Trump Presidency According to Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens wrote: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Dickens may have very well foretold about what would become of the Trump administration in America when he published his book A Tale of Two Cities some 160 years ago. Donald J. Trump and his presidency certainly took America by storm, raised it to new heights, and left it devastatingly divided. No amount of attempt to suppress free speech in the name of “civility” (whatever that means in the age of the unholy alliance among the political establishment, liberal media and Big Tech) will ever deny the fact that president Trump has been one of the most (if not the most) colorful presidents in US history.

It would be a shame and wrong if Trump’s presidency will only be remembered for what happened at the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021. Blaming Trump for the siege of the Capitol building perpetrated by some of Trump’s supporters out of some hundred thousand people who attended the Save America rally in DC will simply miss a marvelous opportunity to look at the root cause of the chaos. We cannot expect the embrace of the “Blame Trump narrative” to pacify these people’s anger and frustration to force a way for the nation to unify. These people feel that they have been disenfranchised, marginalized and simply dismissed. Immediately after the November 3rd elections many of these people did not feel good about how the counting took place. Indeed, the last election has perhaps been one of the most controversial elections the country has had and there have been many accounts of electoral fraud, irregularities and anomalies that many of these people wanted to bring out but were simply dismissed, ridiculed and shunned. Many people felt that the elections weren’t on the up and up; I too (being familiar with the elections shenanigans that occur in the Philippines) did not feel right about how the ballots were counted in the contested swing states. But instead of giving their grievances and collected evidence the light of day, these were basically suppressed and discounted by Trump haters to be mere products of “tantrum by losers”.

For a couple of months many of these people have been trying to point out issues in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin but Democrats and the media have ignored them and labeled them as conspiracy theorists. These people had, through their lawyers, thousands of affidavits and a few people were also willing to testify about what they have seen as wrong. They merely wanted their day in court. The state of Texas along with 17 other states including Florida, Georgia and Alabama, people from these states wanted to be heard in the Supreme Court as they wanted to point out what were wrong in the results from the states being contested. Instead of being heard and giving these people their day in court, their cases were simply dismissed not for lack of merit but for lack of standing since state courts, not the federal Supreme Court, ought to hear the case. State Democrats, instead of sitting down with these people and trying to convince these people that the elections were conducted and counted fairly through a careful review of the evidence presented as well as a thorough audit of the ballots, these people’s cases were simply disregarded. To merely accept the result of a highly controversial election is a tough pill to swallow for these people given that Democrats spent 3 long years investigating a Russia collusion hoax but now are unwilling to investigate electoral fraud allegations. It would have made a lot of difference and would have pacified a lot of anger and frustration had these people been heard and had the contested ballots been thoroughly and independently audited.

We have to realize that many of Trump’s supporters support him not because he is “The Donald” but because Donald Trump actually fought for many of the things they believed in. Donald Trump gave these people a powerful voice that the prevailing cultural deities in government establishment, media and cyberspace simply could not stand. Donald Trump was not afraid of the Party establishment, the liberal media and Big Tech. Trump personified the fight many of these people wanted to give to the elites but were not able to give. To ignore or simply dismiss Trump’s electoral fight is tantamount to ignoring and dismissing many of his supporters’ sentiments. Outright dismissal of people’s sentiments and cases is what makes people angry and this is not just about the elections but in all other aspects of life and beliefs. Under the prevailing culture dominated by the left, if a person’s beliefs do not conform with the left’s agenda and narrative then this person gets mocked, ruined and cancelled. To disagree in abortion because of one’s belief in the sanctity of life makes one a religious bigot. To believe that it is unfair for biological males to compete in female sports or that biological males should not be allowed to use girls’ bathrooms makes one a homophobe. To insist that immigrants ought to come to America legally and through merit makes one a xenophobe. To prefer to say All Lives Matter instead of Black Lives Matter makes one a racist. Many people are simply fed up about all these and many of these people feel that cheating their hero out of the presidency is equivalent to them being cheated out of having a voice.

To blame Trump and to suppress his (and his followers’) views and grievances will only make things worse. GRP webmaster benign0 put it simply as “..it is likely that blocking Trump would be the equivalent of putting a lid on a cauldron that is boiling over. What is more important to consider is what to do about the fire underneath that cauldron. … Is Trump the fire that brought many Americans to a boiling point today? Or was that fire burning long before Trump even considered the American presidency back in the lead up to the 2016 presidential elections? This is the real question Americans need to answer.” The question is profound, of course. But in addition, how exactly do we put out the fire?

So how do we deal with the fire? Would keeping a lid on the cauldron get rid of the risk of a blowup or should we work on putting out the fire? If it is the latter, how do we do this if we prevent the conditions conducive to contain the fire and being smothered through discussion and understanding to resolve differences? How do we put out the fire if Trump supporters are expected to stay quiet while the other side airbrushes all of the great things Trump has done for the people and for the country? Would denying credit for the Trump administration having achieved the best economy with the lowest unemployment in modern times where Blacks and other minorities being the biggest winners work? Would denying credit for his administration’s deregulation resulting in reduction of costly business red tape restrictions do the job? Would reversing the Trump administration’s business-boosting tax cuts promote unity? No? Then perhaps the reversal of Trump’s energy policies that unleashed industry production that created tens of thousands of jobs and making America independent of foreign oil supplies and pricing controls would! Maybe that will do the trick, right? Still “No”? Then how about stripping Trump of credit on the First Step Act that lessened the over-incarceration of minorities (91% Blacks) resulting in their sentencing reduction and paving the way to the release of thousands of Black prison inmates giving them another chance in life? Should we maintain that Trump is a racist and go back to Biden’s law in 1994 that caused the mass incarceration of Blacks? Maybe switch the credit for good measure? Give Biden credit for the First Step Act and Trump the 1994 Biden Crime Law? If that is not a good idea then maybe we can smother the fire if we agree to reverse Trump’s foreign policies where NATO countries were made to pay their fair share of the cost? How about Trump’s Middle East policies that led to Israel finally having peace accords achieving normalized relations with multiple Arab nations? Should subscribing to Biden’s policy of appeasing Palestine and Iran make everyone agree to unify? Then we go to the handling of the Covid-19 (as Trump likes to say “China Virus”), should we go back to calling him a xenophobe for overruling “experts” to ban travel from China? Should we simply forget that he established a National Coronavirus Task Force, invoked the Defense Production Act to provide all medical equipment needed to respond to the crisis, implemented a massive national testing program, and organized the Operation Warp Speed program that helped produce and distribute effective promising vaccines and therapies in a historically unprecedentedly short time?

I guess what I am trying to say is that: “Would vilifying and canceling Trump (and his supporters) be the key to unify America?”

Of course, it is also correct to say that Trump did have many follies as well and these were primarily rooted on his big ego. Yes, he had a huge ego problem and to a larger extent, Trump really did become his own biggest enemy! His ego largely caused his demise and I am sure this is a cross he will be bearing for the rest of his life as he looks back at his life’s and his presidency’s triumphs and tragedies. It really is sad to see a man who has done so many great things for the country and its people but will be looked at as a man who also contributed to further divide the nation because he couldn’t temper his ego. It seems fitting to think that Charles Dickens may have also aptly captured the tragic end of Trump’s presidency when he wrote:

“Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.”

(Photo taken from Youtube)

Hector Gamboa

Calling a spade, a spade…