There's the fire, and then there's the clean-up.
I'm hopeful that over 2017 we'll all seize the opportunity to sweep away the ash and detritus from
the previous year.
The term "dumpster fire" was used to describe 2016 in a post I saw online; I adopted the term because
I think it fits very well. I lived in a college town for a while and saw first-hand what pissed off
college kids can do when they suddenly find themselves on the losing side of a championship game.
I've seen police cars turned over and smashed, property destroyed, and, yes, dumpster fires. 2016 showed
us all that we have a nation of pissed off college kids — so much about the events of the past year
seems very much like a surprising number of Americans have grabbed their lighters and their gas cans,
and headed out to stir up some shit:
How much race-related violence did we see in 2016? (Remember
Milwaukee?
Charlotte?)
How much violence did we
see against police in 2016? (Remember the sniper in Dallas?)
How many of us got completely
fed up with politics as usual? How many admired and voted for the washington outsider who "tells it
like it is?"
We should ALL do our best to put out the fires, clean up all the mess, and pull ourselves back
together again. And part of doing that will be answering new questions — questions like,
"What can we expect from a Trump administration?" and,
"How will the world receive the United States?"
I don't think anyone expects all this smoke will clear overnight. But I think we have a right to expect
our lawmakers to take the lead in making certain the fire is out, clearing the smoke, charging headlong into
finding the answers for us all. At stake, in my view,
is our political system and our country.
