Worrying About Morality In America, Part I

I MUST SAY, that for the first time in my lengthening life (I am 69), I am truly concerned about the state of morality in these United States. Always before I have been made aware of other people's concerns, but have not really weighed in, other than to assume that every country and every human is a mixture of good and bad morals. The only time I have been truly concerned about the direction of America, especially regarding the up and coming younger generation and its alleged moral and intellectual backsliding, was when I was in high school. The old people always seem to think that the young people are going and taking with them their country to hell in a handbasket, every generation in history has believed that, and I always question that assertion, except when I was in high school, and worried about how my own generation would turn out. I needn't have worried, it turns out. It turns out, fear of the next generation is never well flounded. My modern concern about the level and direction of morality in America derives directly froom the Trump movement. The larger it becomes, and the longer it lasts, the lower my estimate of the level and quality of morality in the U.S.A..My only current consolaton is the apparent fact that not only has the Trump movement reached its peak in terms of the number of people who follow and support Trump, but that also, there is some evidence that it has shrunk and is shrinking somewhat, as long time Republicans declare that they have had enough of Trump, and can take no more, and refuse to henceforth to support him anymore. The number of these people seems to be growing, as they are organizing in cities. But that's about where my consolation concludes. Witnessing the genesis of, rise, and culmination of the Trump movement in Trump's election to the presidency has been, beyond all doubt, the most disappointing, depressing, horrible extended process in my life. It has made me miserable, and miserable I remain, though fully undaunted in my opposition to Trump, and my determination to contintue my robust opposition of Trump to the very end, whatever that may consist of. The day he descended on the golden escalator and declared his candidacty, i decided to give him a chance. I was A Trump supporter for about two weeks,and could take no more. What amazes me is that everybody else didn't do something similar, and that tens of millions of Americans still support him. Why didn't the "Access Hollywood" tape, in early October 2016, end his political career right then and there? Why did, and why have, and why do Trump supporters overlook, or accept so much horrible, criminal behavior and horrible, stupid, blatant lies, and the constant cascade of idiotic comments...shouldn't the basic decency and moral standards of a normal, average American citizen bring about abandonment of Trump early, and often? Shouldn't it have resulted in the destruction of and end of Trump's political career, long before he ever became president? How ironically I now recall the day when the Access Hollywood tape was made public. I wa absolutely dead certain that Trump was done. I'm sure that many people were, including Republicans. I kept waiting for the outpouring of anger and pressure that would force Trump to withdraw from the presidential campaign..But it never came. What criticism there was was brief,a nd Trump simply ignored it, and moved on. When he did, so did most Repubicans, conservatives, supporters. The more people who did this, the more people kept doing it, and the Trump movement became a cult of denial and fantasy, built on lies, where it remains today. Their twisted morality allows them to still claim election fraud, and to admire the insurrection, rather than condeming it. And to support Trump's lies. The only reasonable conclusion is that Trump supporters, Republicans, conservatives in general have temporarily abandoned their moral standards for Trump, or that they don't have any moral standards and never did. We can hope that the former is true, while fearing that the latter in fact is.