Immediately after the election, I said out loud, “Let the riots begin.” I was not advocating riots but forecasting the inevitability of unrest given President Donald Trump’s divisive campaign and alt-right ideology.
While the White House is mired in disarray and scandal, incapable of working with an equally ineffective Congress, and the president toils to lower his golf handicap on “working vacations,” America is smoldering.
Our “locked and loaded” president is intent on initiating international crises with Molotov cocktail hyperbole. Domestically, Trump has fostered powder kegs while daring his supporters to light the fuses. Fuse lit, white supremacist Trump supporters with Confederate flags and full battle gear wielded their fists, batons and cars on anti-hate counter protesters in Charlottesville. Not surprisingly, Trump’s response was disgraceful.
For those too young to have participated in civil rights and other justice movements of the 1960s, the Trump era again calls for urgent, consistent, peaceful, loud opposition. The women’s and climate marches in Washington, D.C., earlier this year were a start, but it remains to be seen how fervently Americans coalesce to oust Trump and return values and reason to the White House.
I hope it’s before he adds more kindling to the smoldering fire.
Mark Hannifan
Leawood
Note from KBJ: I have changed the title of this daily feature.
