Lengthy; excerpts:

To my Trump-supporting family,

On the morning of November 9, 2016, the America I knew and loved died. Or rather, I woke that day to discover that it never really existed in the first place.

Let me explain.

I grew up in the Deep South. I was a flag-waving, gun-shooting, red-blooded American boy. I said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school, got tingles when I heard the national anthem, and fervently accepted that no other country on the planet could ever come close to the grandeur, freedom, and inspiration that the United States of America offered. We were that City Upon the Hill that was promised to the world – a shining beacon of participatory democracy that everyone else desperately wanted to emulate but could never achieve. We were tough on our allies, but only because we needed to push them to excel and improve. Of course, they’d never quite catch up to us economically, politically, or militarily, but hey, that’s the price of not being the USA. The chants of “USA! USA! USA” weren’t taunts, but merely celebrations of our preeminence. And anyone’s detractions were just signs of their jealousy. Because everybody wanted to be American, right?

[. . .]

Up until November 8, 2016, I genuinely believed that, despite its myriad shortcomings, America was still the country that stood up to bullies. It valued intellect and scientific discovery. Americans may have disagreed on specific policies, but still had faith that public servants genuinely had the country’s best interests at heart. Immigration built this country. And we should always, always protect the innocent and welcome those fleeing poverty, war, or famine with open arms.

But America didn’t elect a leader who represents any of those principles. America didn’t elect a leader with any principles. And you did that. You can say you held your nose and voted for the “lesser of two evils,” or that you only voted for Trump because you knew he’d further the policies with which you agreed, even if you found him personally detestable. But when you and all of the other Trump voters pulled that lever, you weren’t just selecting your preferred presidential candidate. You were selecting what America was. And it is nothing like the America I grew up believing in. To say that your choice and the result it brought about triggered an existential crisis would be an understatement. My whole life, I’d been an unquestioning, patriotic servant of America because of what I’d believed it stood for. But in a single night, everything it stood for was revealed as a fraud. Everything I stood for was a fraud.

[. . .]

You’ve stopped paying attention to anyone who doesn’t agree with your crystallized view of the world. You’re the mosquito of the Reagan era, completely unaware the sap has long hardened around you into amber. And frankly, it’s not even particularly pretty amber. It’s dull, opaque, muffled. You can’t see or hear through it and you don’t want to.

But to be honest with you, I’ve lost all interest in trying to break you free. At first, I really wanted to. I wanted you to understand how the promise of America was broken. I wanted you to see so we could find some way to fix it. But every time I tried, you trotted out some line you heard Trump spew (none of which make any sense whatsoever, by the way) or that some Fox News commentator has conned you into thinking reflects reality. So I’m done.

The America I believed in doesn’t exist. Instead, it’s a different country now, irretrievably. I get a bit melancholy about it sometimes, because promise and hope and opportunity are like political endorphins, and I miss them. And I miss you. I miss having conversations about our lives as though you hadn’t abandoned everything we ever believed in. I miss seeing your smiling faces without having to hold back a political tirade. I miss spending time with you without constantly wondering how you sleep at night knowing what this country is doing to the defenseless.

[. . .]

I guess this means ~I Believe! ..might be a more damning utterance than.. umm,
Bagman! Order a Class a.b.c. Strike on ___ [per x.y.z. Specs + Addenda] *Now*

Jeez.. this kinda stuff was Lots-more fun ... when ya knew it was fiction.
Liff is like a box of chock-lits; ya never know what you'll get..

Ed: Original linkie, seen en passant.

Your experience 'traveling abroad'.. piques my own recollection of First-visit well-outta the ['dis-US'] but not-yet via any realization that your summation would come to apply por moi; that required a few more years of Noticing increasingly: the mean-Spirited cocoon around so many mere acquaintances, mobs, the Guns, the physical-assaults over trivia ..ad nauseum. Still.. My Gramma's encapsulation of the 'Mean-' part never left the hippocampus' er, Library of events. Kinda a leitmotif?

But that first Exit/Arrival @Heathrow (as a momentary-ex-Pat) began before the plane landed; I asked a seat-mate ~~ "Supposing this flight were a sham; they'd flown around in large circles--for whatever cockamamie reason--and we're about to land. What would we see first, as would confirm the cynical version.. or not? He blew it; I Saw it!
>>The little moving-spots on roads were ... ... driving on the Rong Side!
First {chortle} on the grand Tour; first-evah New wheels/tiny A-H Sprite pickup in Londinium (place as had sold moi various Vincent cycle parts over years) thence 'ferry' from Harwich --> Denmark; pick up companion, S. next through Germany + side to 'Holland' on The Day they celebrated WW-II denouement (and Boy Scouts tied flowers to our front bumper!) {{sniff}} thence ---> Zoooom.

tl;dr Indeed my own mien was joyous not merely for the novelty of Grand Tour but ..first inklings that--indeed as you say--the 'Happiness Quotient' in each Country was noticeably different (not that either of us remarked upon the Fact. Then.)

Perhaps you were an incipient-Wunderkind(?) to have grasped both--the Adventure of such a massive cultural-displacement/inescapable, that--but also to have absorbed (not merely 'adsorbed'--cf. chemistry) perhaps the first umm ∆-Humanity you were encountering/Live! I envy you both that mondo-Experience but more: that you Could grok nearly enough to fullness ... those massive Implications. Surely also too: the fact of your upbringing within a cerebral/parental enviro (I can merely surmise) DNA? then.. was a factor. aka Ya Cannot 'teach' Math via rote ..on any level beyond say, arithmetic, I wot. (The point where many Muricans stopped-learning.)

En fin: as a mere Five-yo I am sure that my consciousness was far below that sentience; only a few years later--as a 'feral' in non-Public-schools, thus self-guided throughout the absorption processes unfolding--I at least noticed--First: the incipient-Violence within daily patter; the mondo-BS surrounding all the self-congratulatory anthems, Pledges-to-Flags, the tics of the populace and underlying that-all: the utter absurdity of young boys' 'take' upon young girls. This last remained ever since grokking: that the avge. Murican was The Feral! not moi ..if-I-could? help it.. {sigh} Hypocrisy + Puritans: says Much about the ongoing dis-US. And its _prospects.

As for Today: [see CNN's listicle] (Kelly-Ann disgraces self, uses: "Our Great Democracy" nuff said).
as The Menace has hourly orgasms over the er 'Demanded?!' Militarized July 4 DC-Parade excrescences as shall gag-moi-with-a-Spoon:
I expect that we shall remain cohorts @Aux Barricades! ..however separated by mere distance ..as the Fascisti force-babble the Arrant-knave-meeja et alia -->
The incipient New Huge-Win dis-US Warz on Humanity (wherever found.)

---

Quel Surprise, eh?

Carrion (we're already ("Down-on-your-Knees!™" in that lake-sized shit-hole)
But we gets a sop: delicious schadenfreude-writ-Large,

I told Ya so, Assholes!!

PS: should matters accelerate-in-their-devolution, I could send along the very-simple formula for Phlogiston
which/once evident re its usage ... would greatly magnify one's er Efficiency in Voting-for-Change, y'know?

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