Saturday, February 24, 2018

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The President of the United States is expected to be the cheerleader who says all the right things in order to inspire people.  We remember and quote, for instance JFK's "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  Even those who didn't care much for Reagan, recall his "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"  Or, more recently, with Obama even leading the singing of Amazing Grace.

And then there is trump.

When I read news items that referred to trump reading a poem that compared immigrants to snakes that kill, I thought that perhaps the reports were exaggerating whatever happened at the gathering of conservatives.

So, like I tell students all the time, I went out to verify.

Verify I did.

I have been in distress since then.

Perhaps you, too, read the news item.  And perhaps you chose not to watch the video of him reading it.  But, you need to.  This is no regular American.  This is no president of some caricatured banana republic. This is the President of the United States, in front of a huge audience, with his video telecast live and streamed online to the entire world.

Watch him deliver the verse.



I will remind you, again, that the one who you watched is the President of the United States.

And did the high decibel volume of the cheerful response register in your mind?  They are only a small part of the 63 million who elected him President!

As Vox notes:
Time and again, when Trump is in front of friendly audiences — whether it’s a group of police officers on Long Island or a group of conservative activists at CPAC — he gives speeches about how immigrants are subhuman and violent, and that America needs sufficiently ruthless and violent law enforcement officers to fight against them effectively.
"subhuman."  We are snakes?  We will kill the people who are already here?

I wonder where all this will end up.


2 comments:

Ramesh said...

Your comment box opens with the exhortation to not bother saying anything remotely positive about the "fascist" in the US. I will amend it to not saying anything at all. I am tired of your dear leader and won't say anything about him whatsoever !

Sriram Khé said...

At least you have the option of ignoring trump ... we don't :(

I wonder if you will then have anything to say in response to the next post ... I hope you will ;)