Of course the bright side of not being a full citizen is that it has REALLY raised the stakes of the mid-terms!  It was essentially a day off school till Trump now came along, but now it is one of the two days that go a long way toward deciding if I am going to live in my own home or in a camp with Republicans manning the walls.

It seems to be that the flag would mean even more if the stars were earned.  If you legislate against your own citizens, don’t protect the weak, and bully the powerless than you do not deserve a star on the flag.  Ok, admittedly right now there would only be 4 or 5 stars on the flag but that will pass.  Eventually we will remember we are not a country of sheep……but in the meantime you should lose your star.

It is a tad ironic that the position of “proud American” tends to be given to Republicans and not Democrats.  I don’t find that to be true.  My experience is that Republicans are proud of American successes in business and in powerful white people like themselves, but not America itself.  Republicans tend to be proud of the America that was portrayed on the television in the 1950s.  In fact they are so ensconced in that version of America they have played a primary role in creating the America that bleeds on the evening news in 2018.

It’d be difficult to find a more proud American than myself and my lean to the left is more than just a lean…..it’s almost a stumble.  But I am proud of America as it is, not as it was.  For all our faults and all the grief we heap upon ourselves there are always glimmers of us being more than we are.  If the voting in of Donald was a view into our very worst selves (and I think it was) than us addressing that in the next election will allow us to learn from a national agenda driven by revenge and bigotry.  There will be another historical lesson in how petty we can be and hopefully it will make us better.

We just need to hang on to our half of the flag and be sure we win because we can’t be what we were and we shouldn’t want to be.

Nothing better than having to beg and plead for your rights.

What is fascinating is that for about 4 years there we all got pretty comfy.  I guess it is part of the human condition to ease off when things are going your way…..then an amoral television personality comes to power and you scream “WHAT HAPPENED TO MY RIGHTS!”

How could we possibly have gotten so spoiled inside of just one president’s term?  It makes no sense to me.