America will Never be Exceptional Under Trump
The United States of America is one of the greatest countries in the world and has been for a long time, but we have lost our way in more ways than one when Donald Trump became president and will continue to become less and less great if he is allowed to remain president.
We have heard it for years from conservatives, that the United States is an exceptional nation, but if that is true then why does Trump want to make it great again? I mean, it is a legitimate question for us to ask since he claims and has claimed since 2016 that he is making America great again yet many conservatives have always claim we are great.
America lost our greatness when Trump came along
America has been a great country for years but we are far from being the best country in the world and if you travel around the globe you will see how there are a lot of countries who do things better, have happier citizens, and are an overall example of exceptionalism.
These countries do things better in a variety of ways and have done so for some time now. They are great now and have been great throughout the years and that cannot be denied. The United States however was great and did quite a lot of things well enough before Trump came along, but since he took office in 2016 has lost its way in a variety of ways and continues to become less and less great and far from exceptional under his leadership.
There are many ways that we are not exceptional in the age of Trumpism and with him as the President of the United States and I would like to outline some of those ways in this short but important article on the issue of this American exceptionalism.
You see, for a nation to be exceptional, it must do exceptional things and these things must be done with ALL the people in mind, not just the people that this president likes or thinks should benefit. That is how a democracy works and despite the myth that we are not one, we are most certainly a democracy and for us to be exceptional, we must do exceptional things for everyone.
Trump will never make this nation an exceptional nation and for sure has not done so up to this point.
There are some things that we can do to make our country exceptional and that we can achieve to give our nation a chance to truly be great and to get to that exceptional level and none of those things will happen if Trump remains the President of the United States. These are the facts that we as a country must accept if we are to move forward and get back to a place of greatness again.
The following are the ways in which we are not exceptional or even mediocre with Trump in charge — this is the mess that Trump has created.
Human Rights
Exceptional countries protect the human rights of all their citizens and this was the way the United States was run for many years, but not so with this current administration. The Trump administration does not value the rights of certain groups of people in this country and for that reason they put this nation into the unexceptional category.
This administration does not protect the rights of LGBTQ Americans and has led attacks against the rights of this community since day one and does not appear to be stopping that trend anytime soon. Trump and his VP and known longtime homophobe Mike Pence have attacked LGBTQ rights in various areas of law throughout this first term.
They have led the charge to go after various types of the same-sex marriage law that was passed in 2015 and when they have been unable to get same-sex marriage overturned they go after other types of rights like workers rights, adoption rights, and public accommodation rights. They do not value the civil rights of LGBTQ Americans and it is not the only people they try and oppress and keep down.
They go after the human rights of immigrants and we saw that with Trump trying to take away DACA (Dreamers) rights and protections. The agenda he has against immigrants has been a staple of his presidency but not something that surprises us, but still unacceptable.
The human rights of Muslims and women are two other groups Trump has gone after since taking office.
The Muslim ban he has tried to enact several times is a clear violation of human rights and it does not stop there. He has gone after a woman’s right to choose, women’s equal pay rights, and much more over the years and these actions do not make us exceptional and certainly do not make this nation great — not the least bit.
Healthcare, Homelessness, and Poverty
Any country that allows 500,000+ to sleep on the streets, millions of children to go without food or other basic needs, or more than 27 million people who do not have health insurance and millions more without enough insurance is far from exceptional.
Now, these issues existed before Trump but at least before, the previous president tried to fix these issues, Trump simply ignores these problems and tries to wish them away while at the same time claiming that he is making America great again — far from it.
For a nation to be exceptional, they must make sure that all of their people have access to an education, affordable and quality healthcare, housing, food, and the most basic necessities required to survive in society and this president just does not make that possible. It is under this president that programs that are there to help the poor, the sick, the vulnerable have been scrapped and these groups have been left to fend for themselves.
Denying people access to these types of help make us one of the very least exceptional countries on the planet and if he has the opportunity to stay in office that certainly will not change for the better. Those who do not have these opportunities cannot be part of an exceptional nation and any country that denies help like these things to its people for sure is not great in any way, shape, or form.
Public Health
The “Keep America Great” slogan that Trump and his base put out there is a bunch of malarky, as Joe would put it.
A nation cannot be great or exceptional if they do not value the public health of their citizens and protect people from things like gun violence, terrorism, or a deadly virus. Two of those things our country is not protected from as we speak in Trump’s America and the third is questionable when we look at the big picture.
The public health of a nation is the most important thing and the public health crisis we are currently experiencing with the COVID-19 pandemic and how it is being handled shows that the United States is not exceptional on this issue as we stand today.
Nearly 120,000 Americans have died and more than two million have become infected because of this virus and the way that it stands now, those numbers look to grow and grow and continue to get out of hand. The fact of the matter is that the Trump administration failed the American people on this issue and did not act in an appropriate timeframe and because of that, we have the most cases and most COVID-19 deaths in the world.
How exceptional are we now?
The daily lies, deflection, and ignoring the real threat that COVID-19 is has shown that this president has done a horrible job during this pandemic and so many lives were lost and many more impacted because of his negligence and failure to act.
That coupled with the fact that he is taking away health coverage from tens of millions of Americans day by day and we have no healthcare system in place to address such a public health crisis makes this situation that much worse and makes our country that much less exceptional and we for sure are not going to get better anytime soon.
Then we have our gun violence problem that remains.
Gun violence is our other public health crisis, one that became much worse when we got Trump.
Trump is best pals with the main organization that fights against common sense gun laws and that is none other than the National Rifle Association or as they are more often referred to as — the NRA. This organization fights tooth and nail against the most common sense gun laws and Trump is best pals with these guys, hence why gun violence gets worse and has become much more of a public health issue on his watch.
35,000+ Americans lose their lives to gun violence every single year, so to say that this is a public health threat is no exaggeration. Of course, with COVID-19 and the closure of many places (schools, etc) our epidemic of gun violence and mass shootings currently is at a much smaller scale but when things open up fully I am sure our trend of 300+ mass shootings a year will continue and this public health issue will as well.
Even with the pandemic there are shootings everyday and are not talked about as much because they are not high profile and we have this public health crisis with the virus, but the issue remains and will continue to be an issue until we do something about it like other countries have done about their own gun violence problems.
Exceptional countries take decisive action on this issue and do not have hundreds of mass shootings a year or thousands of gun deaths a year and it is because exceptional countries value people over guns but not in America and most certainly not in Trump’s America. It is with the combination of our gun violence problem, a pandemic that Trump allowed to get out of control, and a lack of access to affordable healthcare, among other issues that we are far from exceptional relating to public health.
Racism and Hate
In the year 2020, no nation should have the racial injustice that we have that reminds us of the civil rights era.
Racial hate crimes and other types of hate crimes have skyrocketed during the Trump years and will continue to rise for however long he remains in office as the President of the United States.
An exceptional country would not allow this to continue but the Trump run Department of Justice looks the other way most of the time when LGBTQ Americans, black Americans, Muslim Americans, Hispanic Americans, and so on are attacked in a hate crime and in fact, many times they do not bring any federal hate crime charges.
Many times those who support Trump commit these crimes. Now, that is not to say that all Trump supporters are violent or racist but most of these crimes are in fact committed by Trump backers. They get their hate and violence from the man himself, Donald Trump.
He says things like “Punch them in the face” like he did at a political rally, or calls Muslims “traitors”, or calls black people “thugs”, or says that peaceful protesters are “terrorists” like he did before he had his lapdog Attorney General Bill Barr order that tear gas be used on protesters then people who follow him will act out on those people.
He has been the most racist and divisive president in history and that is a fact that cannot be denied.
A nation that has a president who has the racist and hateful views that this president has or has supporters who commit violence against minorities like his people do can never be exceptional. It is against our values to say the things that he says and that his supporters carry out and will never be part of American exceptionalism.
Justice
One of the key points to becoming an exceptional nation is to not have a president who is corrupt and criminal to his core.
This is Trump.
He is THE most corrupt and criminal president in American history and it is not even close — he makes Nixon look like the Pope.
He has used the White House to pad his net worth by selling hotel rooms to diplomats, selling hats and other products, and making deals from the Oval Office. The Trump presidency has been four years of corruption, giving the country away to his business partners and selling his MAGA hats to make a quick buck while pushing the lie that he “donates his salary”.
He colluded to win the 2016 election and looks to be trying to do the very same thing in 2020. He has hired criminals and conmen to be part of his administration and has turned law and order into a complete joke while he has been in office.
Nothing about him is exceptional.
Besides him, his justice department has not held up law and order. They attack immigrants while giving white nationalists and white collar type criminals a pass.
There are other issues that do not make us exceptional now or ever and those issues are — the death penalty, the war on drugs, and keeping people in the Guantanamo Bay facility and immigrants in these ICE detention centers with no due process.
Keeping people in these places with no rights or due process and killing people on death row is not justice and it is not exceptional and these type of policies and many more need to change in our immigration and criminal justice systems — with or without Trump as president, these things must change for true exceptionalism.
Make America Exceptional Again
The way towards a better America is to move on from the “Make America Great Again” narrative that has plagued our nation since the 2016 election season and up to this very moment. The Trump plan for our country will never make us the exceptional nation that we can be and that would should be.
There are certain elements of our nation that have never been exceptional, even before Trump, but the people who voted Trump in (his voters) and the people who enable him today (Republican politicians) are part of the people before him who made us less than exceptional and that should be recognized when we look at the big picture.
Barack Obama made us exceptional in many ways and if he was given more time and if he had not been obstructed left and right by Republicans then he would have made us exceptional in other ways , so many other ways he would have given us more.
He tried to give everyone healthcare like other exceptional nations do, he fought against gun violence, he fought for immigration reform, he pushed for a more inclusive and less divisive nation and strived for equality for all of our people.
He did these things to try and make America exceptional and that is a lot more than Trump has done.
Donald Trump has been the most divisive president in American history and will be known as one who made America the least exceptional that we have ever been in our history. Trump and his supporters will be known for their insistence on pushing racism, hate, divisiveness, and lies and those things will never make us great.
The one who will make us exceptional again is Joe Biden … in a sense.
The bigger picture of this is simple. Biden will be the leader to give us the exceptional things we deserve as a country — equality, integrity, health, and sanity, but the people who will truly make us exceptional again are you and me and all of us.
We become exceptional by having the values of people like Biden, Obama, MLK Jr, and others.
We remain a dark nation by having the values of someone like Donald Trump and his deplorables.
Make the right choice America — choose exceptionalism, not Trumpism!
