Conservatives like to say public schools indoctrinate children. I supposed they’re right. When I went to school, I stood up every day in class and said the Pledge of Allegiance. I was told ours was the land of the free, home of the brave, and everyone wanted to live here.

They did a good job of skimming over the slavery part in school, not distracting from the “land of the free” message. 

They softened slavery by reminding us it had been common throughout human history, not a sin specific to America, plus most white Americans didn’t own slaves. Of course, later, when I dived into genealogy, I discovered it wasn’t uncommon to come across slave ownership in someone’s family tree. 

I remember learning about Betsy Ross in grade school—the folk lore not the truth—and later going to a friend’s house where we took turns pretending one of us was Betsy Ross, designing a flag for our new country. This was at the same time we learned about Francis Scott Key’s inspiration when writing The Star-Spangle Banner. The dramatic imagery of our flag, tattered but still flying after a battle during the War of 1812, infused a sense of patriotism in my soul that swelled whenever I heard the song.

Grade schools in California, when I was a child, taught about Mission Indians, which was a fun course where we visited a mission and made mission dioramas. I can’t recall discussing the negative impacts missions had on Natives. 

In high school history, I don’t remember studying about the Trail of Tears or Japanese internment camps, those may have been side bar mentions. We didn’t learn about Black Wall Street or the Tulsa massacre. It wasn’t until college that we dived into those unsavory topics, which might explain why some conservatives oppose college and accuse teachers of indoctrinating student. 

During the Vietnam and Watergate era my patriotism waned considerably. I was in college during the Watergate trials, and I remember watching them when I wasn’t in class.

Not long after I graduated from college and got married, I, along with a large part of America learned more about slavery when the mini-series, Roots, by Alex Haley’s came out. While the mini-series is over 45 years old, I highly recommend it. You can find it on various cable and movie streaming channels, and it would be an excellent watch for Black History Month.

As Roots gave me some fresh insight into slavery, my father-in-law gave me a brief glimpse into the Japanese internment camps during World War II. My father-in-law was born in Hilo, Hawaii, to a Puerto Rican father and a Portuguese mother, who worked on a sugar cane plantation. My father-in-law, Walter (yes, he had the same name as my father) was twenty years old and lived in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was attacked.  He told us of having to drive busloads of Japanese Americans to internment camps. Not only were they American citizens, but many of them were his friends. This was not something he wanted to do.

It was at the 1984 Opening Ceremonies at the California Olympics that I felt my first wave of patriotism in years.  Don got tickets through his work for the opening ceremony and several events. But it was the Opening Ceremony that pushed my patriotic buttons. Perhaps it was the indoctrination of my youth lying dormant, after all those years saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

While I never forgot our country’s sins, I embraced the mantra that we as a collective were striving for a more perfect union. I totally—1000% bought into that belief.

When I was in college, I started getting interested in genealogy after my paternal grandmother shared with me her professionally prepared family tree. In the early years of my marriage, I visited LDS libraries, which had great family records. I wasn’t Mormon, and neither was my family, yet they still had a wealth of information. When the internet came along, I started searching online and eventually signed up for Ancestry.com.

I became friends with a member of Colonial Dames, attending some meetings with her. While I toyed with the possibility of finding a family line for membership, I discovered I was eligible for Daughter’s of the American Revolution (DAR). 

I didn’t do it immediately; it took a number of years, but I finally had the documentation necessary for me to apply for membership. Connecting with an ancestor who fought in the American Revolution can give someone a strong sense of patriotism, and joining an organization like DAR can stoke that patriotism.

I joined a chapter in Lake Havasu City, and for about a year I regularly attended the meetings. My brief exposure to the group showed them to be inclusive, non-political, and hopeful. But then Covid hit, there was the shut down, and the following year my husband and I decided to move to Oregon to be closer to our kids.

I’ve always compared one’s country to a family. A big dysfunctional family. We have problems, but we will work them out together. I once never understood why an American would want to move to another country. Not because I thought mine was the best country in the world. That would be an ignorant statement, since I have never been out of the country aside from Mexico. But because it was home. Yet now, I understand why some Americans consider leaving.

Since I had first studied the Constitution in Junior high, and again in High School Civics, I had been taught the beauty of our democracy was the three equal and separate branches of government. Our freedoms and liberties were protected by checks and balances. 

The members of each branch of government take an oath to solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 

It breaks my heart to say this,  but on day one President Trump broke his oath to uphold and protect the Constitution, by flagrantly issuing unconstitutional executive orders.

Over the last few years white Americans have learned the excruciating lesson that black Americans have been telling us for years—and that is, the notion that no person is above the law in this country is blatantly false. We have an adjudicated rapist and felon, who has not spent a single night behind bars, yet sits in the White House.

Trump has attempted to usurp the powers of Congress, and he handed the keys to the US Treasury to his major political donor, a foreign born billionaire who holds citizenship in three countries and who has US government contracts worth more than 15 billion, funded by US taxpayers.

His supporters may love all Trump and Musk are doing, seeing it as a show of power, but they are not patriots. A patriot supports the US Constitution. 

Our constitution gives each state two representatives in the Senate, and the members of the House are divided up amongst the population of the state.  Congress is elected to represent WE THE PEOPLE.

We have over 300 million people in the United States. One person cannot fairly represent all the citizens. Our founders knew that. That is why we have Congress. None of us is going to get exactly what we want. We share our country with fellow Americans.

The president is responsible for executing and enforcing the laws created by Congress. His job is not to change the laws at his whim. That’s why there is a mechanism for the Congress to override a presidential veto.

While a president presents a budget proposal to Congress, he is not the one who ultimately decides how the money will be spent. Congress is supposed to do that. Sure, he can veto the Congress’s budget, yet they can turn around and override him with enough votes.

That’s why Trump changing laws and deciding to disregard already passed budget expenses is a clear violation of our US Constitution. Trump is attempting to rule as a king, yet our constitution did not set up a monarch. My ancestors who fought and died for this country did not do so to establish a king.

Trump’s team is proudly and openly implementing the “Flood the zone shit” strategy that Steve Bannon bragged about. It is about overwhelming and breaking down the American spirit by throwing so much at them they feel hopeless.

That doesn’t seem like something a President of the United States should be doing to the citizens who elected him into office. It is a far cry from the image of America I was taught for most of my seventy years.

Trump has been in office for a little over two weeks and already he has talked about going to war with Canada, Panama, Greenland, and Gaza over some land grabs I can say with certainty most Americans don’t want. The havoc he has set loose on the American people, the embarrassment he has brought to our country, the real harm and suffering he has brought to thousands of people, the financial disasters he is courting for not just the US but the world, the utterly incompetent cabinet choices, scrubbing government websites of vital resources, while threatening the financial and physical health of Americans doesn’t even cover it all. 

Trump is intentionally trying to hurt American citizens. Unless we are a country of masochists, I don’t believe we voted for this.

Recently I read a comment on social media from a Canadian that said, “We can no longer trust America.” That broke my heart.

When I first sat down and started this post, I had a different ending in mind. But then I remembered a quote from the movie, The American President. Recently I came across an excerpt from that movie on YouTube and posted it on my personal Facebook page. That excerpt was from a speech given by President Andrew Shepherd, the main character in the movie played by Michael Douglas. In many ways, that scene brings into focus what is happening in our country.

Shepherd tells us, “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight.” 

He is right. America isn’t easy. There are currently elected officials—and some overstepping donors—who are attempting to undermine not just the spirit of the United States of America, but the U.S. Constitution, which is the very foundation of our country.

Fellow Americans, it’s not easy, but do you want advanced citizenship? Or are you willing to allow Trump to rip up the foundation of our country? 

One final quote from that movie which I believe is worth sharing:  “Being President of this country is entirely about character.”