Lately I've tried to stay away from political posts which are causing a lot of inflammatory response from some of my friends. My thoughts about the inauguration are not particularly partisan so I thought I'd take a shot at it. I missed the actual ceremony because I was golfing (eat your heart out you northerners). But I did catch some of the commentary later and watched some of the parade.
The speech was criticized by Trump's detractors as painting too dark a picture of modern America. It was nice to see the high school and military bands parading down the street but the police lining the route shoulder to shoulder and the hoards of secret service men certainly do strike an ominous note about our present society.
Recently when driving out of Chicago from a visit to my son we accidentally took a wrong route and so had to get off the freeway and went briefly through the city streets on the fringes of south Chicago to get back on. I was beginning to get pretty nervous as to where my GPS was taking us and was pretty darn happy to get back on the highway. Yet we were nowhere near the really troubled area.
In the early 60's I was in north Phillie for med school. It was pretty run down then, a minority ghetto. Us newlyweds lived in an old building converted to married student housing right in the middle of it all and yet we walked the streets safely. This was the poverty against which Lyndon Johnson declared war. Today it's light years worse. I defy anyone reading this to drive through the streets of south Chicago or north Phillie, or any of the dozens of other big city ghettos in this country without locking your doors and getting out of the area as quickly as you can.
And how about general safety. I can still recall what it was like to just go to the airport and get on a plane without the long security lines -- before the modern insanity that we've come to accept as normal started. And when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade we used to walk several blocks unescorted except for the school patrols at the street corners. Later, in high school and college, I hitchhiked everywhere. Who would conceive of doing that these days.
Trump's speech was described by Chris Matthews as Hitlerian. I guess exaggerations like that are to be expected in political back and forth. The same comparison was being made of Barack Obama as he gave his rousing oratory before large throngs of cheering fans, although I don't recall it being said by a major news commentator. Obviously it's hyperbole, as anyone with even the most superficial knowledge of the content of Adolph Hitler's speeches or his writings in Mein Kampf should know. And yet yesterday we watched on TV as hundreds of "protestors" smashed large plate glass windows in full view of the cameras. In light of the Hitler comparison it's ironic that this event, so reminiscent of Kristallnacht, was carried out by the protestors rather than the supporters of Trump.
There is economic frustration in the country, especially in the Northeast and Mid-West areas. I surely see it when I'm driving around Scranton. I don't think they see it very well in the rich areas around Washington or along the coasts. The government has increased its safety net programs but they're not really a good substitute for the benefits of an expanding economy.
So is it too dark a picture, or is it reality? I guess in the next couple of years we'll see by comparison.
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