I have friends from all over the world and we communicate via email nowadays. Sometimes I must use the online translation programs. In particular, I have no skills in русский – Russian. In many cases, we just use the messenger section of Facebook. I want to share a small portion of the message from a friend in South America. She is younger than I am and I am unsure of her age, but she has children still in school. When she was younger, she was a flight attendant so she’s well-traveled. She wrote, “My friend, I am worried about you. Your president sounds like some of the dictators I have seen here. [She mentions a dictators name here and I don’t want to give away her country so I will just change his name to the male pronoun he.] He calls people names. He doesn’t like people from other countries. He’s had help from other countries even though he doesn’t like them.” I think you can see from the small sample how worried my friend as about the direction of our country. She has seen terrible things happen in her country and is afraid they might happen here. It’s clearly changing her view of this country as she once said: “a best country” to something else.
We can always argue in this country among ourselves, but we are part of the whole world and how others see us is very important. She went on to say that the United States has become a bully by using its economic power – I think she means tariffs and trade bans such as with Iran. She also mentioned our president’s friendship with the leaders of Russia and North Korea. She saw those friendships as another sign that our president wants absolute power. I tried to reassure her that things weren’t as bad as she thinks they are, but in the back of my mind, I have to wonder if there isn’t more than just some small bit of truth in her fears. Our president is running our country as he ran his businesses. He was in absolute control of those businesses. It’s been his training all his life so that’s what he seeks to do and it does represent a danger.
