The tumor is gone but the cancer remains. As of Jan. 20, Donald Trump is no longer president of the United States.
Trump’s tenure — characterized by bigotry, racism, jingoism, greed, nepotism, ignorance, petulance, intimidation, delusion, lies and, ultimately, betrayal — and rise to power indicate he was merely a symptom of what ails our country
Five years ago he campaigned on a platform appealing to this country’s uglier side. While he lost the popular vote he nonetheless won the electoral college because he had enough supporters who would give him a strategic victory. Put another way, had Trump’s bigoted message truly not resonated with a significant portion of Americans, he would not have had enough votes to win more than a dozen votes in the electoral college.
But it did. And here we are, four years later in a country that is as divided as the Hatfields and McCoys, exacerbated by Trump and his enablers for their own political and personal gain.
But again, Trump is merely a symptom. I still recall the wry observation by a cook at my favorite taco shop on election night in 2016 when he learned of Trump’s victory and mused that this country thought it wasn’t racist because a Black man had been president for eight years starting in 2008.
I still recall the Black Lives Matter movement gaining traction during the Obama administration because they were protesting police brutality and the civil rights protests before then.
I still recall the voicemails and emails to me telling me to go “back to Mexico” or where I “came from” whenever I wrote something perceived as “communist” or “anti-American” in this column.
I still remember people like former Otay Water District board member Hector Gastelum who, before he and Trump were elected four years ago, felt comfortable referring to Black protestors as thugs, undocumented people as “illegals” and eventually felt empowered enough to make Islamaphobic remarks —and then misogynistic ones — on social media.
Four years of Trump brought the malignancy of this country’s racism and intolerance to the forefront of our awareness. We know what ails us and we know part of the remedy is acknowledging the problem. The other part — education and legislation — will take a long time and we have to commit as a whole to treatment if we want to heal.
