We rethink the week with Dean Spiliotis, Civic Scholar and Presidential Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University; Stephen Pimpare, Professor at the University of New Hampshire and a nationally recognized expert on poverty, homelessness, and U.S. social policy; and Royal Ford, who was, for decades, the national reporter for The Boston Globe and who is now retired and living in Portugal.
We discuss this year’s very unusual Fourth of July. Instead of the annual celebration of our country’s founding and feeling pride in our mutual Americanism, many of us – Black and white – are saddened, angry and/or ashamed at the contradictions between America’s founding principles (all people are created equal) and the extent to which those principles – and the American dream – have gone unfulfilled for people of color for more than two centuries. In the one sense, it is a time of hope and optimism – now that many of us have awakened to the problems about which we’ve been in denial for so long, we might be able to work together to eliminate systemic racism and build a society that lives up to our founding principles and their potential.
Unfortunately, there remains a segment of our population – goaded by a racist, mendacious, and out-of-control president – who insist on maintaining a white-supremacist nation, and who might be willing to fight and kill in order to achieve their goals. We are concerned, but optimistic that the fair-minded majority of Americans will win the election in November and will stay committed, as Martin Luther King put it, to “live out the true meaning of our creed.”
We also discuss the resurgence of COVID-19 and the imminence of tragic consequences for Americans’ health and for our economic stability. How long will it take our schools and universities to recover, so our children fall behind the rest of the world in education and ability to lead productive lives
And we wonder about whether Donald Trump even wants to remain president. There is talk of the possibility that he might resign before the election. But that doesn’t seem consistent with his adolescent mind-set and motivation: his ego revels in adulation and status; he hates to be a “loser”; he’s constantly fighting and putting down the “other”; and he’ll blame anyone other than himself when anything goes wrong. He may not like the job – he may not have the ability to lead responsibly – but does that mean he would quit?
