In a Perfect World: Imagining a New America Post 2020
As I write this, it is official that Donald J. Trump is no longer… oh.. I suppose you can say President. However, I had always just seen him as like an unruly tenant that the state forced you to lease to and then later you found yourself scrambling to find a way to legally evict him. And nothing worked. NOTHING worked. And so you had to just wait out his entire lease term. Well, with every Presidential election there is the negotiation of that lease term and the anticipation of positive changes within America. And with the 2020 election, that anticipation had never been stronger. Because, well you know. Trump. And even though America’s most cockamamie President has almost single-handedly caused the Nation’s near fall from grace, we have to admit there were plenty of things in need of reform and transformation before him. And there will be plenty of things in need of a makeover after the Trump era as well.
Allow me to address these things that call for a makeover. These are things that I have never dreamed that I would ever see actually change. Things I have reserved for family dinner debates and happy hours with co-workers in which so many of us constantly label our proposals for change in this country with the opening, “Well, in a perfect world…” Because sadly, few of us believe that our humble civic opinions will ever be heard, read, nor considered.
Although, it was through civic unrest, speech, and involvement that caused movement to either reform the police, defund the police, or at least start talking about it after the George Floyd murder. And perhaps the protests wouldn’t have been as immense or as powerful if Mr. Floyd’s death hadn’t occurred during a global pandemic. I mean, unfortunately this was nothing new. But it just happened to occur while the world was standing still. It was during this crucial, never before seen point in time when people had no choice but to pay attention. I’ll never be able to comfortably say, “thanks to coronavirus…” But I have to say that it was during this time in which a whole lot went wrong, leading to a few things that started to finally go right. There have been displays of mercy from major utility companies and the Department of Higher Education to postpone due payments, employers doing their best to keep and care for their employees, and federal bans on evictions. In 2020 we saw things we thought we’d never see in this lifetime. Taxes being accepted months past April 15th, Election Day voting not taking place on just November 3rd but multiple weeks prior to, and public disclaimers urging the American people to please do NOT listen to the President.
This difficult phase has proven that some of the set-in-stone rules, policies, systems, and general ways of thinking that we have long been accustomed to aren’t as necessarily as obstinate as we thought. It has proven that our society, culture, and governance is subjectable to change. I have the feeling that if we so choose to, we can take the crisis of this pandemic combined with political chaos and civic unrest and use these experiences as the painful but necessary birth pains needed to bear forth an improved society.
So, if you care to hear about National affairs from little ‘ol average, working class, non-politician me, then congratulations on having an open mind on civic involvement and opinion. You are officially vigilant. That means woke. I’m tired of woke. I’m changing the word to vigilant. Can I do that? Anyways, I am sure that I won’t be sharing a ton of facts that you’re not already aware of. What I aim to do is to condense some of the country's issues that tend to have the most dire effects on the finances and personal
success of the American people. I’ve made a list of seven of these issues that I feel affect the economy, your personal finances, and chances of succeeding in society directly. If I’d written about all of America’s issues, including underpaid teachers, immigration rights, police brutality, racism, gun control, excessive military spending, racism (bears repeating), the foster care/adoption system, the gender pay gap (like seriously how the f**k is this still happening?), climate control, etc., I’d wound up writing something that very much resembled the Bible in both weight and length. So, seven it is. Let’s do this.
