Day 3 in the Age of Trump.
The night terrors have started to ease, and I woke up this morning less hung over than the day before. I hope it’s not because I’m getting used to the alcohol.
My kids want to know if we’re going to be all right. I tell them I think we are. It’s what a father is supposed to say. But I’m beginning to hope it might be true. Even if the road we just elected to travel as a country is going to be a rough one.
I’d crawled into a dark, dark hole before election night even got underway. The more I thought about the logical decision I was hoping the voters would make, the bleaker the whole thing felt. The mass public runs on emotion, not logic. Thirty years in advertising has taught me that. There was no way this was going to come out right. I turned on the election returns about 8:00. By 9:30 I turned the TV off, took a couple of Peptos and went to bed. I don’t know if I even slept.
I’ve mostly tried to avoid the news ever since. It felt better to stew in my own juices. And if those juices had a high concentration of whiskey and beer, all the better.
At one point I stumbled across CNN while trying to dial in an episode of Game of Thrones. There was Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas talking about dusting off the water-boarding mechanism in Dick Cheney’s basement and getting the torture program fired up again. The glint in his eye could have come from some medieval monk working for the Inquisition. Stay in the hole, I thought. We have more to fear from some of these newly empowered Republicans than anything ISIS will ever realistically be able to throw at us.
But then there was President Obama, asking us to come together and give the new president elect a chance. He has more reason than any of us to be bitter and defensive. He knows better than any of us what’s at stake here. So OK. I’m climbing out of my black pit of despair.
If we’ve learned anything about Donald Trump in the past week it’s his ability to surprise the hell out of everybody. That’s my thread of hope. He pulled off a stunning victory and it would be foolish not to respect that. He’s saying the right things about bringing the country together and being president of all Americans.
So if nothing else out of respect for Barrack Obama I’m getting out of my funk and behind the will of the people. I wish the new president elect all the best as chief executive of our messed up country. But Trump has work to do as well. Magnanimous words don’t mean much from a man who has lied continuously for the past 18 months. It will take actions to prove that he really intends to be the president of me.
I was reading a history of England’s sixteenth century Queen Elizabeth this morning, who’s greatest political asset seems to have been her ability to disappoint her most ardent followers for the sake of uniting a divided country. That’s the sort surprise I hope to see. Right now I’m in a somewhat optimistic waiting mode. Trump is already starting to backtrack about really replacing Obamacare. He understands the power of symbolism. He knows what sorts of things would start to build trust among the majority of Americans that did not vote for him. Imagine the signal that would be sent if he banished some of the truly odious players like the neo-fascist Breitbart people from his inner circle.
In his famous inaugural speech John Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Right now Donald Trump’s campaign and victory have left many of us with a feeling about America that’s closer to Captain Jack Sparrow’s toast from Pirates of the Caribbean. “Take what you can. Give nothing back.” That’s what the president elect needs to work on changing. It’s going to take more than words.
