Our host for the weekly provocative question challenge is Jewish Young Professional, aka JYP.
So what is her provocative question for this week? JYP wants to know…
Have you ever changed your mind on a position stance or changed an opinion you previously held? What was the impetus for the change? Was it difficult for you to admit that your views had changed?
This question is very similar to one WordPress posed about five weeks ago in its Daily Prompt, “What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?”
In my response to the WordPress prompt, I cited two things: My belief in God and my belief in American Exceptionalism. I’m not going to bring up God again, but given what is happening politically, I am going to reiterate my comments on American Exceptionalism.
I believed American exceptionalism well into my adulthood. When I was in high school, my father and I had many arguments over the war in Vietnam. He thought we (the U.S.) had no business fighting that war and wastefully killing so many American soldiers for an unjustified and unjust war.
In the defense of America, I argued that it was a necessary war based upon the infamous “Domino Theory.” The Domino Theory was a prevailing belief that communism was an internationalist movement that would spread from one country to the next until it dominated the world, much as a row of dominos collapses one after the other.
Vietnam was the key domino to the communization of all of Southeast Asia, the theory went. But by the time I graduated from college, my position on Vietnam had changed radically and I realized that the Domino Theory was bullshit.
Still, I believed in and loved America. but that belief and love were tested in 2000 when George W. Bush was handed the Presidency by the Supreme Court after losing the popular vote. It eroded even further when the incompetent Donald Trump lost the popular vote by almost three million but, due to the antiquated and racist Electoral College, became President.
Trump lost in 2020, but has yet refused to recognize his loss. He instigated an unsuccessful coup against the U.S. government in 2021, and has been indicted this year four times on nearly 100 counts of illegal or unethical acts. Yet he is the leading candidate to win the Republican nomination for the 2024 election. And in head to head polls with President Joe Biden, it’s neck and neck, with Trump, the American traitor, ahead of Biden in some polls.
The only thing about America today that is exceptional is how the insanity of Trumpism has infected the Republican party and is finding favor with evangelical Christians and right-wing white nationalists. It’s a sickness.
I lost my belief in God decades ago. And I’m on the precipice of losing my belief in country. If Trump does run for president next year and wins, I will lose my belief in and love for my country. Because that country will no longer exist.