| Tuesday night, Trump declared that "this, in fact, is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream." And yet it was only one year ago, in his "American Carnage" inaugural address, that Trump saw an America riddled with "mothers and children trapped in poverty"; a devastated republic with "rusted out factories scattered like tombstones" — "factories shuttered … with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind"; a malign country in which "the wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world." He saw an "education system flush with cash" that nevertheless left "our children behind." He saw all "the crime, the gangs and the drugs." He saw that "Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth." He saw that "every decision" previously made by politicians "on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs" had been an unspeakable disaster. He saw that in America, there were "divisions." But all that — the poverty, the shuttered factories, the abandoned workers, the improperly redistributed wealth, the grossly unfair educational system, the crime, the gangs, the drugs, the disastrous decisions and the country's divisions — all that is now but a wretched memory of those Obamian days. Now, a mere one year later, "there has never been a better time to start living the American Dream." I guess I wasn't paying attention. So much winning, in such a short time — and I missed it. All of it. Source URL |