Although the four years of Donald Trump's presidency were dark days indeed, they did shine a light on America's disregard for its sick and dying, the rampant hate, sectarianism, racism and misogyny and the brittleness of both its democracy and its union.
Not even the most pessimistic of analysts in 2016 could have predicted that the next four years would become so grim, but also that this same light beam would traverse the Atlantic and expose the moral rot and decay within the Middle East's only democracy.
Looking at Israel over the past four years, it is hard sometimes to believe that Israel is still that same independent nation with an intuitive and openminded media and not just another branch of the GOP, living inside a bubble of conspiracy theories.
The brainwashing was so complete that the nation founded upon the ashes of its millions of dead in the Holocaust became a reflection of a man who thinks there are some Nazis are "very fine people."
Trumpian Israel is lead by a cynical prime minister who imitates the U.S. president's divisiveness and incitement.
In Trumpian Israel, those who protest the state are branded anti-Zionist at best and anti-Semitic at worst.
In Trumpian Israel, the media is the enemy of the people, where racism and hatred of women occur in the open.
In Trumpian Israel, instead of fighting the coronavirus, we are fighting each other.
In Trumpian Israel, Joe Biden, a mainstream Democrat and lifetime friend of the Jewish state, is an existential threat.
Donald Trump, who it is doubtful can find Israel on a map, has reached the status of adored cult leader in the country, just as he did with his millions of followers in the U.S.
This is a very peculiar and unhealthy situation. But why worry? After all, he moved the American embassy to Jerusalem and recognized our sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Trump is probably one of the best things to ever happen to Benjamin Netanyahu, but a whole generation of young Americans, among them many Jews, grow up in a nation where Israel is no longer a bipartisan consensus.
They saw Trump and Netanyahu label every American liberal as anti-Semitic and every Jewish liberal as self-hating.
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Outgoing-U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the American peace plan reveal
(Photo: EPA)
When this younger generation takes their place in the leadership, they will make us pay.
All this damage was inflicted because Israel decided to become addicted to a man who stands in complete contrast to everything Judaism represents and everything the Jewish people strived for after the Holocaust.
He is an evil, corrupt, immoral racist adored by Nazis and anti-Semites alike.
One day we will all have to look deep inside ourselves and ask how the country was swayed into becoming a part of this man's cult.
The answer will not be a comfortable one.