What Trump’s Tenure Has Shown Us About Ourselves

I’ll never forget the conversation I had with my mom when Donald Trump arrived on the political scene in 2015.  “This is so weird,” I said. “Until now, a serious candidate for U.S. president needed to be a good, honest and intelligent person.  Did this somehow change when I wasn’t paying attention?” 

Obviously, the absence of these traits didn’t hurt Trump in 2016; in fact, the nation seemed to have a strange appetite for a mean, racist, and dishonest conman, as long as he was white.  Some say that eight years of an articulate and compassionate black man in the White House is what drove the U.S. electorate crazy.

In any case, fast-forward to 2020 and we find ourselves in a place where almost exactly half of Americans place no value on character and integrity whatsoever.  This may turn around.  Then again it may not, and the United States will remain the pariah and laughingstock of the world.