Category: Donald Trump

Christmas Morning

~ slfuchs ~ 5 Comments

I dreamt that Donald Trump woke up this morning after a Christmas Eve slumber like the one endured by Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

I dreamt that he woke up a changed man resolved to forsake the venality, shallowness, and self-centered hardhearted nature that has caused hurt and displacement to so many and brought shame upon the United States of America.

  • I dreamt that—just as Scrooge sent the young boy to the poulter to buy the prize turkey for his impoverished clark, Bob Cratchitt, Mr. Trump would donate a billion of his own dollars to help alleviate the problem of hunger in our world.
  •  I dreamed that just as Scrooge awoke determined that Tiny Tim receive the health care he deserves, that Mr. Trump would wake up and see that health care—the best money can buy–should be the right of all and not the privilege of the few.
  • I dreamt that like Scrooge Mr. Trump awoke this morning with zeal to right the many wrongs of his past.
  • He would start by remitting back payment with interest to all the contractors and other workers he stiffed or cheated over the years.
  • I dreamt that he would wake up not with a commitment to sending more miners into the depths the earth to die young from Black Lung Disease, but with a commitment to put, “America First,” in the development of clean solar energy and other environmental saving initiatives.
  • Yes, I dreamt that Mr. Trump woke up this morning not with a commitment to making America First in competition with other countries but first in its desire to fulfill the dream of its founders.
  • I dreamt that Mr. Trump woke up with the resolve to turn his massive pleasure palace at Mar A Lago into the official, “United States Refugee welcoming Center.” I dreamed Mar A Lago could become the place where, “the tired … poor huddled masses yearning to breath free,” of oppression violence and fear would find warm beds, healthy food, language and job training so that like so many immigrants before them they can assume productive positions in building what truly could become the greatest nation in history.

But I fear that before Trump wakes up a changed man like Scrooge, we are the ones who will have to wake up.

And when we do we will marvel at how we could elect a man like this to be our leader. Just as Germany looks back in shame at having elevated Adolf Hitler, America will look back in shame at placing Donald Trump in the oval office.

I have another dream this Christmas morning: that at the earliest opportunity, we shall oust this president from office and consign the disastrous policies he has pursued to the dustbin of history.

And then, let us begin to heal.

 

 

What Disturbs Me Most About Donald Trump

~ slfuchs ~ 12 Comments

In the year preceding the election and in the days that followed I wrote a number of essays about President Trump and included them in my book, Why the Kof? Getting the Best of Rabbi Fuchs https://tinyurl.com/jz4utns

For several months, though, I have had nothing to say about him.

The primary reason is that others have—more pointedly and eloquently than can I–written everything I feel about his policies, appointments and public statements.

But eight months after his inauguration I must express my dismay:

Donald Trump diminishes the pride I feel as an American.

When I see him dressed as the American flag in red (tie) white (shirt) and blue (suit) responding in such an equivocal, mealy-mouthed way to the violence in Charlottesville, I want to vomit.

As horrible as they are, moments of tragedy are golden opportunities for a president to stand tall and unite the country in pride and resolve.

Such horrible moments allow the president to speak for all decent Americans and express the country’s outrage and resolve to do all that is necessary to comfort the victims and condemn the perpetrators.

Even a president I did not like, George W. Bush, rose admirably to that responsibility in the aftermath of Nine Eleven.

But Trump? Uh Uh!

Whether you agreed with him or not, Barack Obama is a man of gentility and class. He was almost always eloquent and appropriate in his responses to terror and those who besmirched the values this country represents.

But Trump is the opposite. He represents nothing but selfishness, greed and a callous disregard for the very people, as Emma Lazarus wrote on the Statue of Liberty, our country is here to protect: “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Donald Trump has offered these precious potential sources of our country’s future greatness nothing but an upraised middle finger.

He seems to wink at—if not fan–racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. His grandiose promises to repair our country’s infra structure, bring thousands and thousands of jobs back to America, bring an end to urban violence and uproot international terrorism have been nothing but empty words.

But what is most disturbing is that so many people continue to rally around him.

In addition to continuing to condemn Trump and protest his actions and policies, it is in our vital interest to understand why.

What is it that he brings to the table that induces so many to resonate to his words and persona?

Until we find the answers to what is really behind Trump’s appeal, we will continue to write essays that allow us to get things off of our chest. And yes, we should.

But we will really be no closer to fixing the problems that led to his election in the first place.

And that is what disturbs me most about Donald Trump!