Editorial
Let us find the joy of America
Vice President Kamala Harris lost. The autopsy of her campaign will be on-going for quite a while. Everyone has an opinion why she lost to Donald Trump.
What can we take away from the 2024 Harris campaign? Before she dove into her belief that Trump was unfit for office and talking about protecting women’s reproductive rights, her campaign message was all sunny and light.
Harris wanted to bring joy back to the country. “There is more that unites us than divides us,” Harris liked to say.
We agree. It can be argued that everyone wants the same thing: a place to call home, meaningful employment, safety, security and an economy that works for all.
Politics and elections are supposed to achieve all that and more. Elections give the citizens the opportunity to weigh in on how we achieve these universal goals.
Joy should not be dismissed. Our times call for less rancor and more tolerance.
Harris had a messaging problem, which led, in part, to her defeat. Yet her call for more joy in America resonates.
We live in the greatest nation in the world. We should be happy and joyful. By most benchmarks the economy is doing very well.
What about those who don’t feel joy? Who feel marginalized? There are problems the country faces such as an unsecure border, homelessness and income inequality, to name a few.
We turn to our public officials to tackle our toughest issues. Tackle away, public servants.
Competition is good when it comes to business and sports. Life itself should not be a competition, we all are residents of the United States. We should lift each other up, help those less fortunate.
Let us leave the country better than when we found it.
— LAZ
Guest column
Which Trump will we see in the second term?
By GENE H. McINTYRE
Feelings of magnanimity often come easy to we humans when anything really good happens to us. It’s defined as when we’re experiencing generous or forgiving feelings toward a rival or less powerful person; it can also ‘touch the human heart’ in terms of kindness or forgiveness. It’s suggested that it’s what overcame President-elect Donald J. Trump when he found out his bid for president was successful. What follows here is a word for word excerpt he spoke in his concluding remarks from a few days ago.
“It’s time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us. It’s time to unite, and we’re and we’re going to try. And it’s going to happen. Success will bring us together, I’ve seen that, I saw that in the first term when we became more and more successful, people started coming together. Success is going to bring us together, and we are going to start by putting America first. We have to put our country first for at least a period of time. We have to fix it because together we can truly make America great again for all Americans. So, I want to just tell you what a great honor this is. I want to thank you. I will not let you down. America’s future will be bigger, better, richer, safer and stronger than it ever has been before. God bless you and God bless America.”
That statement came across as one strongly indicating a dedicated effort will be made by a second term President Donald J. Trump to work with everyone in order to establish a more perfect union here in the United States of America. Nowhere in the complete narrative of his congratulatory speech does he mention his “I am your retribution!” Retribution is defined as severe punishment for something seriously wrong that someone has done. The retribution statement was delivered multiple times in reference to any American who has been recognized by Trump as criticizing him, going against him, disagreeing with him, anything perceived by him as negative or demeaning. During his public life as a politician, Trump has made many such statements indicating he will deliver retribution or serious harm to persons here who finds fault with, criticizes or disagrees with him.
His statement, available to read on the internet, does not, anywhere therein, include mention of the word retribution or getting even with people who he’s viewed as enemies of him or America. So, how will his many statements on retribution and getting even with his “enemies” be expressed during his upcoming term in the Oval Office? We will likely learn how, soon. However, attacks like the one he has promised to deliver upon Joe Biden and his family members, and many other Americans, examples like those U.S. military generals, who advised him during his former White House years, delivered to them in the form of severe punishment, are predicted to not rest well with a huge swath of the U.S. population and thereby likely to result in outbursts of intense anger and heavy duty push back hurtful to his plans and objectives for peace/thanksgiving/unification/togetherness in America.
Hence, the pertinent question is this: Will Trump as President try to bring unity and peace to the nation’s people or deliver chaos and hatefulness expressed through violent deliveries to fellow Americans, citizens from birth in the U.S. Citizens viewed generally as upstanding, contributing, and law-abiding, Americans who have not trespassed into the U.S. by an illegal border crossing?
(Gene H. McIntyre shares his opinion regularly in the Keizertimes.)