Opinion: What just happened, America?

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump points to supporters with former first lady Melania Trump during an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 06, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. Americans cast their ballots today in the presidential race between Republican nominee former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as multiple state elections that will determine the balance of power in Congress. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/TNS) Chip Somodevilla
Published: 11-08-2024 3:48 PM |
Millie LaFontaine lives in Concord.
As I sit here on an ominously warm day in November, I’m shaking my head saying, “What just happened?”
I’m not sure. In casting about to make sense of it all, I start to wonder whether the American electorate learned the same lessons as I did as a child. I suspect they did, which means a majority of us have forgotten some very important lessons.
I doubt many people made it through childhood without a visceral understanding of such basics as, “One lie only leads to another,” “Treat others as you want to be treated,” or “Look before you leap.”
I grew up in a large household, where lessons like these were crucial for well-being, but I would be surprised if many of us became adults without some version of these golden rules.
Yet it seems we as a nation have been bamboozled into thinking, instead of having golden rules, we are on the brink of a new golden age. We will not only pay less for bread and eggs, but the land will be flowing with fossil fuels to lubricate our lives and fuel our prosperity. The world will go on in perfect harmony as long as we have what we think life owes us, regardless what happens to everyone else, regardless of what we have left for our children.
We will be secure in our tower of isolation, while those who simply want what we want will be rounded up and disposed of, maybe on some magical floating island. The adults in my life growing up would have said, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” or “What is wrong with this picture?”
I was extremely fortunate to grow up knowing that there were adults in my life who had my interest at heart, and they made sure I felt that. But I also learned to spot those who did not, whose actions shouted “It’s all about me,” or “Heads I win; tails you lose.” Among my peers, I could spot the bullies and the liars. Among the adults, I learned to see the schemers and those ready to trample others in their own interest.
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I was taught to see the good in others. My models were adults who had lived through the Great Depression and World War II. I learned to cut the pie in equal pieces so everyone could share. My mother would welcome surprise visitors, advising “Family Hold Back,” so our guests could be honored by what we could share with them. I was taught that in the human family, there were people who didn’t look like me or talk like me, but whose needs and hopes were as deserving as my own.
I understand that we live in a huge country with hundreds of millions of people, and millions of points of view. But I firmly believe that most of us emerged from childhood with an understanding that we are not the only people on earth, and we don’t live in a fantasy world. I am having a very hard time understanding why so many of us choose to elect as our leader someone who doesn’t seem to know any of this, and has already proven that he doesn’t care.
Watch out. He is barreling along in his cavalcade behind bullet-proof glass. His loyal cronies are behind him, and none of them have our interests at heart. We should have listened to the adults in our life who always advised, “Look both ways before you cross the street.”