BEST TO WORST

 

I was lying in bed this morning thinking about the last two-and-one-half weeks. I was musing selfishly and thinking about what it means to me. I realized that in my 78 years, the same number of years of life as Trump, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, my feelings for my country have changed. Unlike the politicians who share my age, I witnessed America from the real world, the world most of our country’s people share with me.

When I was a boy entering first grade, I believed that America was the greatest country in the world. Of course, by the time I was in high school, I realized that the country I worshipped was not perfect, not by a long shot.

Although I began my interest in politics at the age of 10, it became far more serious before I was in my 20’s. The debacle known as the Vietnam War greatly altered my view of the men and women who served in Washington. The first men who were sent to a war halfway around the world were in my age group. They were drafted into a war without reason, without validation. Governments declare war and young men and women die in them.

When trust is lost, it requires ten times more effort to get it back. Sadly, I found more reasons to distrust our nation’s government with every passing year. With a complete loss of trust came a lack of respect.

The beginning of the end happened on January 20, 1981. Like many other patriots, I believed Ronald Reagan’s campaign promises. They were all lies. I never thought he was that good as an actor in the movies.

Immediately after his inauguration, he began “Reagan’s Wars.” His targets were Black Americans, the working class, women’s rights, and all religions other than Christianity. His demands included unquestioned loyalty which forbade free thought and dissent from every Republican politician.

Reagan’s greatest crime against the American people was founded in his fiscal policy. He called it “supply side economics.” However, it has become known by a more accurate name, “trickle-down economics.” Reagan claimed that by given tax breaks to the super-rich, they would in turn become “job creators,” and the economy would flourish. Of course, he failed to understand the greed of the super-rich. They simply placed their profits into offshore accounts and raised their middle fingers to the majority of our country’s people. The rich became richer, and the poor became poorer.

When Reagan left office in 1989, the national debt had escalated to an unbelievable one-trillion dollars, and unemployment was escalating.

The three Republican presidents who followed Reagan used the same fiscal policy, and failed as expected. George H.W. Bush’s failing economy was rescued by Bill Clinton. When Clinton left office in 2001, the national treasury boasted a surplus, and the unemployment rate was at a record low.

In 2008, Barack Obama became our nation’s first Black President. His policies rescued America from the failures of George W. Bush. When he left office in 2017, our nation’s economy was in full recovery, after Bush placed it in the great recession.

However, between 2017 and 2021, Trump’s ignorance and incompetence, combined with his abject failure to lead our nation in the fight against the deadly infestation of Covid-19 placed America very close to a second Great Depression.

Once again, a Democrat came to the rescue. Joe Biden won the 2020 election in an historical landslide, ousting Trump and his disastrous administration. He recently left the White House on January 20, 2025, with a growing economy, and the future of our nation filled with hope.

However, over the last two-and-one-half weeks, Trump chose to destroy most of the accomplishments of President Biden. The destructive policies of the worst president in history are purely founded in fascism and a desire for revenge. He is now the most hated man in the world as protests took place over the last several days in every major city in America.

No one in power is taking action to save our nation. Washington is now the most corrupt and incompetent governing body in the world. The country of my youth, the one I believed could become a great nation, is now the worst in all of developed nations and the free world.

America is no longer a shining star: it has burned itself out and is crumbling into the great void.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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