The World According to Dominic

Just days into 2024, the news was already dominated by more stories about Donald Trump – this time his move to appeal the decision of Maine to remove him from the state’s primary ballot, and the president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay – the University’s first woman and first Black president – forced to resign among charges of plagiarism as well as her stance on the school’s policy on bullying and harassment.

But there’s more potential conflict and controversy on the horizon for Americans who enter the new year more divided and at odds than in recent history and with a potential rematch and showdown between Joe Biden and Donald Trump looming in November in the fight for the White House.

Still, history was already made in 2023 when former president Trump, in March, became the first former U.S. president to have ever been charged with a crime when he was indicted by a New York grand jury. The charges involved payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter.

In June, he became the first former U.S. president to face federal criminal charges when he was indicted for mishandling classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate. And in August, he was charged in a third criminal case in Georgia, when he and 18 of his allies were charged with scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

However, it remains to be seen if these charges will discourage voters from giving him their support or further fueling his base to rally behind him.

We will also remember June 2023 when a sharply divided Supreme Court effectively derailed Biden’s plan to cancel or reduce federal student loan debts for millions of Americans with its 6-3 decision, with conservative justices in the majority, which said the Biden administration overstepped its authority with the plan.

After more than three years of paused payments and interest, federal student loan payments resumed for borrowers in October. But with tens of thousands of citizens still attempting to recover from the multi-tiered impact of the still lingering COVID pandemic, many Americans wonder how they will pay their student loan monthly bills.

Then, there’s the Israel-Hamas conflict – the bloodiest war between the two – which began Oct. 7, when militants broke through the walls surrounding the Gaza Strip, murdering more than 1,200 people in Israel and taking 200 hostages. The attack, described as the worst one-day mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, led to Israel’s retaliation – a massive campaign that has to date resulted in the deaths of more than 21,300 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Finally, George Santos, the freshman New York Republican whose claim to fame was lying about nearly every part of his backstory, was expelled from the House of Representatives on December 1 – the sixth member in history to be expelled and just the third since the Civil War – after the release of a scathing ethics report on his conduct.

Nonetheless, as I counted down the days, hours, minutes and then seconds until it was time to turn the calendar to 2024, what I remember most was saying to myself, again and again, “this, too, shall pass.” It was something my mother had often said during times of trouble, sadness and uncertainty. And her faith in God, her belief in herself and determination to see the best in humanity served her well during her 91 years of life.

She still looked for the rainbow to illuminate the sky after each storm in her life had finally passed. And she, and her parents, witnessed, experienced and overcame a lot – including outbreaks of scarlet fever and polio, the Great Depression, two World Wars, the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan, lynching after lynching in the segregated South and carefully hidden prejudice, bigotry and racial injustice in the so-called liberated North.

However, a far different challenge awaited our world just months after my mother’s death with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not even the so-called great America was prepared for this strange Grim Reaper and the devastation it would bring on our lives – changing our “daily normal” forever.

Now, as Americans prepare to elect the next president of the United States, I believe we face an ever greater challenge to our nation’s collective future — the hurdle which America must still somehow overcome: whether we can repair the great divide — the rift that has grown between the Americans since Trump’s defeat and has grown even larger over the past year.

Black Lives Matter advocates now face backlash from a surging number of white supremacist groups. Those who support vaccines have found themselves battling anti-vaccine contingencies. Books continue to be banned. Transgender adults and youth face threats to their very existence and hopes for the future.

Advocates of universal voting rights are engaged in political warfare with those who want to make it more difficult to vote because of unsubstantiated claims that the voting pool has been tainted with illegal voters. And after decades of abortions being legal and a women’s right in the U.S., even that “privilege” has landed on the chopping block.

Indeed, it’s been a rough year. It’s been a lonely year, too. But I’m still here. So what if the storms we face this year are even more treacherous than we’ve ever experienced. As Momma often said, “this, too shall pass.” And Momma always told me the truth.
Happy New Year. Let’s make it one that we remember … for all the right reasons.