Thoughts on the Anniversary of our Nation’s Founding

By Malcolm Gissen of the SF Unity Coalition (2021)

We are at a scary time in our nation’s history and few people have answers for how to solve America’s current problems. As horrific as Donald Trump’s policies were, it was his dishonesty, his bigotry, his callousness, his narcissistic undermining of our traditions, and his refusal to accept facts and reality that he does not like or agree with that have had a more pernicious impact on our country. If that is not bad enough, millions of our fellow Americans support him and also dispute facts and reality. Nothing seems to shake their confidence in Trump, not even the indictment of his family’s business, which the evidence shows was a criminal enterprise. Who would have believed 5 years ago that the head of a Mafia-like family would be the unquestioned leader of one of our nation’s two major political parties?

As we look back on the events of the past 12 months, it is easy to forget that we have gone from a President who suggested we inject household bleach in our bodies to resist Covid and that Covid would simply fade away during the summer, to one who quickly efficiently moved to vaccinate all Americans. A year ago Trump wanted to hold a military parade through DC in tribute to himself to celebrate July 4 and was upset when told he could not do that. So instead he flew to South Dakota and held a political rally without masks or social distancing at Mount Rushmore. Most Americans felt better that a sane person held the highest office in our country this July 4 and hosted a celebration that was not focused on making himself look like the ruthless dictator of a banana republic.

Many Americans talk about the greatness of our nation and yet to many of us, our nation has not been so great. Our nation was founded on the belief that “All men are created equal” and yet the men who wrote and approved these words in our founding documents did not include the natives who were here when they arrived; the slaves they brutalized and treated as property; or women. Leaders of our United States Government tried to eradicate the natives and many of them fought a civil war with their fellow Americans in support of their right to enslave Black people. Even after Black people were freed as slaves, they were brutalized for the next 100 years.

We all hoped that with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and its renewal by Congress five times, we would not have to be concerned about efforts to suppress the votes of citizens of color. However, since Trump’s embarrassing defeat in November 2020, and the loss of control of the Senate by Republicans, most state legislatures controlled by Republicans have focused their attention on making it difficult for poor people; people of color, and young people to vote. This is the opposite of what our country’s Founding Fathers intended to happen.

Trump and the Republican Party that is foolish enough to follow him like a cult leader seem to want to return to the days when white people dominated our local and state governments. Our nation has taken a step backwards over the past four years and even after the election of the first Black President, we now understand that far more white Americans are opposed to a multi-racial society than most of us thought. The San Francisco Black & Jewish Unity Coalition must do everything we can to resist the efforts of the Republican Party to reverse the progress that has been made since 1865. We must all work on the 2022 elections to assure that as many Republicans as possible are defeated. We must assure all Americans that we truly live up to our foundational belief that All Men And Women are Truly Created Equal.