I have spent hours conversing with friends, attempting to understand the reasoning behind our fellow citizens’ acceptance of and adherence to President Donald Trump’s political and moral views. We have several friends who are big Trump supporters, but we agree that both politics and religion are subjects best left alone.
I have seen gatherings of Trump supporters in televised forums. Most begin with questions of how many participants understand and agree with particular campaign promises and/or decisions made by Trump. These sessions include back-and-forth discussions with additional information and follow-up questions posed by the interviewers. When presented with the outcomes from canceling existing programs and the effects of new guidelines should these propositions become law — severe hardships for some and unintended negative consequences for all of us through the reduction or end of public services and local programs such as Meals on Wheels, public school breakfast programs, clean air and water and hundreds more — they said, “I (We) don’t care.”
One is tempted to ask: What, aside from your personal gain and safety, do you care about? Aren’t we in this together? I leave all of you to ponder the validity of “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions,” written by John Donne (1572-1631):
“No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Steele Sellers
Providence Township