Je Suis Un Américain
It has been my habit to use that phrase when I am in France, to excuse the fact that I can’t speak French - despite six years of taking…
It has been my habit to use that phrase when I am in France, to excuse the fact that I can’t speak French - despite six years of taking French in school, nine months of French Class last year, and now being married to a French woman.
I am an American.
Now it means something different when I say it, since we elected Donald Trump as our next President yesterday. That’s right: We elected him. Not they. We are Americans, and we live in a system that allows ordinary people a way to express themselves definitively: not through polls, but by voting directly for candidates.
When enough people are pissed off about how things are managed in our country, they throw the incumbents out and make change happen. Which is exactly what happened yesterday.
I am an American.
I am intensely proud of being an American. I love the American flag and everything it stands for.
I am embarrassed that we decided to elect an idiot like Donald Trump as President of the United States of America, and I do not look forward to the next four years. But I still love America, and I love the system that allowed the Trump Deplorables to change the direction of the country, without having to kill people, riot, or engage in other behavior that happens in less-fortunate countries that do not have the democratic system we have.
I am an American.
I rely on our system so completely that I know the built-in checks and balances will prevent Trump from doing anything egregious. I believe that if he screws up (as I expect he will), we will throw the bastards out, as Willie Nelson once said about another Republican president.
I am an American.
I think the odds that Donald Trump is killing the Republican Party have increased since he has been elected. It will not be the first time an incompetent president killed a party. I certainly hope that, this time, the fundamental issues dividing our country do NOT lead us to take up arms against each other to demonstrate how great our system is. I hope that it leads to a new kind of leadership after Trump has finished being president, the kind of leadership that can help us bridge our society from the past to a future that we all believe in.
I am an American.