I Can’t Even: the Donald Trump Presidency

What have we learned in the final days of 2016 and the start of 2017?

Members of Congress can ignore their obligation to fill a Supreme Court vacancy simply out of spite for a sitting President and with the hope that his successor will choose someone they like better.

Greedy “entrepreneurs” and foreign individuals created fake news to influence and energize clueless conservatives and discourage Americans’ faith in the integrity of our government and our elected officials.

Russian hackers released illegally-obtained communication in a smear campaign to divide Democrats.

Politicians and pundits ignored intelligence reports and passed their own judgment on a crime that was never committed, and pinned the blame for a terrorist attack on a cabinet official.

A candidate stood on stage at a debate and patted himself on the back for multiple instances of tax evasion, claiming that it was smart business, not a shameful crime.

A candidate received almost 3 million more votes than her opponent and still lost, despite his numerous conflicts of interest, a reputation as a bigot, bully, and all-around terrible person, and a desire to see his friends and fellow businessmen take powerful positions of authority in the White House.

And finally, the Electoral College, a system designed to protect the office of the president going to a corrupt demagogue capable of winning just the right number of crucial state elections, failed to do what it needed to do, possibly because of the intervention of electors who were ineligible to pledge their electoral votes.

In 2009 (and hell, as recently as 2016), Fox News and right-wing Republicans all around the world were clamoring for Barack Obama’s impeachment because they thought that maybe he had fooled the world into believing he was an American citizen hell-bent on establishing a Muslim theocracy.

Where are you today, defenders of democracy, when actual evidence is piled up against your President-elect?

Where are the patriots who furiously wave a flag in your face and remind you that American soldiers died for your right to be led by an eligible man or woman who was legitimately elected by the country?

This guy?

I’m calling it right now: If the presidency of Donald Trump is accepted by Congress, and his policies at home and abroad are supported by legislation and Congressional approval… my generation and the ones to come after it will have NO faith in American government. Why should we, when we’re seeing all of this take place?

Why should we be motivated to participate in our democracy when our so-called representatives are meeting in secret to dismantle watchdog agencies and change rules to give themselves an unprecedented amount of power?

What makes anyone think that democracy can work when we’re about to hand the executive branch over to a man who has no problem personally pocketing at least $100,000 from individuals willing to eat in the same room with him? A man who trusts Putin and Julian Assange more than the CIA and FBI and oil tycoons and multi-national corporations over scientists, and thinks that — in the same year where black men and women are being assaulted or killed in the streets by corrupt cops and swastikas and burning crosses are being planted on the front lawns of immigrants and ethnic minorities — you should be horrified and offended by a comedian’s impersonation of him and the cast of a Broadway musical tearfully expressing their hope that the next vice-president would consider, just maybe, that the people sitting in that theater with him are all equally worthy of his respect.

The first time I was eligible to enter the voting booth, I cast my vote for Barack Obama as President of the United States. I left feeling confident that the choice made by a majority of Americans that day was the best one for our country, and for the entire world, quite frankly. I watched him take the stage that night in victory and saw what felt like millions of people all around the country getting their first real glimmer of hope that they, too, had a place in America… that they belonged here, and that America, as an institution, had fulfilled some part of its pact to the world when it was first established to be the world’s finest example of democracy in action.

I’m not so naive as to think that there weren’t people who went to bed that night or woke up the next morning filled with a sense of dread. I observed family members express their fear and sadness, and while I could not empathize, I at least felt like I understood where they were coming from.

But at the end of the day, the fear of the presidency of Barack Obama was rooted in a fear of the unknown, a fear of new and different, and a fear of losing something of great value, like their income, their investments, or their savings. People became fearful of “death panels” and higher insurance premiums, midnight raids to snatch guns away from their owners, a liberal Supreme Court tearing up the Holy Bible and handing the country over to godless hippies, perverts, deviants, and ne’er-do-wells… But the people who voted against Barack Obama never dealt with stakes quite so high as those in opposition to Donald Trump do.

Unless you are a healthy white heterosexual businessman with Christian beliefs and children born in your very own image, you have every right to be afraid of what Donald Trump, his cabinet, and his supporters in Congress have planned. I wish the only thing I needed to worry about happening in the next four years were tax increases. I’d do anything to wake up feeling like the worst thing the government could do to me was regulate some part of my business and jeopardize my profits, or take a stand on foreign policy that I don’t personally agree with.

Instead, I have to worry that I won’t be able to live in a country where I’m protected from discrimination, hate crimes, unlawful restrictions, and prejudice encouraged by the words and actions of people in government.

And I’m not even an immigrant, or an ethnic minority, or a woman. To any black Muslim lesbian living in the country on a visa who is reading this… I am so deeply sorry for what has been done, and you would be totally justified in having climbed under your bed on November 9th with no intention of coming back out anytime soon. I admire you, and I sincerely hope that empty words, not outright actions, are the only thing you have to endure in the near future.

A person as insecure as Donald Trump —who spends time between his election and the inauguration worrying about important things, like television ratings — will not “stick to his guns”. When faced with the first insurmountable challenge of his presidency, he will undoubtedly cater to whichever group is loudest and most obnoxious, and in 2016, that group was composed of white supremacists, fundamentalist Christians, actual card-carrying members of the KKK, and Vladimir Putin. He’s already backing down on a campaign promise to bully Mexico into building a 14-billion dollar wall on the border, and is now planning to send the bill to taxpayers instead. But, always full of bravado, he seems to think Mexico will eventually reimburse us.

For so many Americans, the stakes are way too high right now. The world needs you to be a stable, calm, reassuring voice of reason, not a high-pitched droning noise that causes everyone to turn away from us. Joe Biden is saying what we’re all thinking: “grow up, Donald.”

Trump is probably already furiously tapping away at his phone.

I said that it wouldn’t surprise me if this created a politically apathetic or distrustful generation. That doesn’t mean that I want it to happen, or plan to be complicit in allowing it to happen. Because, at the end of the day, Michelle Obama knows what needs to be said.