It is Torn Now

In April, I wrote an article entitled America’s Fabric is Tearing. It focused on United Airlines' forceful removal of a passenger whose only act had been to refuse to give up his seat for an airline employee. It was corporate thuggery at its worst and reflected both in tone and character a highly vulnerable America deeply influenced by a new administration increasingly unmoored from the country’s long standing and most basic values.

At the time, I hoped that the new President and the country would see the need to protect and preserve our very basic beliefs and our commitments to the richness and power of diversity. In only five months, however, my concerns have turned to conviction and I am deeply worried for America.

The very recent and tragic happenings in Charlottesville, VA during a white nationalist rally point vividly to a country now totally unmoored from its basic values. As serious, they now lay bare a leader unwilling to condemn categorically and explicitly the white supremacist groups responsible for the deaths and mayhem in Charlottesville that left a searing scar on the nation.

This was, unhappily, not a one-off event. It was, rather, the culmination of over 200 days of the Trump Administration during which, practically daily, there have been statements and acts that break with both familiar and rooted democratic norms and in combination define a nation fast loosing it distinctiveness and foundational character. At the helm of this, sadly, is a President who surrounds himself with key staff who not only share his unabashedly alt-right leaning but who also hold important, if often behind the scene, policy and action portfolios.

Regrettably, our very fabric is torn now and there is little time left to return the country to its earlier and proud two-hundred and forty year course.