Not Empty or Full, Just Half

I will not shout and stomp my feet. I will not blubber and moan and dab my eyes. I will not throw things at my TV set and threaten assassination. I will not stoop to the level that my opponents did four years ago. I will maintain my composure and respect the accomplishment of a man I do not trust, and although I am wary of his intentions, I will call him neither criminal nor foolish until his actions prove him to be so.

If you have been reading, you know I am afraid, and you know several reasons why. The inaugural speech this morning was beautifully written and orated, and our new President did his best at trying to fill Americans with hope, a reaffirmation of why many voted for him in November. And while I was momentarily caught up in the wave, I tasted in the water a sugary, diluted version of his typical socialism, and spat it out immediately.

While he speaks of remaining “faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents,” he threatens “to lay a new foundation for growth” and change the very framework of our country. While he says he wants to “proclaim an end to petty grievances and false promises,” he is found guilty of making both. While he says “the time has come to set aside childish things,” he acts as a proud proponent of jealousy-based tax policy and the condoning of both social and economic irresponsibility. While he acclaims the entrepreneurs, the “risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things,” he aims to quash ambition and punish success. While he mocks those whose “memories are short,” he seems to have forgotten the failed policies of one administration just thirty years ago, mimicked in many of his own proposals. And while he encourages all Americans to become “joined to a common purpose”, I cannot help but remember what he’s said in the past about redistributing wealth and socializing what is now private, and I think that his idea of a good “common purpose” is not mine.

And so I am waiting. He has done nothing wrong. Yet. But if all arranged in this first presidential speech comes to pass, I believe this nation will fall. I fear our oppression, our stagnancy, our poverty, our death of spirit. I fear that America, in all the glory it represents, will cease to be. We will become the United States in name only, a people bitter and divided. This man, who appeared on Sunday on the front page of the Denver Post sandwiched between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, has some great expectations to live up to, and it concerns me that we’re awaiting such greatness from a man with such a short rap sheet.

I will be neither depressed nor optimistic as we proceed into the next four years. I will be open to being proven wrong or right (I will, however, be much less surprised by the latter). But we must be cautious in assuming that this rookie is going to fix everything in a snap. We cannot expect him to fill the shoes of our nation’s greatest leaders on his first day in office. If I can be big enough to allow him a clean slate from his term’s commencement, his supporters should also wait until he proves himself worthy of praise. Let us, from both sides of the fence, hold off on hatred or admiration until he actually does something.

“Faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be based on fact, not fiction—faith in fiction is a damnable false hope.” –Thomas Edison