Perhaps it’s a generational thing, but I see all these
protests scheduled around the inauguration of Donald Trump as simply bad
manners. I was raised in the generation that thought manners mattered, and thought
that someone else’s bad manners wouldn’t excuse my own. My generation still
thought that if two mortal enemies were about to dual to the death, it was
still polite for them to salute each other with their swords before beginning the
duel. My generation thought that the inauguration of a president – any president
– was an important national ritual, an affirmation of the American democratic tradition
of passing presidential power peacefully from one person to the next, whatever
one might think personally of the new occupant of that office.
Yes, a lot of the country isn’t happy Donald Trump won the
election. I’m not particularly happy
with him, but then I wouldn’t have been happy with Clinton either. That
is almost always the case in an election; there are winner and there are
losers. But he did win and he is our new president, and good manners would
dictate that we respect the office even if we don’t particularly respect the
occupant.
But then this is a generation that often doesn’t answer
RSVPs or send “Thank You” letters for gifts. So maybe I am just out of date. Maybe
acting like a boor, or like a spoiled child that didn’t gets its way, is the
new norm. If so I am sorry for the state of the nation, and of American
society.
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