{"id":211573,"date":"2020-11-09T11:24:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T16:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/?p=211573"},"modified":"2020-11-09T21:16:38","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T02:16:38","slug":"trump-is-almost-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/blog\/trump-is-almost-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Hallelujah! Trump is ALMOST gone."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It should go without saying that by refusing to accept the election results\u2014something no incumbent president has ever done before\u2014and encouraging his supporters not to accept them either, President Trump has once again sunk to a new, and very scary, low.  As I expressed last week, I have  little opportunity to speak to the modern world and I\u2019m sick and tired of devoting what little time I have to the likes of Donald Trump\u2014so this time I really won\u2019t, or at least not much. (If he refuses to clear out of the White House before too long, however, I could be persuaded to renege on my commitment.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words all but fail me when it comes to expressing my profound joy and overwhelming relief at the results of the presidential election.  When I take a look at what\u2019s going on these days on this earth of ours, sometimes I\u2019d just as soon skip it\u2014been there, done that, and so forth.  But I really wish I could have participated in some of the spontaneous, joyous celebrations that broke out in our nation\u2019s biggest cities when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were finally declared President-elect and Vice President-elect.  I especially want to extend congratulations to Kamala Harris for becoming America\u2019s first woman Vice President, along with the first Black woman and person of color. To borrow an expression that wasn\u2019t used back in my day, how cool is that?!  I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever mentioned it, but I was quite a dancer during my brief time on earth and I can definitely see myself showing off some moves in the street in front of the White House, or maybe even in Time Square.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congratulations to Kamala Harris, Our First Woman Vice President<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Despite this humble spirit\u2019s longevity hanging about this planet, and our great nation in particular, I wasn\u2019t prepared for the catastrophe of the past four years.  I\u2019ve watched dozens of Presidents come and go, but I admit I was caught off guard\u2014almost daily, in fact\u2014by the destruction that someone like Donald Trump could wreak on our country, as well as the world that looks to us as a leader.  I\u2019m almost embarrassed to say it, but in the beginning, despite finding Trump and his message repugnant, it had been my inclination to give the man a chance; to acknowledge that a significant segment of the electorate had the right to be heard.  As I\u2019ve said before, and hope I\u2019m not belaboring the point, I\u2019m honestly sympathetic with the grievances held my many people who constitute Trump\u2019s \u201cbase.\u201d Unfortunately, thanks to globalization, automation, and technology, many working people, no matter their skin color, are struggling to maintain a \u201cmiddle class\u201d existence.  While I vehemently maintain those people need to be heard\u2014and their best interests factored into plans for our nation\u2019s future\u2014I worry they must not be allowed to hijack our democracy\u2019s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I firmly believe a significant number of Trump\u2019s base are in denial of the modern world\u2014including the science that can help save them from things like the Coronavirus pandemic and climate change\u2014and are thus less than perfect stewards of our country\u2019s future. I realize it may sound more than a little ironic for someone who lived two centuries ago to be admonishing others for not accepting the world they live in, but that\u2019s just how it is, I\u2019m afraid\u2014a pretty grim state of affairs!<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A Demagogue like Donald Trump Must Never Come to Power Again.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It goes against my egalitarian ideals to say this\u2014although I\u2019m a forever-shamed son of the \u201cCotton Kingdom,\u201d I\u2019m also the product of Jacksonian America and its respect for the \u201ccommon man\u201d\u2014but I regretfully suggest we need to be very careful about relinquishing our country\u2019s future to people who have been shown to use poor judgement when selecting a president.  I firmly believe the more fortunate among us (call us the \u201celites,\u201d if you so choose) need to behave as if we are the older and the wiser, and should have realized what would happen if we failed to address the grievances held by so many of our people.  Calling them racists, even when it\u2019s true, and dismissing them for their cultural inferiority will not cut the mustard.  WE need to do better than that if we intend to hold this country together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We need to take the lead from our President elect, Joe Biden, working-class Joe, as he\u2019s been called, and rekindle our respect for working people, regardless of their skin color.\u00a0 And we need to take a long, hard look at the role we all played in allowing a part of our country to feel they had been left to fall by the wayside.\u00a0 We can only blame automation, technology and globalization for so much.\u00a0 We ourselves need to do some serious soul-searching if we want to avoid another destructive demagogue like Donald Trump ever coming to power again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to healing our country and restoring national unity, based on his refusal to accept the reality of defeat, President Trump remains the elephant in the room or, in his case, the pink (well, maybe orange) elephant in the White House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":211575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"When it comes to healing our country and restoring national unity, based on his refusal to accept the reality of defeat, President Trump remains the elephant in the room or, in his case, the pink (well, maybe orange) elephant in the White House.","_seopress_robots_index":"","pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211573"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211573"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211585,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211573\/revisions\/211585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegallantpelham.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}