Donald Trump is pushing us to give in to this most un-American urge | Opinion
Marty’s and my daughter came by a recent weekend, overwrought by Donald Trump’s misguided presidency slashing foreign aid with his “America first” agenda, abusing our trusted allies and appointing his incompetent friends to critical posts. She used a word my mom taught us when we were kids refusing to share some special toy: Mom called it selfish, and told us we should not behave that way, at home or at school.
After the United States and our allies won World War II in 1945, the Marshall Plan, an outreach program in enemies’ and allies’ lands, rebuilt what had been destroyed. It was a spectacular investment success, both for the U.S. and for the world, and a huge example of not being selfish. We kids combed our Kansas City neighborhood in search of paper, grease and tin cans, took them to Bryant School in competition with other school classes to participate in the war and rebuilding effort. My older cousins, Dick Sloan, Bill Kamp, John Lamy and Rodgers McCrae were drafted, sent to Europe and the Pacific.
This success preceded our critical part in Harry Truman being instrumental in creating the United Nations, still extant treaties with Japan and Germany (the latter now part of NATO) and similar agreements along the South China Sea. Later, we would initiate the United States Agency for International Development’s outreach across the globe, which among many successes has made important progress against HIV in nations that do not have the effective medications, vaccines or adequate food. Often overlooked by USAID critics is the role that Missouri and Kansas farmers play in filling these needs.
These outreach efforts over the past 80 years have built a reputation of the U.S. as a nation that cares beyond its borders, a caring that most Americans like and support. This leadership, not incidentally, also secured the dollar as the currency of international trade, and English as the predominant language of international discourse. Our competitors are lusting as they see our president jeopardizing these priceless advantages.
Trump’s win in 2024 was based on his charisma, his persona as the tough TV boss, his fake promises to bring down the price of eggs and to make the federal government more efficient. Put together with Joe Biden’s hidden impairment that delayed the Democrats’ election campaign, Trump won. He appealed to voters’ worst inclination — selfishness.
Trump has reneged on U.S. follow-through against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with his dream that Vladimir Putin is his friend. Didn’t most of us see the folly of this concoction? Then Trump demanded taking Ukraine’s natural resources to pay for U.S. military aid. Without thoroughly consulting our Middle East specialists, he loves flying his biggest toys halfway round the Earth in vain.
Remember when Trump gathered his most ardent, angriest supporters to assault the U.S. Capitol, attempting to force our vice president to reject the outcome of the election that he’d just lost? The motivation then was Trump’s selfish outcry: That’s my election. You supporters, go get it back for me. And the result, along with his ongoing abuse of the law, is that our Constitution and legal system may or may not survive.
Now, as Trump sends hooded, masked ICE agents to indiscriminately grab citizens and noncitizens off the street, without warrants or explanation, many in his base are beginning to question their commitment. Immigration raids on Mexican restaurants in Liberty, then Lenexa and Kansas City, Kansas, have brought Trump’s racial tastes to our front pages — getting rid of those who are “poisoning the blood of our country,” in his words. He’s painted a picture of immigrants as the enemy, in direct opposition with the words cast on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
We Americans were taught by our families not to be selfish. I don’t know Donald Trump’s mom, but somewhere along his lifespan, he has lost this American aspiration.
Kite Singleton is a native Kansas Citian, retired architect, former chair of the Kansas City Planning Commission and charter board member of Habitat for Humanity KC.