Dear Editor,

I wish to congratulate the Jamaica Observer for its wonderful editorial entitled ‘Happy July 4th, America. Get well soon!’ published on July 4, 2023.

I particularly like the part of the birthday greeting to the USA that wishes them “Get well soon!”

As a Jamaican who has lived in the USA for many decades, and having studied and taught its history and governmental structures, amazingly, the longer I live here, the more I realise that America, over the 247 years of its official existence, to put it kindly, is a work in progress, but, to put it less kindly, is also a work in retrogress.

The USA, since its official founding, has come through internal revolutions, civil war, and other serious and impactful cultural, economic, racial, and social upheavals.

But it’s evident that its present political dilemma, wherein much of America can no longer discern fact from fiction, delusions from clear light-of-day realities and moral certainties is a unique and tragic development in the American body politic.

But why is this so? This dystopian political development in America can be attributed to one man and the vice-like grip in which he holds the public, especially how he controls the minds of his followers.

For never before in American history has such a political manipulator, with such mesmerising and bewitching guile, been able to take possession of the souls of so many millions of Americans.

In former President Donald Trump’s universe, he is the sole lord and master, and he, like a great puppet master, controls the mental and emotional strings of masses of his supporters who will, when he gives them the command, rise up like robotic legions to do his bidding – to fight, to kill, and die for him. And, upon his command, if all else fails, they will sacrifice their own lives at the altar of this cult leader.

So we sincerely wish and pray that America gets well very soon for the health and safety of its people and the world.

George Garwood

merleneg@yahoo.com