Martha's 100th Birthday

I don't know if you heard about it, but the United States is set to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4.  This, of course, is a milestone birthday that deserves respect, reflection and celebration.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that's going to happen, and once again I'm going to place the blame on us.  When I say "us," I mean all of us... the collective group known as Americans.

At the center of this debate, of course, is our illustrious leader, Donald Trump, a person incapable of making everything all about him.  For example, he is advocating a new $250 bill that carries his image, in honor of the country's 250th birthday.  Despite the fact that we have laws preventing living people from appearing on our currency, because that's what monarchies and dictatorships do, our commander in chief somehow believes that he deserves more recognition than Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln and others who appear on our currency, by becoming the first living president to appear on currency.  This is a side note to illustrate my point...

My point is that we are celebrating our country's 250th birthday.  Part of this includes a planned "Geat American State Fair," scheduled to take place late June through mid-July.  While I personally think the idea of a fair is a bit quaint and out of date, I support the basic concept of a big birthday bash.  The problem is that Trump's mentality demands that everything be about him.

Unfortunately, this also divides our country.  Half of America will automatically reject anything associated with him, so half of the country is effectively left out of the birthday celebration.  Another 25% supports Trump but still feels that he should let this celebration be about America, so their opinions are dismissed as well.  Meanwhile, the remaining 25% gets to have a hootenanny... f**k the rest of the country!  I politely dissent.  While I am certainly part of the never Trump crowd, this specific post is about this specific issue... our country's 250th birthday celebration should be about the COUNTRY, and the PERSON should recognize this and play second fiddle for once in his life.

To use an analogy... Great-grandma Martha's 100th birthday is coming up, and she's married to her third husband, Bob who's obnoxiously gregarious.  He's planning a huge blowout party.  He will be the emcee.  He will cut the cake.  He will personally select the band and each song the band plays.  He's planning the meal.  He's sitting at the center of the head table, with her to his immediate right.  He will give the toast and be the only speaker.  He will talk about how smart she was to marry him, and trash talk her previous husbands and any offspring of those husbands.  He will dance poorly to YMCA.  You get the idea.

His family knows how this will play out.  Half of the family will refuse to go to Martha's party, because they hate Bob.  They want to go to the party, but they also know they'll be absolutely miserable if they attend.  They don't want to go through that, and they don't want to subject their family to that special kind of hell.  Another quarter of the family will suck it up and go, even though they don't really like Bob.  The final quarter will show up, hoot and holler at the toast, tell Bob he threw a great party, get falling down drunk, and completely forget to wish Martha happy birthday.

It doesn't have to be this way.  Bob could hire others to give Martha the birthday she wants, which is a celebration that the whole family would want to attend.  But that's not how Bob works.  Here ends the analogy.