When We Were Great

Editor, Times-Union:
I am sad that today’s young adults have lived their lives without knowing what it was like when our country really was great. Since 2016, when Donald Trump became our president the first time, the United States has found itself edging closer to the brink of destruction. I feel fortunate to have grown up in a country led by people who were also partners in the world of “good guys.”
We were respected, we were envied, we were strong economically, ideologically, and humanely. Our leaders cared about “we the people” and they recognized their main job was to keep us safe, keep us healthy, and keep us — all of us — free. They recognized they had been hired by the people and that their goals and objectives while in office were to be determined by the will of the people — not by their personal interpretations and selfish ambitions.
Of course, we were not perfect. Our experimental democracy was always (and still is) a work in progress. It will forever require good, smart people to constantly follow the guidelines set forth in our Constitution while at the same time amending those guidelines in the pursuit of perfection in order to ensure that all people are granted equal freedoms and rights. The abolishment of slavery, voting rights for women and eventually all people of color, the civil rights act — a total of twenty-seven timely and appropriate amendments — were changes that were demanded by the people and not by any politician who believed he alone had the right to determine what was best for the country.
Our greatness — before the arrival of Trump, MAGA, and DOGE — included a respect for, a recognized need for, and the providing of funding for scientific research to keep us healthy, to keep our planet “alive,” to make sure we kept up with the times in all ways. Our greatness was ensured and protected by hundreds of wise, experienced people (i.e. Inspectors General, military leaders, etc.) who were the watch dogs making sure our leaders at all levels did not take advantage of their positions. Those people have been “let go.” Our greatness was once measured by the respect and cooperation of our world-wide allies — which was reciprocated by us — and by the deference manifested by our “enemies.” That mutual respect has been jeopardized if not destroyed.
Our greatness grew from pride in diversity, preservation of history — the good, the bad, and the ugly — and aspirations to always defend the equality of all humans in order to continue the quest for a more perfect democratic republic of inclusion, no matter any differences.
Today our greatness is fading. We are less safe globally. We are poorer, weaker, and more likely to die from diseases once believed to be eradicated. There is more hate, more fear, more distrust, and less freedom than ever. Today I do not understand what “make America great again” could possibly mean to our current leaders when their actions are destroying everything that once really did make us great.
Jeanne Tuka Schutz
Winona Lake