Fly Over Country

Fly over country.  That's the less than flattering term that has sometimes been used to describe middle America between the coasts.  It's an elitist insult devaluing the people and issues many in middle America care about.  It also embodies a sentiment candidate Donald Trump was able to use in order to connect with millions of voters in middle America that felt abandoned by the establishment.  These people want jobs, they want prosperity, and they want to feel safe.  Trump, ironically an east coast elitist himself, played well to those desires, won the election and, this week, signed a series of executive orders that will do anything but bring the prosperity and feeling of safety to those in middle American he courted.

Of most significance, Trump this week signed an executive order banning refugee immigration to the United States and denies entry to those from seven majority-Muslim countries.   The action played well to Trump supporters in middle America who called out terrorism as a major campaign issue.  The desire to keep America safe is not unreasonable but it is a feeling that has been elevated to a near irrational level by some in middle America red states.  The last major terror attack committed in the heartland was carried out in Oklahoma City by an American (and a Christian), Timothy McVeigh.  It also happened over two decades ago.  Maybe it adds insult to injury that ISIS and Al-Qaeda joined the elitists that consider the majority of red states fly over country but, the fact remains, the heartland is quite safe today.  However, with Trump's executive order now in place, that safety may not remain true in the future.

The immediate impacts of the Trump ban are dangerous world wide.  First, it leaves Syrian refugees already cleared for entry into the United States stranded in a war zone.  These men, women, and children were already some of the most stringently vetted immigrants on record and now may die by Trump's pen.  Second, it gives radical terror groups propaganda to use as proof the United States is at war with Muslims.  This will only empower terrorist groups not defeat them.  Third, it abandons other individuals America promised to help such as some of the brave Iraqi nationals that, at great personal risk, acted as translators for U.S. forces in Iraq.

These actions will not make America safer.  They make America a liar.  They fuel anger and resentment against us.  They lay a foundation for those wronged to seek revenge.  Middle America should be scared now; all of American should be scared now.

Fly over country, your claim in voting for Trump was the establishment turned its back on you.  How would you feel in the shoes of those that now face the real threat of loss of life due to America turning its back on them?  The lack of empathy you show just adds fuel to the stereotypes that led to the fly over insult itself.  Divisiveness is brutalizing us internally and we are now taking it out externally.  It must stop.  

The immigration ban order must be rescinded and Trump's fear mongering conquered.  We are nearly all immigrants.  An excerpt from the poem at the foot of the Statue of Liberty reminds us how America was built "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."  That mantra has worked pretty well thus far and made America great.  Let's not let abandon our history, values, or duty to fear mongering.  What Trump has done can be undone and ironically would make America great again.