Sunday, July 5, 2020 | 2 a.m.
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Have we made America great?
I don’t know any American — even among those who still claim Donald Trump is akin to the Second Coming — who can honestly claim that America is better off in 2020 than it was in 2016.
That is, if they are being honest with themselves.
And therein lies the caveat that allows the lies told to Americans by their leader to color how they see their world.
I think it is fair, for the purpose of helping us decide for whom to vote, to assess our country and our own lives every four years as we head into another presidential election. Ronald Reagan famously asked each of us if we were better off in 1980 than we were in 1976 — after four years of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.
The people answered that question with an overwhelming victory for Reagan, and the rest is history.
So, if it was good enough for Reagan to ask it 40 years ago, shouldn’t it be good enough for Americans in 2020 to ask themselves the same question?
Probably.
So here is the answer. America and almost every citizen of this great country is far worse off today than we were in 2016. It ain’t even a close call.
Let’s take a look.
The vaunted economy. The Dow Jones average is up from four years ago. That’s good. It took massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and a few trillion in stimulus dollars to get and keep us ahead, but we are up. The wide open question is how does Dow go now? And is that good enough?
The economy, part two. The unemployment rate in 2019 was in the 3.5 percent range. Quite good. We should have asked the question then because today unemployment hovers around 12 percent. Quite bad. For everyone.
The economy, part three. The COVID-19 pandemic and the anemic and derelict response to it by Trump and the entire federal government have created a giant question mark in the lives of many millions of Americans. Take Las Vegas, for example. As hard as Gov. Steve Sisolak has tried to sensibly reopen our economy so that we can get back to work, in the absence of leadership from the White House the forces of ignorance and stubborn resistance have overtaken common sense.
Nevada now leads the country in the rate of retransmission of the virus, which means one person gives the virus to other people at a rate greater than that in any other state. That’s not good for a tourism-based economy, right?
So, we must ask ourselves: Are we really better off in 2020 than we were in 2016? The answer is so obvious that it is now what we call a rhetorical question.
But, there is more to a country than its economy. How about its health?
In 2016, the United States was the leader on the world stage when it came to finding vaccines, therapies and other treatments for what ailed the people on our planet. In less than four short Trump-led years, America has become a pariah nation — they don’t even want Americans in Europe — because not only can we not control the coronavirus but we can’t even control our people when it comes to doing what is necessary to keep us healthy. We have barely 5% of the world’s population and over 25% of the world’s COVID-19 cases and deaths. What’s so great about that?
So much for being the wealthiest and most accomplished country in the world. We cannot even get people to wear face masks when they know that it will save lives. Heck, we can’t even get our president to wear a face mask. This is a circumstance that would have made President Reagan very angry!
Is there more than health and wealth to consider? Oh, yes, how about the national security of the United States?
At no time in our past would America let Russia kill our soldiers without paying a heavy price. Nor would the Kremlin ever get away with paying others to kill our military men and women. There would have been a swift and sure reaction by our leaders in 2016 or anytime that Russia felt so emboldened.
In 2020, though, it is Russia which is apparently paying bounties on the heads of our American servicemen and women, and nary a peep is heard from the White House. How can we be better and safer as a nation when our adversaries know they can kill our military and rub our noses in their deaths and nothing will happen. Nothing.
A president who lets dictators run roughshod over Americans in uniform is not worthy of the title of commander-in-chief. How can we possibly be better off today when our president will not stand behind the men and women he leads?
And, finally, let’s ask ourselves this question: Are we better off in 2020 than we were four years ago when citizens could peacefully march in the streets without getting tear-gassed and run down by cops on horseback?
Four years ago we had iPhones but the pictures they were taking didn’t include over eight minutes of a rogue cop kneeling on the neck of George Floyd until he took his last breath for the entire world to witness.
And four years ago we didn’t have a president who could watch the brutality along with every other American and, yet, stand silent while the rest of the country took to the streets in protest.
Even worse, four years ago we didn’t have a president who would use police power to abuse the citizens of this country. Yet this year, the president staged a photo op at the expense of peaceful protesters who suffered gassing, bullying and manhandling all because Trump saw himself as a savior. What the world saw was a man who cared not for others, only himself.
So, no, America is not better off today than it was four years ago. Not by a long shot. Rather than make the country great, Trump has made America a great big mess.
If Reagan were alive today he would tell us that if we want to have morning in America, we have to give the boot to the man who has caused this four-year nightmare. That can happen on Nov. 3.
That’s the day America can begin to get better so that four years from now we can answer Reagan’s question in the affirmative.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
