America’s Mirror on the Wall
One year ago, Donald Trump stood in front of a nation still in shock at the outcome of the 2016 election, and listening as the president-elect spoke in his inaugural address to see what he would be about: preventing “American Carnage.”
The landscape that he painted was bleak. “[F]or too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leave our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”
Over the past year, as he embarked on his campaign to Make America Great Again, much of the nation has been disturbed by some of the ideas that have gained currency in the national debate. It is tempting to think of the worst elements of President Trump’s tenure as a deviation from American history. The nativism, the
