American History – a reflection

Welcome to Left Right and Center

This is my online home, a reflection of American History — the good, bad and ugly. It’s 2020 and it has been an interesting year, to say the least. We started out like any other year, making plans for the new year with our family and friends — travel, work, fun — all kinds of plans and goals. And, then — boom — we are stopped in our tracks by a deadly virus — a worldwide pandemic. Suddenly our world completely changed.

I was on an emotional rollercoaster as a result of this intensely shocking change. I vacillated between a myriad of emotions including shock, acceptance, and depression. I had to find my way out of that negative cycle and I began to discuss my fears and frustration with family and friends. We had many spirited debates about our country’s state of affairs, we asked a lot of questions, we discussed history and politics through the years. As I watched the daily news updates, I began to think our government needed a marriage counselor within the government and with the media. We have a lot of badly behaving politicians in Washington, and “we the people” are suffering from it. 4o million Americans are out of work, we have a global pandemic on our hands and we got caught with our pants down, as a country. We didn’t have what we needed to address this national health emergency.

• “What is wrong with this picture?”
• “Why is this happening right now?  
• What can I learn from this?  
• What can we do to repair the damage?
• Let’s define and work toward common goals?”
• What are our goals as a country?
• What can we agree on — how do we get there?
• What is best for the country?

When I found myself feeling down, out of control, and powerless to this situation — I challenged myself to seek the good in this situation, to find the silver lining, to find the message for myself, to embrace this ‘new normal’ and adapt to the best of my ability.  So I decided to look deeper into our ‘new normal’.

This ‘perfect storm’ of 2020 will go down in American History

Just happens to transpire during an election year in the United States. We have been living through many changes in our country for several years and most recently due to our 45th President — Donald J. Trump. In 2015-16 he ran an aggressive campaign for the presidency as a Republican and he had a spirited face-off with Hillary Clinton — our former First Lady. Donald Trump campaigned on the Make American Great Again platform — MAGA — and became the voice of many Americans that have felt forgotten by our then-current career politicians. He promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington D.C. — he was an outsider and came into town to shake things up, right all the wrongs he felt had been established by previous Administrations — Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, and women. DJT was like a bull in a china shop and he ruffled a lot of feathers in Washington and around the world. He stepped on a lot of toes while making his mark on American History.

Fast forward to 2020 — it’s an election year and #45 campaigns to be re-elected — he has been on a bumpy ride during the past 3.5 years as our 45th president. The economy was going well and he was ready to roll for another four years in office. He wanted to finish what he started and — boom — The Corona Virus arrives in the US and everything changes in a heartbeat. We had to take drastic measures to ‘flatten the curve’ and bring health and safety back to our country — so we closed everything. We shut it all down to prevent overwhelming our medical systems with patients. And, this meant that every non-essential worker was asked to stay home, stay inside, and prevent the spread of the virus. So, I — like millions of others — found myself stuck at home, unable to work and suddenly learning to adjust myself, my routines, my expectations, and my entire life as I knew it was essentially put on hold. 

How can we come together and make American History

This is where I am now, chronicling American History, my discoveries, thoughts, and insights — I am here to learn. What are the problems in our country and what are the solutions?  I know it is a very complex issue with many broken pieces. I want to understand the intricacies of how our political system works, what are our challenges and what can ‘we the people’ do about them.  How can we come together and do the work to support our great country — The United States of America. 

The United States is a work in progress

and so is this site …

Please check back frequently