Thread by @peterdaou

1. THREAD: What does it mean to be American?

I've posted several recent tweets about the difficult process of grappling with my mixed Lebanese-American identity in the Trump era. It's the culmination of two years that have been a shock to the system for all of us... (1/10)

2. I'm increasingly questioning my assumptions about the future (and present) of our nation. Who are we as a people? How have we reached a point where children being slaughtered in schools and churches is tolerated? Where healthcare for the poor/sick funds tax cuts for the rich?

3. My childhood was shattered by war, but as a kid with big dreams, I struggled to work through the trauma of what I experienced, and had the blessing of success in more than one career. But my youthful idealism about America was necessarily tempered over the years. Until 2016...

4. What was a more mature view of America's complexity and failings became full-blown doubt about how we can function as a society when red and blue are radically opposed universes lacking even the most basic shared reality. And when sexism and racism are amplified on the left.

5. What does it mean to share a country with people who believe kneeling to protest injustice (like 12-year-old #TamirRice gunned down by police without consequences) is "disrespecting the flag" but the GOP stealing a Supreme Court seat or surrendering to Russia is acceptable?

6. How do we process the fact that white voters consciously picked Trump to succeed Obama? And that those same people say they "support the troops" while simultaneously equivocating on Nazis. Claim "Christian values" while voting for a senate candidate who molested children?

7. What does it mean to be a nation where no woman has EVER been president and the first woman with a viable shot at breaking that 227-year barrier is vilified, maligned, demonized, despised and told to go away and knit? By the national press and the left, not just the right.

8. What does it mean to be an American? More than ever, I'm asking myself that question, asking myself where I belong in this mess. For so long, I was still that American kid in a Beirut bomb shelter dreaming of making it in the "land of opportunity." But 2016 & 2017 changed me.

9. My heart hurts for America. For the political point of no return we seem to have reached, where the radical GOP stacks the judiciary, thereby enshrining regressive policies that harm the most vulnerable among us. Where women's rights are set back and racism flourishes.

10. I speak out because I feel compelled to. I can't imagine NOT protesting injustice. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit basic questions about whether America can get back on course when it's like a broken marriage between red and blue where facts and truth are the casualties.