If you’re a fan of the Electoral President of the United
States, don’t bother to read this. Just click the pretend Thumbs Down button on
FB and move on to the next post on your newsfeed.
One of the New York Times op-ed columnists, Gail Collin, had
a catchy title to her opinion today: Trapped on an Island with Trump. I thought she was claiming that all Americans
were trapped
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| from The Saturday Evening Post |
But let’s face the unpleasant reality. It is all Americans
who are trapped on the island with Trump. The USA once was a powerful country
that stretched from sea to shining sea, but we’ve eroded to a tiny leper colony
island that the rest of the world is trying desperately to avoid. Mexico and
Canada are close enough to our island to have developed anxiety problems. No
more friends in Europe, other than Russia. A few friends in Asia, but only
because of North Korea.
In my lifetime, half the people in the country didn’t like
whoever was president, but they understood him. He was predictable. The
president didn’t cause us to lose sleep or develop nervous ticks because we
can’t go for an hour without checking our cell phone to see what the President
was up to now. With whom was he trading insults? What were his latest thoughts
on tax reform? Who would REALLY pay for the wall? Who would be allowed into the
country without having to pass through a dark rendition site? Was he really
going to nuke North Korea?
I’m thinking some of you don’t buy into my tiny island
metaphor. Okay, I’ll go along with you. It’s a big island, stretching from West
Virginia to Florida to Arizona. The northeast coast is actually a barrier
island. The West Coast is its own island. Trump is not their problem. They’ve
got marijuana and everything is cool, man. And it might be significant, and
understandable, that the majority of Republican voters now favor legalizing
marijuana. Which may be the only hope for resolving the discord between the small
towns and big cities on our little island.
