US

As I watch Donald Trump, surely the misanthrope for the ages doesn’t get the concept of “us.” He gets it if you mean he’s right, but the man simply doesn’t want to let anyone into his club of one.

“Us” can mean more; it can mean me and you and my family and yours. Or mine, yours and everyone else we know and like. Or it can mean every single one of us. For my purpose, it means you and me and every person who cares about humanity and the future of this little speck we call “Earth.” But I especially mean Americans, because we own the bat and ball.

We need each other, folks. Someone has to change our parents’ bed pans in the nursing home. Someone has to repair our cars. Someone has to wait on tables, clean hotel rooms, make sure the death row inmates don’t escape.

We are our best when we come to realize that we’re in this together.

And, yet, someone has to speak truth to power; someone has to point out that the emperor is buck naked and it ain’t a pretty sight.

We all seem to believe that we are a painfully divided people. Last week, while riding an elevator in the state capitol, a stranger gets on at his floor. I said, “Which side are YOU on?” It was funny; we laughed. But not really.

When a common criminal, a serial rapist who publicly ridicules his victims, a tax cheat, a liar, a misanthrope has a real chance of returning to the White House, we need to remind ourselves who we are and what we stand for: we are everyone; thanks to immigration, we are diverse, and better for it; women have rights; black and brown people own houses and businesses. Progress has been made. But we have a long, long way to go.

Don’t give in to the man whose daddy set him up. Don’t give in to the man who would be king. Don’t give in to the man who compares himself to Jesus. Don’t give in to the man who is lying.

Donald Trump wants to be a dictator. And we are like Germans in the 1930’s, goose-stepping to his drum beat. Come on, fellow Americans, we aren’t that stupid!