I have seen a lot of America in the past 78 years. In person, through the media, through the lived experiences of other people. I was born during an American period of segregation and racial disharmony. Economic greatness and great economic insecurity. Social upheaval and societal celebration that would draw a person to tears. 

Americans creating the best days of their lives and killing each other over what they have created.

The image of a unified nation, flying a giant flag proving patriotism and righteousness has proven to be a mirage.

I grew up in New York. Not the Midwest. Not the south of the fifties. Not the visions of the California dreams. 

I was living in the center of the Universe, and it all seemed perfect. 

Those fantasy days of the fifties and early sixties were sometimes marred by the strange images of newspaper headlines and news reports on my black and white television screen of violence against people of color or stories of exclusion in other parts of the country. 

It was always somewhere else.

Until I experienced it firsthand in 1962. At a Catholic seminary for priests in training of all places.

I refused to accept that this was universal. 

Years of Catholic education in America the Beautiful was a shroud over my eyes, and I refused to believe that Americans could treat each other like those people were not also Americans.

Silly me. 

I reached the teen years during the sixties, when the shroud was ripped apart, and I saw clearly who this nation truly honored: where American exceptionalism was only for the descendants of European colonialism and American exemption for everyone else. 

I continued to hoard hope in my soul that those exemplary words in the original founding documents would find themselves realized and that passing of time would lead us into a promised reality of Kumaya and Eden. 

Silly me.

Through the late years of the twentieth century, through the first sixteen years of the current century, from the great cities I’ve lived, the hopes of New York to the leaps of success  and scandals of Washington, D.C. to the “I never thought I see the days working in Hollywood” period in Southern California, I held out that somewhere deep in the modern America psyche, we would all finally mature into that nation where all the ugliness of the past history would be erased or at least diminished and, yes, turned into the promised reality of Kumbaya and Eden.

Silly me. 

Something went terribly wrong after the election of Barack Obama. 

The nightmare that I thought had crawled back into the deep recesses of our minds erupted into some strange, how can I say this carefully, shit. 

Tea bags hanging from peoples’ hats. Claims that the White House meant it was only for White people. 

Suddenly people found a reason to stop holding back on shouting racial expletives at their neighbors of color that they have lived alongside for years. 

Immigrants, instead of cheering the hard work and creative energy that they brought with them were now the enemy. 

Civil rights and the efforts to erase a legacy of inequality in the American life were now called White discrimination and must be not only stopped but also turned back on its head. 

I never thought I would see the day.

Family member against family member. Neighbor against neighbor. 

Doors once opened wide now slammed shut. 

Hopes and dreams once shared now crushed into dust. 

Lies upon lies hurled into the public forum to the point where we now could not tell the truth from a lie. Or even cared to.

Silly me.

And here we are in this moment, in this time of ours: all of us trying to get by, some of us doing better than others, some doing much better than all of us thanks to a system that rewards who knows who in power and is rewarded for the grift that comes with it, all the while the class status of that relationship is cemented into an impenetrable concrete ceiling leaving most Americans angry and hungry and clutching for wisps of some hope for a future that will never come.

And the worst part of this whole grift is how many of those on the bottom cheer and howl as they are being given the shaft, pummeled, drilled a new body hole, their future stolen right from under them while they’re distracted with tales of those other people being the cause of their pain and not facing the real culprits who are doing the pain. 

From the “I don’t care if you call me a racists” to the “god told me to do it” to the fools who proudly claim “I’m with Stupid” while shuffling and grinning and mamboing to the beat of the siren shrieking time is running out, it becomes obvious this is going to end badly.

Call me silly yet, I have hope. A stubborn hope. Naïve, you can call me. 

I mean even at my age, cynicism, and a lifetime of seeing the depth of stupidity of people, I know that we must all want the same thing and are willing to shed ugliness for beauty. If it is our best interest. 

As we Americans are voting across this nation in the 2026 elections, please ask yourself if this is the America you want to pass on to the next generation, to our descendants, to our future and most importantly, decide who will be the best stewards of that future.

Vote like that future depended on it.