Not Real America
It pisses me off when I hear people talking about New York City as if it’s not part of Real America. Hell, lots of people actually use the name as shorthand for “Not Real America”: “Maybe they do things that way in New York City, but not around here.”
Here’s the thing: as of 2015, New York City had a population of 8,550,405 people. As of 2016, the United States has a population of 323,127,513. Do a quick calculation, and that gives you 2.65% of the total population of the United States. In just that one city. Nearly three out of every hundred Americans live in New York City, and those Americans are a true cross-section of this country. Every race, creed, color, country of origin, gender and sexuality that calls America home lives in this City. We are Real America.
Two Surprise Attacks
I have in mind two surprise attacks: Pearl Harbor and D-Day.
D-Day was just the first step in a larger plan. On D-Day itself, many units had objectives to capture roads, bridges and towns that were instrumental to the overall invasion. By the next day, the beachheads had become supply depots, moving troops, vehicles, fuel and materiel into the breach in Fortress Europe.
Pearl Harbor caused terrible damage (though less than it could have, by purest luck), but it had no plan for follow-up, and in the end it only enraged and mobilized the enemy: awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.
Trump and his cronies wanted their first few weeks in the White House to be D-Day. But when you kick out the only guy who knows anything about actually running a government (however corrupt he might have been), refuse to attend briefings, issue proclamations as if the judicial and legislative branches (or even the affected departments) have no input as to whether or not your will be done, and generally fly by the seat of your Nazi Chief Adviser’s pants, you don’t get D-Day. You get Pearl Harbor.