God Bless America and our Constitution

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

At 1 p.m. Jan. 20, I asked Alexa who is president of the United States, and she said, “Donald J. Trump.” Our Constitution continues to work.

If you think of the nearly 250-year journey of the United States as a road or highway, you can conjure up a beautiful picture.

Sometimes it has been no more than a rough, winding path, such as in the days of slavery, when the light in the window of John Rankin’s house in Ripley, Ohio told those huddled on the other side of the cold and swift Ohio River that today is the day to cross to safety.

Other days it was a bit wider, but still bumpy, as when the union movement of the late 1800s made sure the labor that dug the mines, operated the Homestead Steel mill, and ran the trains was treated fairly. But we stayed on the road and barely had a wheel on the berm.

It was wider still, when we shrunk the world by building the Panama Canal. It was a massive highway during World War II when politics was nearly forgotten, and we came together to defeat evil. 

After World War II, the road narrowed a bit as we moved from the communist scare of the 1950s to the social experiments of the '60s and beyond. Sometimes the wheels would get off the left berm, then off the right berm but we continued to careen forward.

Today, we don’t know how wide or straight the road is, but we know at this moment the wheels are a bit to the right.

And be careful, I am not referring to the right as in “correct,” but as politically leaning right vs. leaning left.

From the beginning, the United States has careened from the left, or liberal leanings, to the right, and conservative leanings. About the time we think it is going to go completely off the road to one side or another, it corrects and moves to the other side.

We are at one of those times now. I have been expecting this one for a long time, and it has finally arrived.

If you read this column regularly, you know I lean right or conservatively. My word to you on the left is this – don’t despair. Your time will come again someday.  

In the meantime, look at the left ideals that you have installed already – Social Security, Medicare, and more. It is likely no president, even Donald J. Trump, can remove those.

God Bless America. And our good old God-inspired Constitution will continue to keep us between the ditches as we get ready to head into our second quarter-millennium as a country.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.