The battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has been one of my favorite soap operas last year, but as we got closer to Election Day I must admit that I was surprised that Mr Trump could actually be a possible future President of the United States of America. To me, he seemed to be far away from the person I had assumed the general american would like as their president.
But having said that, I also know that a number of Americans I talked to this past summer, were not at all as surprised as I was. This was clear to me when my family and I were visiting the USA as tourists in Florida, California and New Jersey. Since I enjoy talking politics I kept asking people I met about their opinion in the coming election. Interestingly they all seemed to enjoy the topic and shared their viewpoint with a stranger like myself.
The first person I talked to was a cab driver in Miami. He was a Haitian and on my question about the potential of the two candidates and their chances to become presidents he said that neither of the two were good enough for this wonderful country, but if he had to pick one, he would vote for Mrs Clinton AND…he said; the Cubans around Miami would most likely vote for Mr Trump, for the reason that they were all still very disappointed with the JFK leadership in the sixties. They would not likely change their opinion no matter what candidate would run for president now… They would all vote Republican, according to the cab driver.
A few days later we met another cab driver in San Fransisco. He was of Swedish origin and had his opinion crystal clear. Mr Trump was his choice… The reason was that Mrs Clinton was not to be trusted and had been involved in too many political decisions that she could be criticized for. I said that from my point of view, there were plenty of things that one could easily criticize Mr Trump for, too, but the cab driver claimed that the most important issue for the President of USA, would be keeping an economic balance and who would be better at doing that but a billionaire?
A lady whom I talked to for a while when lining up for the ferry to Alcatraz shared the viewpoint that Mr Trump was just playing around. In her opinion Mrs Clinton and Mr Trump were involved in a conspiracy, since they have known each other for many years and may have decided that Mr Trump would be running for President only to make sure Mrs Clinton would easily win…
Last but not least, a member of staff in the National Constitution Center, held the viewpoint that there had to be NEW THINKING and then Mrs Clinton would be disqualified for the reason that she had been a politician for way too long…
Four different opinions from four different Americans, but with one thing in common… They all seemed to be fed up with the SYSTEM and just wanted the Election Day to come, to get it over with. Lately when the tone in TV debates was worse than ever, I wanted the Election Day to come, too, so we would get the answer to the thrilling question: Who would be the President of the United States?
When that answer actually came, I was truly surprised and the many questions in my head about the future for the ordinary citizens of the USA piled up. What would happen to the Obamacare? How about the Mexican Wall…? Can that truly be of any interest for the general tax payer? And the Dakota Access pipeline… Who would go against so many people’s protests? What about the multilateral agreements with East Asian countries? Who would want to disagree with China in any matter concerning money? There were many more issues that was brought to the surface this last week and a few of them made more impact than others.
Women’s right to decide for themselves what their future will be like is closely linked to legislation for abortion. The last week Mr Donald Trump wrote his signature over and over again on executive actions, when surrounded by his crowd of ”yes-sayers”. Many of the executive actions meant changes for the worse for people in other parts of the world, such as the one where President Trump ordered that federal dollars cannot go to organizations that provide abortion services. What kind of LIFE will mother and child have if the pregnancy is a result of a rape? In this matter I would say that:
One step backwards for the American President is a giant leap backwards for women worldwide
Today’s news was all about the twitter battle between Mr Trump and the Mexican president concerning the Mexican wall… They are like little boys in the sandpit. Why write official tweets with offending content when they would be better up talking, just the two of them…
Luckily some officials dare to go against stupidness… One of them was obviously the Mexican president when he decided to cancel his trip to Washington DC. The other brave act was when the staff in the foreign ministry decided to resign, all of them, as a group, because they did not wish to work for Mr Trump and last but not least the 24th of January Gov. Jerry Brown promised to stand up for ALL citizens of California, including the immigrants.
The country I visited last summer is divided…
What an extremely difficult task someone else will have four years from now, to make America UNITED again, after being ”GREAT” for four years…
In the National Constitution Center a few of the guides were dressed like the ”founding fathers”. These guides are in every way very special and actually act as if they were the founding fathers for real… They also act as if this was not the year of 2016, but rather 1776… To us that was kind of fun when we met ”Benjamin Franklin” who referred to the Swedish King when saying that it was ”a pity that Sweden doesn’t help us actively now that we really need support to deal with the Britons!” We enjoyed that little chat a lot since it was also a glimpse of past times… Most of all, I personally enjoy the performance with an actor who explains the writing of the National Constitution, starting with …
From a teacher's point of view, some is old and some is new! 