Hyperbole

All political arguments end in hyperbole.  That’s one of the things I like about Bernie Sanders, is he manages to refrain from that.  I don’t, though.  So, I’ve been in  my fair share of  political arguments where both sides  dig in and before you know it, you’re at a standoff and there’s no  point continuing.
I guess this is because everybody  thinks their  opinion  is the  right one,  which is only  natural.  But, tonight I  want to  write about one hyperbolic phrase, one hyperbolic thought, which is coming mostly from my  side.  That is, that the Trump presidency  will  be the end of America.
First, the USA, that broad swathe of Central North America, between Mexico and Canada and with coastlines on the world’s two greatest oceans, is not  going to  sink into the ocean.  Florida, maybe, but we could deal  with that.
The people who  live in the USA are not going to  up and move away  en  masse.  I know  people who’ve never  been outside of Iowa.   Not  many, but plenty  of Americans have  never been abroad and have no intentions  of going.
So, it will continue to exist.  As Rome continues to exist.
If, by the End of America, they mean ‘America as we know it,’ well, yeah.  The Civil War ended America as people born  before 1860 knew it.  The industrial revolution changed the American  way of life irrevocably.  Two world wars. Viet Nam. Trump.
If they mean an  end to the American Dream, the idea that anybody can come, anybody can succeed, the idea of America as a beacon  to  the world, well,that ended back in the  1880s, with the Chinese Exclusion Act.
If they’re talking about  the end of  America as a global power, I’m  all for  that.  America has been a serious global power for  about  a century now, and we haven’t been doing a very good  job of it lately.  This precedes Trump.
So, yes, America will be diminished by Trump.  It will be damaged by Trump.  It  will be impoverished by Trump.  But, it will  keep trundling along.
The story won’t  be over.  The story  is never over.