|
| |
|
TO ROOT AGAINST YOUR COUNTRY, CHAPTER TWO
|
|
As many readers know, my father wrote a column for The
Chronicle for almost 50 years. While 95% of his columns were satirical and
humorous, he would get serious from time to time, as do I.
One of my father's serious columns stood out above all the
rest, and I've been thinking about it lately. It was titled "To Root
Against Your Country," and it appeared in March of 1971, when the
Vietnam War was still raging.
He had heard on the radio that our invasion of Laos had bogged
down. "Without thinking," he wrote, "I nodded and said
'Good.' And having said it, I realized the bitter truth: Now I root against
my own country."
My father was a World War II veteran who dearly loved his
country. But he was a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War, and knew that if
the invasion succeeded, it would only prolong what he considered a
despicable and mindless war that was tearing his beloved country apart.
It was a courageous column to write in 1971, and it gained
national attention. And I bring it up today because, on an entirely
different scale, I think many people are rooting against the welfare of our
country, including me sometimes, and I don't think that's right.
This is how far we've come in these polarizing times.
People root for negative things to happen to the country we love, because if
good things happen, we may never rid ourselves of the current occupant of
the White House.
Perhaps "rooting" is too strong a word. I don't even
think about it consciously. But when I hear something on the news that is
yet another blemish on the current administration, I find myself smugly
nodding my head and instinctively saying, like my father, "Good."
I want to see Donald Trump's approval rating hit zero. The
lower his popularity goes, the more it validates what a terrible choice he
was to lead the country I love. And the less his chances are of being
re-elected in 2020.
For that to happen, positive events have to be at a minimum.
The economy can't flourish, world leaders can't give us respect, and wars
can't be won. We can't have him bask in glory. We can't have him prove us
wrong.
That's how far we've come, and that's what makes our situation
so sad. Many of us have come to root against our country's best interests.
The problem with this thinking is that people will suffer as a result.
Who cares about a government shutdown if it can make the
President look bad? Never mind that families of the 800,000 government
workers who live paycheck to paycheck will struggle to pay rent and feed
their children.
Pull out of Syria? Let the chaos in that country continue.
Trump's impulsive and ill-informed decisions will come back to haunt us.
Never mind the thousands of Syrian civilians who may die as a result.
Many of us eagerly await the Mueller Report, where collusion
and criminal activities may be revealed, bringing on possible impeachment
proceedings. Never mind that impeachment could tear this country apart once
and for all.
Even when it hits home, my instinctive reaction was the same.
When the stock market dropped 10% in December, I nodded and said,
"Good." Never mind that I have a 401K and other investments in the
market. The market can rebound in 2021 when someone we respect, whether
Democrat or Republican, is in the oval office.
I want to emphasize once again that none of this is rational
thinking. It's just a natural, instinctive, honest reaction to the
absurdities that are dominating our country. I have no doubt that many of
the Obama haters felt the same way during his administration. The last thing
they wanted was for him to succeed.
But I don't remember feeling this way during the Bush
administration, even though I disagreed with most of his policies. There was
a level of respect in those years that is clearly missing today. And more
importantly, there's now a sense of desperation.
It is distressing to think this way, and I believe it's the
wrong way to think. I certainly have no desire for anyone to suffer. But I
desperately want that man out of the White House before he can do
irreparable harm, so I instinctively nod my acceptance when events go
terribly wrong for him.
I don't think that's a good thing to do, or the right thing to
do. But like my father 48 years ago, I'm just being brutally honest.
|
|
|
