Evan Vucci/AP
By
Sarah Ito
After an especially ugly campaign season, Donald J. Trump has been sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Many Americans, primarily women and those who embrace the politics of the Democratic far left, remain bewildered as to how this happened. It is as if the lawful election of a candidate to our highest office is some unfathomable mystery, or the result of a foreign entity implanting a chip into our collective brains, thus altering our free will at the ballot box.
There is no question that President Trump has a sometimes vulgar vocabulary, coupled with an impulsive demeanor, and he must make a renewed effort to control his most vexing deficits. He is now accountable to all the American people, and to a lesser extent, our global allies. That being said, the American people do not elect a candidate to the highest office in our land based on his or her potential for sainthood. We elect our presidents based on their ability to remedy our most pressing concerns. While our hearts may bleed for the people of Syria and the Middle East, and while we accept the need for affordable healthcare for all, and cry out for reform of the criminal justice system, police brutality, and the vulnerability of our borders, for many of us the issue is simple: jobs. The now-familiar James Carville refrain, “It’s the economy, stupid!” drove Americans from the Midwest, South and Mid-Atlantic states to speak out in an unmistakable roar, “FIX IT!” In a rare occurrence, their voices drowned out the indignant screeching of the far left, many of whom are economically privileged and have been since birth.
Donald Trump prevailed because he recognized that there is an entire nation that lives between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and that these are real people, not a demographic. He did his homework, and checked it twice. He saw the Black, White, Asian and Latino families who have always worked and yet can’t afford to send their children to community college. Student loan debt now accumulates in correlation to the jaw-dropping increases in the salaries and perks of top college administrators, as reported by Tyler Kingkade in the Huffington Post of April 19, 2014. “Free college for all!” shouted a bellicose Senator Bernie Sanders, from the tar pits of his failed campaign trail. “How do we pay for this?” I asked myself, as did many others. Do we pay for this from the taxes of an already debt-strapped American taxpayer, or from those who would like to reinvest in their businesses and create new jobs? Do we increase taxes on those Americans who work two minimum wage jobs in retail and still require food stamp assistance to put a meal on the table? Senator Sanders, seventy-five years old and with no documented employment history other than taxpayer-funded positions, with a net worth of $700,000.00 per public record, owner of three homes, and beneficiary of government benefits for the remainder of his life, cannot offer any other answer than the Robin Hood solution: tax the rich, give to the poor, and then tax the poor.
In no small measure, it is the financial woes of the American people that have propelled a businessman into the Oval Office. On both sides of the aisle, career politicians, many now septuagenarians and octogenarians, continue to suck the life out of the nation’s coffers with their closely held radical ideologies of the 60’s and 70’s. Others espouse a sense of entitlement common to the religious right, or use their power for personal financial gain, as seen in the questionable behavior of Senator McCain and the Keating Five during the Savings and Loan implosion of the 1980’s. Is it any wonder that the demographic known as “Millennials” will graduate from college with an average student loan debt of $37,000.00 per the Wall Street Journal, a poor credit rating, and almost no chance of ever owning a home.
Hillary Clinton, while arguably more qualified to be president, lacked respect for the everyday American, a trait shared by many politicians. Donald Trump, while displaying a lack of respect towards some, offers a chance at a better life for all of us, for two reasons: he is not a politician, and he is a businessman. Protests are our constitutional right, but a paycheck, for most of us, is a necessity. Not all LGBT’s and Blacks and Latinos live in Los Angeles or San Francisco or Manhattan, or work in show business. Most don’t desire to collect state and federal benefits. We populate trailer parks in the South and drive tractors in the heartland. We work, or want to work, and we are hanging on to our lives by a waning strand of hope. LGBT people and Blacks and Latinos want and need jobs that can support an individual or a family, jobs that can finance a house or an apartment.
There are many other issues to be dealt with, to be sure, but that can happen as we move forward as a united country. My outrage is reserved for those in power who got us to this point in our history: those elderly, angry, primarily male, retreads for whom every year is 1969. I am not elderly, but I am getting there. For much of 1969 and thereafter I was committed to activism in the Women’s and Gay Rights movements. We had a purpose, a stated goal: we demanded our place at the table. We did not seek a special place at the table, nor a table of our own. We understood that change is cultural as well as political, and that change comes with time and patience, as it ultimately did. After the Trump election I looked at the groups marching around the country in protest of … what? Hurt feelings? Bad words? In the absence of any specific, identifiable goals, I can only conclude that the marches are to protest the inauguration of a man who was elected according to the laws of our nation, and the protesters, primarily women and those who lean to the far left politically, continue to suffer from post-electoral dysfunction. This, I submit, is not only an exercise in futility, but also a protest against those Americans whose concerns put this president in office.
While many upset voters hurl the new lexicon of loaded words at those who have differing opinions … sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and of course, the ubiquitous ‘racist,’ I am reminded that we have another presidential election rolling around in four years, the outcome of which is the appropriate focus for the legions of the disappointed. Until that happens, I am prepared to set aside my personal agendas in favoring of working towards the greater good. This does not mean that I, or others like myself, will turn a blind eye to hostile policies or regressive legislation, despite the left’s indifference to Mrs. Clinton’s moral ambiguities. Our core values will not be eroded. It just assumes that we will, in the true spirit of the American people, give the new guy a chance.
Sarah Ito
I am a novelist (GROWING UP GREENWICH, Outskirts Press), blogger and essayist, and occasional poet.
SOURCE NOTES
I hope he can really serve his country and people can have jobs and better life under his presidency that is so questionable! Thanks for writing this text