Feeling Sad

Maybe it’s the anniversary of D-Day, reminding us what a great country we have always lived in, but suddenly today I was overcome with a wave of sadness so strong that I almost cried. We are inured these days to the Trump outrages, though we must never become so accustomed that we fail to feel outrage. No, it was not one big thing today, but the accumulation of a lot of things, some not so little, some not new, that made me want to cry for my country.

How did we become in a little over a year a country that cages children and forces them to sleep on concrete floors? Why do we have a government spokesperson who cites D-Day as evidence of our longstanding relationship with Germany? Why do we have an illegally elected president who asks the prime minister of Canada why “you guys” burned down the White House in 1812? A president who doesn’t know the words to “America the Great.” Who is now passing out pardons like a kid who’s found a new play toy and who will go into a summit meeting with our closest allies this week determined to alienate them further.

We hear that America’s standing in the world has fallen—no one considers our country the leader of the free world anymore. But I want to say to all those people—the Brits who have been our allies through two world wars, France, Italy, Canada of course. I want to say to the whole world, “Please don’t scorn us. Have compassion. Through a quirk in our election system and a bunch of uneducated folks who are not our finest representatives, plus almost certain help from Russia, we ended with this severely flawed man at the helm of our nation. Many of us are suffering the physical and financial results of his unpredictable regime; those of us not yet directly affected are grieving and outraged. We ask your patience. We will come out of this. Help us. Don’t hate us. Please.”

America has had a huge wake-up call. I hope and pray we can rise to respond and restore the glory.