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Today, January 20, 2017, Donald Trump was
officially sworn in as President. Barak Obama leaves the White House to make
room for the new family. Half of America seems ecstatic, the other half rueful,
scared, and angry.
This is not the ideal beginning for a
President.
I also believe this division is not 100%
President Trump’s fault. Sure, his campaign took several trails into the
I-can’t-believe-he-would-say-that forest; but the division came about because
of the American people. We are not united in what we want for this country…how
could any politician hope to appeal to all of us?
Let’s imagine, for just a moment, that we had
inaugurated Bernie Sanders instead. How different would the feelings be? Sure,
the events would be much different, but would the emotions be any less
fractured? Half the US would be celebrating, half scared of what the next four
years meant for them. The roles would simply be reversed.
The Edge of the Horizon
Most Americans, regardless of label or
affiliation, seem to believe the USA is on the cusp of a great change. The
split in our collective conscious seems to derive from what direction off the
horizon we will go. Will we fly up into the spacious skies, or are we preparing
to sink into the ocean like Atlantis?
That thought-split in what direction we are
heading is destroying anybody’s chance of gaining the full faith of the nation.
Under current tensions, President Trump could never appease the whole of the
American people. Neither would former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, nor
Senator Bernie Sanders.
A
Split Nation
We the people are split by age, thought, and
labels. These things control us, how we view our peers and others around us.
Our views are chaining us down, holding us to one tribe or another. Until
America becomes one (albeit diversified) tribe, we will remain weak and our
government representatives useless. How can we expect them to make laws and
decisions that we want, when we don’t know what we want as one?
Ultimately, the horizon is ours, a choice we
must make every moment of every day. How will you affect how America sits on
the horizon? Are you determined to watch those around you sink, which will also
sink you? Or do you wish to see everybody fly into the spacious skies?
The President’s Job
That’s not giving President Trump a full pass.
As the leader of this nation, his job is to throw his full weight into affecting the present and future of this country. His job is to set where the
horizon CAN fall. He might fail. Plenty of men behind him did better, and plenty
did worse, than he will. President Trump does not have the option of being the
ultimate hero…nor the ultimate villain, this country has or will ever see. He
can only hope that he sets the horizon high for as many of his millions of
constituents as possible.
That is a lot of pressure. He asked for it. He
got it. Now we must watch to see if he can handle that pressure. Godspeed,
President Trump. Set the horizon, the future of America, high.
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