So many well-meaning friends have approached me this past week asking if I am all right. They are worried that my angry Facebook rants against the Trump regime will start having a negative effect on me. I assure them it will be Trump’s policies, not my anger, that will have a negative effect and that all I’m trying to do is sound the alarm to a somewhat sleeping choir.
It’s easy and tempting to put one’s head in the sand after being dealt such a blow. After the election it took me a week to finally click on a news site, and I am still unable to watch this man that half the country thinks is the new Messiah.
Maybe it’s from losing so many friends during the height of the AIDS crisis, but the Silence = Death saying and logo rings just as loud now as it did back in the late ‘80s.
Dramatic, yes, but we have just elected to our highest office a man who is unhinged at best, and has spewed lying, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic comments on a daily basis since the start of his campaign.
And to all those people who say to me that Trump is not going to be that bad, that he’s not really going to break up immigrant families, or pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change or get rid of the nuclear arms deal with Iran – just look at who he is surrounding himself with, starting with his VP pick Mike Pence, a far right evangelical governor who would rather treat gays to conversion therapy than support AIDS treatment, and who signed into Indiana’s legislation the most anti-gay discrimination bill in the entire country.
Right off the bat and just to assure us all, Trump appoints white supremacist Steve Bannon as his top chief adviser followed by his pick for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, a known homophobe and racist joke teller who has made a career of undermining the rights and civil liberties of minorities.
He picks an opponent of public education to lead the Education Department, chooses a climate change denier to head the Environmental Protection Agency and nominates a man who is ready to cut Medicare and Social Security to front Health & Human Services.
For someone who made the populist cry “Draining the Swamp” a major part of his campaign by vowing to clean up Washington insiders and lobbyists, Trump’s nomination for Secretary of Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, aka “The Foreclosure Machine” is a bad joke, especially to the suffering and suckered middleclass.
Was anyone surprised that the stock market shot up to record highs the day after Trump announced Mnuchin and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as Secretary of Commerce? Bye bye Glass–Steagall and Dodd–Frank.
But it is the Supreme Court that should have us really worried. Trump’s conservative pick to the lifetime appointed bench will have lasting negative consequences. With one empty seat to fill and Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s impending retirement or worse, we could be facing 6–3 decisions by a far-right court for a very, very, very long time.
Immigrant, LGBTQ and women’s rights will give way to poor, oppressed corporations who became people too, thanks to the courts 2010 Citizens United decision. Challenges to Roe v. Wade, marriage equality and immigration and deportation will no doubt be on future Supreme Court dockets.
Every day he steals the headlines, from outlandish cabinet picks, (Sarah Palin for Veterans Affairs?), jailing flag burners, bailing out Carrier, calls to Taiwan and his Mein Kampf Victory Tour.
Can and will the people open their eyes to Trump’s serial lies, his conflicts of interest and creepy family (well at least both sons)? And do we really want a cabinet half filled with all-white billionaires and the other half filled with people who believe the earth is 6,000 years old?
I don’t want to go back to a country of coat hangers and blood, burning rivers, police raids in bars, bombed places of worship, burning crosses, and duck and cover.
It’s time to wake-up America. The rabid right is salivating, and if we say and do nothing, we will all drown in their drool.
John Rankine
You are not alone, John. If we are not quite alright, a lot of us suffer from the same malady.
Well said Charles. I agree with your comments about who voted for Trump and why. I suspect many of his votes came from those voting against Hillary. What does that matter? It matters that half the population does not want her for president, and I suspect some were willing to vote for anyone against her. That’s a terrible choice to have to make. I see signs from both seekers of the presidency that the office of president is being sought more for personal gain that benifit in the country. John sounds like so many that care to trash more than they want to sit down and work out a solution as you mentioned. Some of the points the liberals make are good ones in my opinion, same for the conservatives. I have been totally unsuccessful in achieving a solid and reasonable conversation with any liberal except one, who lives elsewhere. It’s hard to say about conservatives here as there are near none.
I suppose in any case ad you said Charles, we have the guy for 4 years atbleadt, so why not try to help him do good things and govern correctly and legally ? Sure won’t improve things to trash and rag.
The most noteable aspect of the current political conditions we have is how liberals take the position very loudly that their position is correct for all people and any other is evil, mean, uninformed and awful. This is nothing but Elitism. Seems half the country’s voters don’t want it that way.
I don’t know about all the ranting, John. There is little which can be done immediately to change the situation, but there are little things. We don’t do much in the way of civil disobedience in this country. Refusal to pay taxes of any sort is one very effective way. Anyone who chooses this option should always open an escrow account at a bank, to hold the money which should be paid. It has already been suggested that anyone who disapproves of Herr Trump should make sure not to watch his inauguration. Any other edicts which emanate from the White House should, of course, be totally disregarded or disobeyed. There is immense power in numbers, and those who diapprove of Herr Trump as President, should do all in their power to mshke his Presidency a failure. One other thing. Because Adolf loves Twitter so much, those who have a Twitter account might consider bombarding him with criticisms and corrections, at least until such time as he stops lying to the public. His behavior in that regard is despicable.
This is hilarious, although I’m slightly surprised you would print it. This guy spews and spouts rhetoric, but be offers no insight to help the country to continue to grow and mature. Who would he have preferred be our President, Stein or Johnson, who were both Hillary puppets, or did he prefer Hillary herself? If it’s the latter, he should take note, the two are more similar then they are different. Well, there is one giant difference, Hillary’s actions while an elected or appointed leader show me much worse then Trump’s words or cabinet picks. As for his assumption that every person who voted for Trump believes him to be the coming Messiah, is not only a pathetic shot at Christians, its both scary and sad. If he had even marginal understanding of who Christ was and what he stood for, he would understand his own failed choice of words. The truth of the matter is this, regardless of what you feel and believe, the Lord Almighty is in control. He chose who our next President was going to be, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. We could only hope that Trump will put one or two conservatives on the supreme Court, who will use their seat to uphold and interpret the laws that exist, and not use it to make new laws to fit a political correctness agenda that has taken over our great country. I’ll add this personally just for John, you’re either part of the problem, or part of the solution, and right now, we both know you’re trying to cause significantly more problems then you are trying to provide solutions. Trump is our President elect, he will be our President for the next four years, whether you like it or not, if that’s too much for you to handle, feel free to denounce your citizenship to the greatest country in the world and move, or get on with trying to help solve this country’s problems in constructive not destructive manners, but either way, your belly aching only affects you.