We just concluded an eight-year Presidential administration in which the President's popularity was "under water" for seven years or so, with more people disapproving of his presidency than approving of it. In fact, his average popularity, as measured by the Gallup Poll, places President Obama at 9th out of the 12 US Presidents who served since the Second World War - his popularity exceeded that of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman, and trailed everyone else - including Richard Nixon! President Obama also was electoral poison to his party, as its number of seats tumbled almost everyone where, from the Congress to state legislatures to governorships, etc. Right now, President Trump, who has managed to become less popular more rapidly than most other Presidents, seems likely to come in even closer to the bottom than his predecessor. But popularity is a changeable and often fleeting thing, and often a president's rating says more about the people polled than about him.
Some blame the internet and bloggers and cable news and the 24-hour news programs but although those forces may have sharpened the peaks and deepened the valleys, they reflect feelings more than they create them. This is a function of a narrowly divided country. We know that a few thousand votes in a few states would have shifted our last election, but we have had no shortage of similar elections in the past. It is hard for some to believe, but it wasn't that long ago (1984) that Ronald Reagan carried 49 states, but President Reagan never had a party majority in the US House, and, although one wouldn't know it by the way they act, President Trump does have a majority in both houses.
Let us remember that for most of our history, our nation has been closely divided. Only rarely, or for brief periods of time, do we crowd to one end of the spectrum - and generally we soon shift back to the other side in reaction. Take that "Era of Good Feelings." Actually, there were plenty of "bad feelings" in those days, too, and our nation soon was in turmoil over slavery, the tariff, Indian policy, Jacksonian democracy, expansion, states' rights…the list goes on.
As someone's grandmother is supposed to have said, "wrong is wrong no matter how many people say it is right, and right is right no matter how many people say it is wrong." The Declaration of Independence says the same thing, only in these words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…" It would be a good thing if we all, from the President to every citizen, would read those words every so often, and truly understand them, and reflect on them and try to live by them.
Our Founding Fathers might well, as some believe, shudder at the prospect of a President Trump; but would they not also blanch at people declaring "he is not my president"? How would they feel about people organizing to remove monuments that have been standing for over one hundred years, or who take offense at a flag long-ago reconciled by those who actually fought against it? How would the Founders feel about groups of people shouting down others with whom they disagree, or denying them the right to speak in peace? How would the Founders feel about court systems that allow thirty-time offenders to walk freely among us? Or with judges who usurp legislative powers or rule that Presidents may not do things that other Presidents have done without challenge? Yes, these are bitter times, but they are not the first bitter times, or the most bitter times, and they won't be the last bitter times, either. Let's keep perspective when we question politicians. Let's respect those with whom we disagree, and treat their opinions as we would want them to treat ours. Let's celebrate the Fourth of July by upholding the ideals on which our nation was founded. From the Preamble: "to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." We should want no less, and we as multiple-times grandchildren of those Founding Fathers should promote the same ideals that animated them.