Reader's View: Stay hopeful; denial is not a river in Egypt

America is at war with itself. It’s not so different from an individual battling addiction.
Before we can pull ourselves out of this soup of post-election, societal uncertainty we have to admit America’s underbelly has been exposed for the world to see. And we have to own the truth, that the dishonesty, divisiveness, rancor, rudeness, lewdness, profanity and violence exhibited the last 18 months is the U.S.
Less than half of the Americans who voted just put into office a man who commandeered the ability to make people believe things that were proven to be false and, worse, who convinced people to close their ears and eyes to things of which we have undeniable proof. White supremacists mastered this tactic with regard to the Holocaust. Be vigilant.
We’ve exposed a corrupt political system driven by a perversion of capitalism and a lust for power. Those in power have done nothing to prevent the looting of American citizens by big banks and Wall Street.
We deny American manufacturers began four decades ago to outsource, close down factories and sell out the American worker in pursuit of obscene profits, less and less of which “trickle down” to employees.
We have become “big-boxed,” and there’s no going back. China did not “steal” our jobs, America’s greedy CEOs gleefully handed them over, which U.S. consumers supported with our wallets.
We’re not a racist country, yet we deny we have a major racist problem. People are justifiably frightened of more attacks on minorities, which, indeed, have escalated since the election.
I hope we’ve hit the bottom of our disintegration. A positive sign could be so many affirming we won’t tolerate “other-ism” and vowing to have each other’s backs.
There’s still so much good in the U.S.
Remain optimistic - yet vigilant.
Gary Lundstrom
Duluth