We're Going Backwards: A trumpian rerun

 

(With the new Orange regime taking power, it seemed appropriate to rerun a blog that showed how his previous reign of terror was taking us backward.)

 

  Late on Friday nights when I’m safely home (admittedly after a few beers) I like to play music videos on the DVD player. Often they're 80s videos, some are hard rock, i.e. AC/DC (which annoys the neighbors because you have to play those loud), or sometimes just a few “chill music” vids because I need to calm down.

However, one of my favorites is Lionel Richie's “All Night Long.” Invariably though this depresses me. It reminds me how we are going backwards nowadays.

The song is about how you can be so strongly moved by something (music) that you just have to keep going. Party all night long. The dancers wear very colorful outfits, surely meant to make a subtle point, and are multi-racial. The dancing includes a wide range of styles with various mixtures of couples.

This was back in the 80s where it was slowly becoming common and acceptable to see a black man dance with a white woman, a white man tango with an Asian female, two males breakdancing together. It made it seem like things were progressing to where we could all live together in harmony.

Then Trump came along and infested the White House. 

Although we knew there were a lot of racists in our country, they at least had become reticent to express it in public. Unlike the old days where Jim Crow was normalized, racism had become a social deviation, something kept quietly amongst a person's cohort or family. Not something you could bring out in public without facing public derision.

Trump enabled racists. Emboldened them. He has tried to make it acceptable in polite society, and criticized those who challenge him as weak-wristed Libtards or overly PC elites.

Thanks to him, we see an increase in right-wing, racist organizations, demonstrators who are unafraid of public shame chanting abusive, racist slogans and public displays of offensive comments to anyone who looks foreign or of a different race than Anglo-Saxon whites. Even the Republican Party seems to have embraced the Trump vitriol and become largely the party of white males.

Although we've had problems with police interactions with civilians, as I noted in my blogs “Tips for Tourists” and “Police reform Part I & II” I don't think we've seen this level of police violence toward minorities since before the 70s. It's as if they are acting as Trump's agents of violence that he often spews at his pep, excuse me, "campaign" rallies.

I long for the days when we could dance the night away regardless of our race, religion, political affiliation or whatever.  

Sure, the video is a make-believe world, but it was a world where people lived together peacefully, where differences were immaterial, where people could dance together in harmony. A world we need to find again.

 Ahhh, James Thurber.

During the Orange One's (I hate using his name) first reign of terror, racism and hatred became more common. However, it was subtle. People still worried that if they openly expressed racist views/ideas, they'd be ostracized. As his time in office continued, it slowly became more overt, largely because people looked at him as a role model. Now, there is no restraint at all. Racism and hatred toward those who might be different is all out in the open. Because he got reelected despite his obvious flaws, people believe there will be no personal harm to them. As he dismantles any vestiges of diversity and inclusion, it will become worse. That's why it's important for those of us who see racism as evil, to not remain quiet. We need to push it back into the closet where it belongs (I think it's impossible to get rid of it completely). So this is one of my ways to try to claw society back to morality. I will continue to use my blogs and social media posts to sound the alarm. Join me.