NYT--If This is America: Read it. Read it out loud. And take heart!

[nolabear]

This is what we need to say to ourselves and one another EVERY. DAMN. Day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/opinion/america-trump-united-nations.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Great editorial.

I have not always been a huge fan of Roger Cohen, but he's redeemed himself with this one.

If this is America, where the Great Leader wants you to believe that 2+2=5, and would usher you down his rabbit hole, and struggles to find in himself unequivocal condemnation of neo-Nazis, and you recall perhaps the words of Hannah Arendt, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e. the standards of thought) no longer exist” — if all this you have lived and felt and thought across this beautiful and spacious land, then you must be prepared to “watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.”

If this is America, and you know where militarism and nationalism and disdain for intellectuals and artists, and the cultivation of enemies and scapegoats, and contempt for a free press can lead, and it pains you to see the world voting against the United States at the United Nations with the exception of Micronesia and Nauru and Palau (and a few others), then you will see that this, Trump’s American travesty, is in fact a lie and an affront and a betrayal.

America cannot be “first,” as Trump insists. It can be a thug and a bully only in the betrayal of itself. It must be itself, a certain idea of liberty and democracy and openness, or it is nothing, just a squalid, oversized, greedy place past the zenith of its greatness....

As a new year approaches, stoicism will prevail, decency will prevail, contestation will prevail, over the Great Leader’s plundering of truth and thought. This is not America. It must be fought for and won back.

[nolabear]

5. Now more than ever we need to acknowledge people arent perfect.

I know what you mean about not liking everything about him and I feel that way about numerous people. But we so need passionate allies, and I’ll take these words for the strength they give.

[murielm99]

33. You say that now, and we all seem to agree.

But by the time the sun sets, the purity police will have rolled into DU, and anyone who is not progressive enough for them is no good at all.

[SkyDaddy7]

45. Geez...

You are 100% correct!! I'm not joking I will zone out stressing over it & thinking about that day because it is coming!! The truly scary part is it ALWAYS HURTS US & everyone swears it won't happen again but it does! Even when we win elections huge chunks of us will go freaking AWOL at the slightest hint policy is not going to unfold & pass like they dreamed it would. No one in politics gets everything they want when they want it...You lucky if you just get a huge chunk. However, the Republicans dominate because they totally understand the concept of taking what you can when the opportunity is there. Keep a united front! NO, not us!!

...Yeah, I'm very worried.

[smirkymonkey]

2. K&R

Excellent article. Thanks for posting.

[pangaia]

3. Oh, my, That is good. really, really good.

[nolabear]

6. I really mean it about reading it out loud!

It’s like an angry, strong, eyes-open anthem.

[Faux pas]

4. K-ed R-ed and

posted on my facebook page, Thanks!

[hedda_foil]

34. Here's Cohen's Facebook page to share the piece.

https://m.facebook.com/RogerMCohen/

[calimary]

7. Yep. But nobody on that side of things will get it.

This is too lyrical. Too literate. Just a little too nuanced for them to understand. Anybody remember dubya stating “I don’t do nuance”? All they can understand and function with is a blunt instrument. To match their mentality.

[BamaRefugee]

10. EXACTLY what I was thinking. "READING IS HARD" nt

[nolabear]

11. So what? They arent everything. We count too.

Battle cries are for your own. And they are heartening.

[Johnny Noshoes]

24. Yeah

My right wing older brother would say "So what's your point."

[kentuck]

8. +1000

[gademocrat7]

9. Thank you,nolabear.

I needed this.

[nolabear]

12. Me too. Glad it helps!

[Hekate]

13. Cohen is another one who loves this country. Thank you, nolabear

[Achilleaze]

14. k and r

[niyad]

15. k and r

[mtngirl47]

16. Tears in my eyes....Keep resisting!

[Enoki33]

17. Thanks. Needed that.

[mountain grammy]

18. You know what would have been more courageous?

To say all this before the election.. better late than never, I guess.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. I think many people - and that includes me - expected Trump to be terrible, but

did not anticipate quite how spectacularly, galactically, stunningly terrible he would prove to be. I thought he'd keep being a crass, rude, racist asshole who knows nothing about government (or much else), but I did not expect the entire GOP congress to blow him on a daily basis, encouraging him to weaponize his fundamental awfulness.

I expected him to suck, and that we'd have to deal with yet another stupid, sucky president like W, but Trump sucks hard enough to bend light.

[mountain grammy]

25. And with the GOP fully on board,

I honestly think there’s a real possibility of no elections in 2018, and I expect a large outbreak of violence.

[CrispyQ]

50. Joan Walsh was on MSNBC last week & uttered these words on air: "If we have elections."

I can't recall which show she was on, but no one commented on that, they just continued with what they were discussing.

[Rhiannon12866]

46. +1000!

Well said!

[maddiemom]

49. Thanks! Beautifully encapsulates what many of us feel.

[nolabear]

40. It was so easy not to believe he could possibly win.

Not to mention that he didn't. Yeah, lots of things would have been better I suppose but without the evidence to back it up it would have been conjecture. I know the minions won't care but WE care, and I think more and more of us are paying attention all the time.

[mountain grammy]

41. I know,and I was right there

Predicting a Hillary landslide..I wasn’t hearing that from canvassing where I live, but it’s red, and I just refused to believe he could win, and, of course, he didn’t.

The people I know supporting him don’t know anything about him and don’t care. That’s what really gets me. They don’t care what a nasty and horrible man he is.

[byronius]

19. Now there's someone who understands what makes America great.

Love this.

[Nitram]

20. Excellent piece! Puts into the best words what I've been trying to say to friends who

are in despair and on the point of giving up.

[Hamlette]

22. excellent read, thanks for posting.

[sofa king]

23. Oh, hell. What's a Viglink redirect?

[nolabear]

39. Is that what you got? Beats me.

[sofa king]

55. Don't know what it was....

... CCleaner seems to have expunged it, though.

[underthematrix]

26. excellent awesome article

[democrank]

27. Excellent

and oh, so needed.

[TeamPooka]

28. K&R

[sandensea]

29. We can change - just as so many other nations have had to over the centuries.

But it'll take the defeat the right-wing noise machine, and above all willpower.

[burrowowl]

30. K&R

[Puzzler]

31. Strong, unequivocal words! Bravo!

-Puzzler

[barbtries]

32. even after reading some of the comments

i'm still crying.
i hope democracy and the constitution will prevail.

[nolabear]

38. Comments are skewed toward the angry and negative. Always.

That's an important thing to remember. People who are in agreement or have a positive response have a much lower urge to rage and snark. We have to remember that seeing them doesn't mean they're in the majority. They're just throwing a fit.

[barbtries]

47. actually the comments i read on this piece

were confirmatory and many well written. i didn't read them all but the ones i did anyway.

[nolabear]

51. LOL-I should never use the word always. Or mostly never. Oh now Im confused.

[barbtries]

52. lol

these comments were good. they're not always. but the piece itself was so well done and much of the replies kept the spirit and the poetry and it made me cry because i was moved.

[randr]

35. The lsos is turning America into Trumpmanistan

Those who stand with him will pay a dear price.

[barbtries]

48. we all will pay a dear price.

they can't see it coming.

[pansypoo53219]

36. america is SO exceptional. except the rich.

[Ferrets are Cool]

37. This is not America

[Cha]

42. Mahalo, nolabear!

[cp]

43. Superb

Thank you.

[TomSlick]

44. Great writing.

Thanks.

[mnhtnbb]

53. We should all print out the editorial and mail it to The White House

and to our elected representatives with a note:

We will win in 2018.

[nolabear]

54. Good idea.