Three and a half years ago, right before his inauguration, a friend here in Gloucester assured me that one day I would see the “good” in Donald Trump. I probably gave a half-hearted chuckle or sideways glance, as I most definitely did not share the same certainty in the redeeming qualities of the President-Elect.
For a long time I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. I didn’t see any good in children separated from their parents at the border. I couldn’t fathom faith in his decency when calling neo-Nazis “fine people” after they marched in Charlottesville, even killing a counter-demonstrator. I utterly failed to see the divine light of the man and his family as they engaged in the profligate use of the most sacred office for their own profit. Nor did gleefully abandoning our post-war alliances in favor of cuddle sessions with violent dictators seem like the act of a misunderstood man who meant well. And now his complete and astounding failure to contain or even attempt to care to mitigate the loss from the worst health crisis in a century seems to be out of a very different playbook than that of a “good man.”
However, it has dawned on me that Donald Trump, despite all of his flaws, is in fact a profoundly inspiring man. In these three years we have seen a true renaissance of genuine political engagement on the left. Folks have come out of the woodwork in droves, stood up, and found their voices. A whole new generation, of people of all ages, is awake and marching so that men like Donald Trump and his supporters never have unchecked power again. He inspired them. Apathy, the chief ally of backwardness, and the bulwark of bullies, is dying, and no one intends to lend it a ventilator.
Across the nation, millions of people are marching for equality. Young and old, of all races, standing up for social justice. Here in our own community our young people are leading marches and organizing activism that will become central to their lives beyond the trials of 2020. They are committing us all by example to seek a more conscientious, diverse, and equitable future.
It is not only the youth of our community that has found its voice. A few months ago, I saw people from around our city stand up and defend our nascent Human Rights Commission from becoming a bastion of Trumpism. Dozens of our citizens independently stood up in the face of potential legal intimidation to say that folks that pal around with the notoriously homophobic and transphobic Mass GOP Chair Jim Lyons, should NOT be arbiters of “Human Rights” in our community. The genie is most definitely, and forever, out of the bottle.
So perhaps there is some good to be had from the experience of Donald Trump after all. A whole new generation of souls who will fight for justice have found their voices, and they are singing.
Democratically yours,
Matthew C. Murray