It has been a tough 5 years. Not only for the country but for many families as well. Just like the Civil War where at times you had not only North fight South but you had at times brother fighting brother for the soul of our nation.  The same can be said today. Not only do we have a battle going on between Democrats and Republicans we have a battle going on between Pro Democracy and Anti Democracy ideology. People that I have grown up admiring have shown me a streak of hate that as a younger man I would have never believed was there. Was I just naïve? Growing in up in the 60s and finishing High School in 71 I thought that racism would become a thing of the past. I thought that I didn’t know any racist and working in an integrated setting I saw no problem with all of us working together. I worked with Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Philippinos and Women. I thought that we were really building a better world. What in the hell happened?

The easy way to say that the problem is Trump and the Republicans and at times I agree with taking the easy way out. A lot of the problem is with Trump and the Republicans right now, but it didn’t start with them. It started when we began losing all those factory jobs in cities all over the country. Now you have fewer good paying industrial job and the competition for those jobs rose. Blacks, Whites, Hispanics all competing for fewer and less paying jobs. It started when society began to devalue people because of their sexual orientation, their race, and their religion. For some reason it became ok to start throwing the first stone.

I have gotten into my share of Facebook and Twitter conversations because of this blog. Most of the conversations are very positive but a few do upset me. To see the influence that the visual media has on the public is heartbreaking. My father read the paper every day.  We discussed current events at the dinner table all the time. We talked about the civil right marches to the riots to the Beatles. When I got older and married I started out with a morning and evening paper, the Milwaukee Sentinel and the Kenosha News. I turned into a news junkie. I always wanted to be informed. I always wanted to read about a problem and make up my own mind. Like my father I was a Republican and like my father I was always interested what was going on in the world. There was no CNN and there was no FOX news and all the other right and left cable news outlets. To see how dependant the people in America have become on the cable news is just frightening to me. The fact that in my opinion a racist and White Supremist like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon has such a huge following is just scary. They seem to want to divide the country which only weakens us. Who is paying these guys salary?

We are a divided family just like we are a divided nation. After the last 5 years there are some people I will never be able to look at the same. I went to high school with a guy now living in Arizona. He asked me why I hated Trump. My reply back was that I hated racist that call all Mexicans rapist and criminals. His comment back to me was well he was sure that there were some Mexicans that committed rape and that there are some Mexicans that were criminals so what Trump was saying was not racist.  I was shocked. Now this was a guy that I hung out with and really had fun with, a guy I called my friend. How can I look at that guy the same knowing that he is probably as big of a racist as our former Fearless Leader? Relatives that think that poor people are poor because they are lazy when the truth is as long as you have a minimum wage as low as we do you will always have poor people. The system creates them. It is heartbreaking to know that these people think so little about their fellow man yet go to church every Sunday.  We have Trans and Gay people in families where other members of the family think that there is no salvation for them because of their life style. The so called “Choice” that they, like they really had a choice. They say that God does not approve of their life style and it is some abomination. I just want to scream that he created the Trans and Gay people too and their salvation will be the same as yours, whether you lived a good live. Why do we condemn things just because we don’t understand them? Their difference should not scare us.

Most of these problems had been lying beneath the surface and what the last five years did was just make it more out in the open. It was politically incorrect to criticize people because of their race, creed or sexual orientation. Then along comes Trump and all the political correctness is out the window. He makes it ok to hate your neighbor. He made the words to One Tin Soldier come to life. Look them up.