I will start this blog by admitting the audacity of calling this particular country America. We have a lot of countries attached to this shared continent, so there’s that. However, the focus of the blog is to reflect on the fact that there are several versions of America within the United States. America is a flag and a banner and a tax system and, perhaps, a language. We share a number of laws and very few values save for the exceptionalism that tells us that we are HNIC (head nation in charge) and what happens outside our borders that we feel is wrong ought to be corrected and what happens inside our borders is none of your damn business.
I grew up in NYC, which is a wholly different place than Montana, which is a wholly different place than Tennessee. There are threads of sameness that connect all three, but the differences in both who the people are, how we live life, and what holds value are different. I may be talking about extreme differences–regional differences–but if culture is defined by place, language, and values then my examples show that we are all Americans and none of us are. The beauty of this nation is that we represent a catch all category. Outside of the Brietbart/Fox News world of color-based supremacy, the ideal American is not pictured by what they look like but what they think. That pervading image of thought is that of freedom.
At least it should be.
I think that it still is, but I think the idea of what freedom actually is has shifted and continues to shift dramatically. So sayeth the country founded on freedom and the broken backs of slaves.
At this time in our nation I believe, finally, that Donald Trump is the best person to run the country. He is reflective of the values we have come to adopt and the attitude we project as a nation. Perhaps we ought to stop complaining that he won and start recognizing that he won because of what we have become, and in part have always been.