is the disbelief? Why are not proud Americans offended when that same individual says he can make America great again? Wasn’t America great before he came along to say it wasn’t?

Where is the outrage?

What has happened to America?

How did it come to be that it is not only the front runner but the number two candidate in the GOP believes that the real history of slavery should not be taught in public schools, books should be banned, a woman does not have the right to decide matters involving her own body, and oh, by the way if you are going to let the concept of slavery slip, be sure to include the skills slaves learned that helped them make a living once they were free. Skills like blacksmithing.

Skills learned in slavery?

Would that be like saying that Jews in Auschwitz learned survival skills, like how to crawl to pick up a dead bug and digest it before anyone saw them sneak it hoping to stay alive for one more day of torture?

Or those who were water-boarded learned how to tolerate excruciating pain – that is, if they survived? Or those who were blasted by mustard gas in the war learned to live with a single lung?

This is not a Republican problem alone. Questions swirl around the kid glove or hands-off handling of possible charges against the son of the current president Joe Biden.

America the Great is changing, but so is the world. We are not who we once were. We do not embrace our neighbours like we once did. We are more wary, some of us more weary. We lack either the resources or the imagination to handle immigration in a way that would expand our knowledge and cultural base, our skilled and unskilled labour force, our economy.

America the stumped.

What has happened to the America that showed the world what compassion meant when refugees poured into New York harbour and gazed in great relief at the Statue of Liberty, knowing America would welcome them and life would begin anew?

Maybe it has happened not just to America but to people everywhere. The problems are so big they feel out of reach. If we can’t wrap our heads around the issues, maybe there is one place we can start. We can wrap our arms around each other and promise tomorrow we will do better.

There will always be an America and that small child, head held high, proud to be a citizen of one of the greatest nations on earth.