Waiting to Exhale

My best friend and I argue about many things. I think he enjoys it. There are times when I am sure that he takes a position on a certain topic for no other reason than he knows that I feel differently about it. He calls it “poking the bear”, and it works… We fight about football, baseball, basketball, golf, guns, movies, books, food, history, politics, and a thousand other things. One of our more memorable arguments was about the causes of the American Civil War.

We both have read extensively about the war, and visited the battlefields together. We agree that the Civil War was the pivotal event in American history, an existential threat to the nation itself. I have always believed that the reason for the war was slavery. He insisted that the cause was “states’ rights”. For years, he used that argument as the proverbial stick to “poke the bear”. It worked every time. Every time he brought it up he would truly piss me off, and he knew it. Eventually, we decided to agree that the root cause of the Civil War was the Confederate States’ insistence on their “right” to own slaves.

Imagine that. Our nation split in two. State against State. Brother against Brother, Neighbor against Neighbor. We went to war against each other, because one half of the nation, convinced of its racial superiority, insisted it had the right to own Black people as slaves. By the time the war was over, more than 620,000 men would lose their lives in the line of duty, more than World War I, World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam, combined.   

That is the power of racism. It is a human defect that has been present within us since the beginning of time.

The Civil War began in 1860. Four score and four years after the Declaration of Independence. One hundred years later, in 1960, the nation found itself engaged in another existential struggle caused by racism. The Civil War had resulted in three amendments to the United States Constitution. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship rights to African Americans and former slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to African Americans and former slaves. Nevertheless, one hundred years later, in 1960, none of the rights granted by the war and these amendments were reality.

The Civil Rights Movement was required to ensure that the 620,000 lives sacrificed during the Civil War were not given in vain. The movement ensured that the majestic words enshrined in the Lincoln Memorial were not meaningless. More sacrifices would be required. More blood would have to be shed. More tears would have to fall, but once again, the scourge of racism would be forced to retreat, and America would move ever closer to the promise of its creed.

Forty-eight years later, America would elect its first African American President.

Many thought that the election of Barack Obama was clear evidence of a post-racial society. Many thought that his election was proof-positive that American racism was a thing of the past. They were wrong. Racism is not an American problem. Racism is not a Southern problem. It is a human problem, and the election of a Black man as President of the United States was more than most racists could stand.

On Tuesday, November 8, 2016 (just two days away), America will elect a President to succeed Barack Obama. In many ways, Obama’s successor will be more fortunate than he was. They will inherit a nation with few of the problems Obama faced on his first day in office. The worst financial crises since the Great Depression is no more. Interest rates are at record lows, inflation is non-existent, unemployment is 4.9%, and the country has enjoyed 72 consecutive months of job growth, the longest consecutive streak since 1939! Last year, the country had the largest increase in median household income since 1968! And, the number of Americans without health insurance has reached a record low. Not to mention the two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) that were raging are no longer claiming American lives.

I believe that Hillary Clinton will be elected President of the United States, but I’m not absolutely sure. Donald Trump could win, and that scares me. After watching and listening to Trump for the past year, I am astounded that 40% of American voters are willing to make him President. There have been so many times when he has said and done things that embarrassed me as an American because I know the world is watching, I know that impressionable children are watching. How can tens of millions of American citizens believe that this man should be the leader of the free world? I have asked myself, “is racism that powerful?” “Is ignorance that pervasive?”

I have heard the arguments that all of this is a manifestation of “economic populism”. I listen to the people on television who are paid to say intelligent stuff talking about how all the manufacturing jobs are gone because of “immigration” and “bad trade deals.”

But then I think about the changes that have occurred since the Civil Rights Movement, how the racial caste system was finally destroyed and how the legal barriers to minority achievement have begun to level the economic playing field for minorities. Perhaps that is why minorities are overwhelmingly Democrats, despite the fact that economically and socially they are still suffering more than white Americans.

I hear the pundits talking about how the jobs that only required muscle are gone overseas (where wages are lower). They talk about our “21^st Century” economy that places an emphasis on education. Today, educated minorities are visibly more successful than uneducated whites. Their once “superior” status, which was based simply on being white, is a thing of the past. Many of them still live in towns that have been adversely affected by these fundamental changes.

Is this what they mean when they say they want to “take our country back”?

When Trump says, he will “Make America Great Again” is he talking about before all of this happened? Before the Civil Rights Movement? Before the Civil War?

Who will he take the country back from? The Latinos? The Jews? The Muslims? The African American in the White House?

My best friend and I argue about a lot of things, but we agree on Trump. He is an existential threat to the United States and civilization itself. His appeal is rooted in racist appeals and bigotry. Many of his supporters are victims of an evolving economic system that demands more than they have to give. This is a problem that could, and should be addressed. America has solved bigger problems before, but this one will require Democrats and Republicans working together.

Abraham Lincoln, when facing the nation’s first great existential threat, said “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature”.

It seems as if I have been holding my breath, waiting for this election to end. I pray that this threat to our nation, the “last great hope of mankind”, shall soon pass.