I have always tried to defend the United States. It is a country that has done a lot of wrong in the world but which has also done much right. And I had always thought that the world needed reminding of what it had done right.
And after tonight I can not defend it.
Perhaps I could claim that the economic anxieties of poor whites finally got to a breaking point and that this was the natural reaction. That these people voted for Donald Trump because they thought he would help lift them out of poverty. We could disagree with them and tell them why they were wrong but it would be a reassuring story for the United States. One where it made the wrong decision for all the right reasons.
The reason Donald Trump was elected President of the United States was because he is the purest distillation of every flaw in the American psyche. The racism, the sexism, the arrogance and most of all the hatred for the āotherā. The parts of the counties collective idea of itself I never wanted to have to face.
The election of Donald Trump will not take an inch from the majestic heights of the Rockies. It will not erase what the United States did at Omaha beach. It will not take away from the beautiful ideals expressed by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence. ā
This election will not stop me loving America.
But it will stop me defending it
