OK, I’m going to lay my cards on the table. I voted Trump.
Meme generator in same vicinity as rage generator
No, I didn’t. Let me repeat: I did not vote for Donald Jehoshaphat Trump to be President of the United States of America. That was just an experiment to see how you felt immediately after reading it. Pleasure at finding a kindred spirit? Pity? Disgust or even rage bordering on nausea?
Rage so great it can be seen from space
Did you even get past the first sentence (let alone the headline) in order to read this plot twist, or are the saloon doors still rattling back and forth from the speed of your exit?
There’s a not-quote-apropos YouTube moment for everything
The truth is, I voted none of the above, which in the eyes of some Democrats makes me just as bad as the people who voted Nader in 2000. (I voted Nader in 2000.)
And a butterfly flapped its wings
Not long after abstaining from my civic duty, I then had the audacity to hope that it was too early to call Trumpageddon.
This is a view I still hold.
I can read* (*the question is what one should be reading) and observe exquisitely unpresidential press conferences. I see how it looks. Amateur hour with clowns at the head table.
Check please
And yet, I can’t help but feel that anyone this widely reviled by the forces arrayed against him, including a press corps which made him despite themselves and is itching to unmake him (with the tremendous help of unforced errors), and political opponents more concerned about their stalled career trajectories than the nation’s stability, can’t be all evil.
He also seems inclined to want to act on his campaign promises.*
Sure he’s got his bad points, like clumsily showing concern for America’s borders by wanting to build a wall instead of a fence, or having disturbing tendencies to occasionally speak ugly truths (e.g., “for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation…”, “You think our country’s so innocent?”) in between ugly tweets. His every syllable isn’t scripted like a Hillary Clinton’s, and a lot of people like a script.
Setting aside the pesky line of succession, I’m sure we can all think of a hundred other qualified applicants for head of state.
He’ll do
If you’re in the IMPEACH HIM NOW crowd
or the coup d’état crowd
When all you have is a guillotine, every problem looks like a neck
or even the please-report-yourself-to-the-Secret-Service crowd
Tainting the grassy knoll brand forevermore
imagine the almighty turmoil the country would go through if there were a transfer of power in the current climate. Remember that 60 million of your fellow Americans voted for him. They had their reasons, just as you did yours for voting Clinton, or third party, or not at all.
Maybe you have imagined it
Worst. Weather. Ever.
and still feel it’s worth it; maybe you’d be right. It’s something thoughtful people should be able to debate in a reasonable way.
*Hah.
Freshly dug up from my personal archives, the extent of which would have me reaching for that Raiders warehouse scene .jpg if I hadn’t already used it so often.
So, the day has arrived. Flags flying upside-down. Black armbands, or near enough. I get it. You loathe Trump. He’s not your president, etc. A sincere question for anybody reading this who is still in a state of shock and mourning: Who is?
fig. A, which has been making the rounds amongst scholars
I guess Obama could qualify. After all, he does still get to call himself that. (Perhaps not officially. Thanks Emily Post for clearing that up. Outside of a private luncheon we must all show restraint.) He may no longer be POTUS tomorrow, but for a lot of folks the disparity between the outgoing and incoming is so acute they continue to cling to him. #44 shall remain president of their hearts.
The bible won’t catch fire when that small hand rests on it later today. See what I did there? Referenced that meme about Trump’s apparently small hands. Ha ha.
fig. B, a fine example of ha ha
You may hate his guts, but he’ll be no less legitimate than, say, Richard Nixon. (Bad example?) Er, JFK. Who was equally if not more slippery, but infinitely more cultured, and really deserved a better retirement plan.
If I sound a bit annoyed, it’s because I’m frustrated with the direction the protests have taken. Trump was legitimately elected. This is the system. Agitate for change. Much as you dread the coming administration, I seriously doubt you’d enjoy the chaos that would follow the sort of coup the more proactive protesters are advocating.
Hillary won’t be magically summoned if your dream impeachment happens. VPEOTUS Pence is worse than his new boss: his is a dull plodding march to the far right. Better to have someone tweets his every zig & zag and is, much as you hate to hear it, cunning as a fox. Anybody who did what Trump managed to do clearly has a high political IQ even as he has a deplorable emotional one. Might want to take some of what he says with a grain of salt, and he can be annoying as hell – please don’t post any more selfies of your six-pack, guy – but Dilbert creator Scott Adams has covered a lot of this ground.
I’m frustrated that it takes the possibility of gutted social programs at home to provoke the mass anger that should have been accompanying every drone strike that kills innocents and creates more enemies abroad. Not that Trump may turn out to be much better, but thanks for normalising *that*, O. And thanks for a horrible health insurance ‘fix’ that did anything but, except for some lucky folks whose lot improved even while many others are just as far if not farther away from quality healthcare thanks to unaffordable premiums and deductibles. The pre-existing condition was blindness.
I’ll spare you the rest of my laundry list. Suffice it to say I think Obama, who I voted for the first time, leaves office having in many ways made things worse than when he arrived. Upset the Rs seem to have taken over the country? Blame the dismantling of the 50 state strategy, not Trump’s nonexistent coat-tails. Hillary was about Hillary, just like Obama was about Obama.
Every time you see Sanders doing what he’s unswervingly done for decades, mourn what could have been (I know: in my dreams) and get angry about the dark machinations of the DNC instead.
It’s been said the US didn’t get the president it needed, but it did get the president it deserved. A discussion worth having, I think. The pessimist’s view is that America now has the opportunity to do to itself what it would, if it could, enthusiastically do to the rest of the world.
/rant
Time for Bunny therapy
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/05/14/biden-cant-return-things-to-normal-because-trump-is-a-normal-us-president-thats-the-problem/
Trump is everything America is. As one reader recently put it, “Trump didn’t make things the way they are, he is the personification of the situation. If the United States was a suit, then it was tailor made for Trump.”