Dear America, Why Did You Let Us Down?

[babylonsister]

Last edited Sat Dec 17, 2016, 09:30 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/opinion/dear-america-why-did-you-let-us-down.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

Dear America, Why Did You Let Us Down?

By LISA PRYORDEC. 16, 2016


SYDNEY, Australia — On the other side of the world from you, we are living in two time zones. One regulated by the rise and fall of the sun, the other regulated by the American news cycle. In our early afternoon you go to bed, in our late evening you wake again and news breaks afresh. We examine the entrails of the tweets of your president-elect for news of our common future.

In Australia, and around the world, we have been living this presidential transition with you. We watched the debates on our lunch breaks, we scrolled through news on our phones as the voting results were announced, in the warm light of a spring day.

Since the election I have cried many times, in the shower, in the car, as the conventions that define liberal Western democracy are stripped away by Donald J. Trump, with every distressful appointment, each impulsive outburst. I have embarrassment of grief for a government that is not mine and for a country that does not belong to me. It feels as if we’re mourning the death of an idea called America.

You may not know us, the people beyond your borders, but we know you. We absorbed your politics by osmosis, across the semipermeable membrane of celluloid. We know about Air Force One from “Air Force One” and the West Wing from “The West Wing.”

When I think of the political texts I know by heart, snippets of yours spring to mind — “ask not what your country can do for you”; “I have a dream”; “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” As a child I knew the Gettysburg Address and the Pledge of Allegiance, not because it was taught in class but because we heard them so many times in movies like “Kindergarten Cop.” America gave us a poetry of democracy that was grand and uplifting, which we were too reserved and sarcastic to speak for ourselves.

snip//

Whatever happens, it will not dull my affection for the American people and the best of American culture. I was not raised in America, but I was raised in the American century. I am not yet ready to say goodbye.

[potone]

1. That brought tears to my eyes.

This election was not only a disaster for us, but also for many people around the world. I feel deep shame and grief for what has already happened, and there will be worse to come.

[babylonsister]

3. Mine, too. This is from Australia, but I

imagine the sentiment is shared in many other places.

[potone]

4. Yes indeed!

I imagine it must be very hard for people in other countries to understand how we could go from electing Obama to Trump. I am having a hard time believing it myself.

[libtodeath]

2. We may be in our final days as a species now.