Sam's ArtWorld

I painted my country tis of thee when there was chaos in America.

Donald Trump was elected President in 2016 and started in his term in 2017. In his final year, 2020, Trump’s COVID-19 virus created a global pandemic that impacted every country on the planet, but none more so than the United States of America, where we lost millions of lives thanks to his humongous ego.

But, before COVID-19, he condoned sexual harassment and rolled back policy for deviants. He ranted and raged in daily tweets, sided with Proud Boys and Nazis, hired incompetents and religious extremists, and opened the door to public funding for private schools. Millions were left hungry when his policies ensured people would be kick out of the SNAP program. He gutted standards for oil and gas transmissions while giving the rich a trillion-dollar permanent tax break. He caged immigrants, ripped babies from the arms of their mothers, and kept the COVID-19 virus a secret until it bloomed and infected the entire country. Then, he downplayed it.

That same year, 2020, we were reminded that our police had more authority than we cared to realize and that there was and is, even today, a total lack of accountability for those who vowed to serve but whose behavior was and continues to be caustic. George Floyd’s murder was witnessed and caught on camera. The masses flooded the streets in protest of the callous disregard for human life we witnessed.

Meanwhile, our ‘supreme justices’, three of whom were handpicked by the 45th administration, succeeded in ripping out the heart of America by overturning Roe v. Wade and, thus, commandeering the autonomy of women. The ‘new’ Supreme Court’s majority is bed-rocked in the conservative ideology of White Christian Nationalism. The view from that particular holier-than-thou loft demands the banning of books and a concentrated effort to force the Christian religion onto schools where young minds can and will be properly molded. The goal is to make Christianity the only religion.

If you have not yet read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood or seen the TV Series with the same name, I suggest you do so at once. The fictional and dystopian Republic of Gilead is nigh.

I painted my country tis of thee as legacy when the 45th President of the United States wreaked havoc and brought chaos to America.

There is chaos still.