ISawArkansas

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Love of country is a concept we’re taught. It’s a value some insist on, yet that outlook is split about 50-50 in the United States.

One reason that nearly half of U.S. citizens are not proud of their country is due to anger at a government that refuses to spend tax money on healthcare, education, clean agriculture and quality manufacturing. When people thrive, communities thrive.

But we already knew that.

Pride comes from prosperity and feeling as though you make a difference, you’re helping, you’re participating in your country as you do in your family, casino or parish. Pride is feeling welcome and comfortable where you are right now.     

When people are not proud of their country they tend to disrupt, terrorize and damage what they see as powerful people taking advantage of them. What can they do? Move?

Those who stormed the Capitol last week were not necessarily Trump advocates, but they were certainly dispirited and exhausted by trying to manage a health holocaust with or without a job. The only reason people can even keep their wits is because they know they’re not alone.

The level of disarray and ferociousness in Washington on January 6 felt like an expression of low self-esteem. People were screaming that they weren’t being heard.

We have proof that the 2016 election was compromised and we know that Trump was elected by the Electoral College and not the popular vote. We can sort of believe that he thought it would go that way again.

There are places where the far right and far left agree. Neither believes their government is listening to them and both want to be the bright child. Cabinet members, federal judges, senators, aides and all the rest are in large part acknowledged for not upsetting the way things have always been done. They’re rewarded for seeing to it their employer gets the most pie.

We know that Donald Trump was untrained, uncoachable and disinterested in the job he was applying for. But he got it. He did what he knew how to do, schmooze, and perhaps thought it would go as well as it always had.

Plenty of things went wrong. Other world leaders asked him over for lunch, but nobody asked him back.

Children were taken from their parents’ arms and fenced in. They’re still there.

Virologists had their funding taken away and Trump said the pandemic would disappear in hot weather.

Women were publicly shamed for doing distinguished work – Elizabeth Warren, Angela Merkel, Hillary, Beyoncé, Gail Collins, Rosie O’Donnell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Cher, Carly Fiorina, oh who knows how many.

But he was our president. He screwed the climate, screwed the farmers, screwed the Muslims, screwed the Constitution, yet is thought by esotericists to be an angel sent to us to expose corruption.

What shall we do? Attack a building?

No. We should take responsibility for what’s happened. And forgive him.

And then fly him wherever he wants to go. Relieve him of his citizenship and not let him return. Not let him own any property here, not country clubs or even golf clubs. Not let him ever borrow or spend money in this country.

It’s kind of the way they regard capital punishment in Texas – we’re just killing you back.