What is America?

Do you want to know what America really is?  Then don’t go to a Donald Trump rally.  Don’t listen to that selfish, bombastic, repulsive egotist tell you that  America is a loser, that America is weak,  that we’re afraid, that  nobody respects America any more.  Don’t listen when he tells you he wants to build walls against people because of their race, nationality or religion.

No. If you really want to know what America is, go to One World Trade Center in New York City as I did this morning.  Take a look at that new, majestic 100-story glass and steel structure—the tallest in the Western Hemisphere-- glistening in the sun, standing tall on the same spot where tons of smoking rubble was all that remained of the World Trade Center 15 years ago.  I saw that too.

Two weeks after the

September 11 terrorist attack, my wife and I refused to cancel our annual New York visit. We went to Manhattan and got as close to ground zero as officials allowed. We smelled the acrid smoke that still lingered in the heavy, dust filled air.  We saw the thick coatings of ash on the sidewalks and buildings.  We experienced and shared the sorrow, anxiety and shock of New Yorkers.  Every year since then we have visited ground zero on our annual visits.  We watched, year after year as New York came back with determination and grit and today we saw it’s fully restored, renewed strength and splendor.  We saw what America really is.

So maybe  Donald Trump should come down from his gilded Tower on Columbus Circle and go to lower Manhattan and see some real America.  Maybe he should watch the thousands of people who visit the tower, the memorial fountains and the museum day after day.  Of course he would not understand a great many of them because they are speaking Spanish, German,  Russian, Romanian, Italian, Arabic an all the languages of the world because they are there to see what America does when it takes a hit.  It comes back bigger and stronger in purpose and character.

But Donald Trump doesn’t seem to understand that.  He thinks America is a loser. We’re afraid, we’re weak.   He has no idea what America really is. I do.