They say time heals all wounds. They also say that people tend to romanticize things from the past. We see this everywhere. In Jamaica, we gripe about the good old days just before Independence when everything was ‘hunky-dory’. In the USA, they gripe and hark back to the glory days of the 50s when ‘life was simpler and America ruled unchallenged’. Sadly, instead of healing wounds, time actually blinds us to the negativities of the past, especially as we try to come to terms with the shocking new day.
This can be summed up neatly with — I do apologize as I know he has been spoken of many times before — what is going on with Donald Trump.
Now, it is hardly news that Mr Trump rubs people the wrong way and that his policies, political actions and rhetoric put — if I may be frank — the fear of imminent death, by blunder, in people while also bringing out a deep visceral hate that the world has for these types of leaders.
But this fear and rabid hatred for the current US president has led to a shocking revision of how the US views past presidents.
The reaction of the American media after Trump’s election victory has been one of fawning for and total revision of the immediate past presidents. For example, we hear them yearn for the days when America disavowed and disowned bullies. The quotes from one past president that they brought out to show Mr Trump what a statesman looks like were “Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children,”.
Sound and cogent words. It’s a shame these words came from President George W Bush of Iraq fame — the man who used the bully pulpit so well to not only push for an illegal war on false charges but whose administration leaked the name of Central Intelligence Agency covert officer Valerie Palme because her husband happened to disagree with the basis for the war.
How the US media can trot out Mr “if you’re not with us or against us” as an example of presidential decorum would be hilarious if it were a script. It reads more like a tragedy in reality.
In a further attempt to show Mr Trump for what he is, they call him (rightfully) a liar and someone who obfuscates and avoids actual answers. To show us the people what a real president looks like, they bring out Mr William Jefferson Clinton III, the charmer himself. Who best to poke fun at and lecture the world on alternate facts than Mr Alternate Facts himself. For who could forget “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”? Lest we forget, that was a lie, so unnecessary and yet so big that it led in no small part to his impeachment.
To bring this man out to act as some paragon of truth, the man who stated that NAFTA would have a net benefit for the US when all available information was to the contrary tells us what the US institution thinks of the American people, and what they think is not polite.
It is obvious that most of the US public do not like the current president, but to then say that ‘GW Bush was a saint in comparison’ smacks of stupidity. To say that Mr Trump, in his year in office, has not done anything earth shattering or out of the ordinary for an American president is silly and a total lie. It has been par for the course so far. What has been different is that he and his administration no longer put on pretences and lie.
No more ‘nation-building’ no more ‘promoting democracy’, both of which were fallacies. Now we have the truth — ‘give me your oil’ and ‘strength and stability’. That removal of a carefully constructed mask is what has really thrown the American media into such a hissy fit.
The US establishment is in turmoil and it is hilarious to watch. The constant revision of history is taking place at such a pace that the actors can’t seem to keep up at times — as was seen when Al Franken ‘fell on his sword’ — and is so muddled that one can’t help but think that the farce can’t hold for much longer.
With the love for traditional Democratic and Republican politicians still at an all-time low, and with the people still thoroughly turned off with what passes for news — which is nothing but tearing a person down and not addressing the system that brought it forth — it is only a matter of time before Americans look for something more radical than Trump. Then the liberal class in America will only have themselves to blame as they would have ‘bigged up’ and praised what can only be called savage wolves in sheeps’ clothing while demonising a person just as savage, only more visibly a vicious beast.
