Two Years Later

Two Years Later

It’s been more than two years since Donald J Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States.  Two years of America being on a constant knife-edge, worrying about what the next daily crisis would bring.  Two years where our sensibilities have been dulled:  to lying, to cruelty, and to institutional racism. Two years of adrenalin and fear, of less sleep and more “shock and awe” at the lengths the Administration would go to change America into their “America” (hard not to spell it without a ‘k’.)

I can relate to those folks who say they haven’t slept right since election night, 2016:  me neither. 

Two years ago at the urging of my niece Leslie, I began to do my part to resist the Trump Administration. I didn’t want the actions of the President to be normalized.  I hoped that by writing, I could explain them in the context of what should be “normal” in a real world without Trump.  In addition, as a history teacher I wanted to bring historical context to current issues, and, as the power of the new “Federalism” grew, I hoped to serve as a guide to what those Court appointees might decide.  And finally, I tried to advocate for positive change, and “resist” the negative changes going on all around us.

It was supposed to be a once a week thing, and originally it was going to be more of a podcast than an essay (yes you’re right, I really don’t like the word blog – I think of that as a diary or stream of consciousness kind of thing.)  However, like all things dealing with broadcast, I found podcasting takes a lot of production time to do correctly. What I wanted to do was get my ideas out, so it was the traditional essay format that won out. It ain’t the Federalist Papers but I am trying!

 As events occurred, and I grew more accustomed to writing.  It moved to every other day, and now, almost every weekday.  In the past two years there are over four hundred essays in “Trump World,” more than 300,000 words (or a 600 page book – though that’s not coming!!!)  Originally it was just for “friends,” both through email and later on Facebook.  But then things got more involved, and now besides the original dozen or so friends who still get the “New Post on Trump World” emails, there’s 450 subscribers (including several with “@rt” emails – that’s Russia Television) and all the folks who read on Facebook.  In the past several months essays have been read over one thousand times each month, by folks in over forty countries.

So I know that people are reading.  I also know that there are a whole lot of folks that disagree with what I’m saying. Most read it and move on, a few make comments and want to discuss.  And an even smaller few have been enraged by what I had to say.  A couple have become so hostile that I have had to “cut them off” from access to my writing.  I’ve been called “disgusting” and a “traitor” – but I’ve also been called a “liberal” and a “Democrat” – labels I’m quite happy to accept.

So two years in, on the day after Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address, what is the state of the Resistance?  In the “win” column; the Affordable Care Act is shaken but not broken, the House of Representatives is under Democratic control, we aren’t in any new wars (nor out of any old wars), and the Mueller investigation and the “Sovereign District of New York” are still investigating away.  In the “loss” column; Trump is still the President of the United States, the tax giveaway has depleted Federal funding and exploded the deficit, the Courts are filled with members of the Federalist Society, and the ideas that we took for granted, like the US being the leader of the free world and protector of the defenseless, are no longer guaranteed.

I still have hope that President Trump will be shown to have done so much wrong in the election of 2016 that he will be removed from office, but if not, we can endure.  Our nation is even more durable than we thought: we have survived the first two years, we can survive two more if necessary.  Either way, the “Resistance” must make sure that the outcome of the 2020 election puts America back on the right course, to really Make America OK Again (or MAOKA – hashtag that!!)  We cannot allow the internecine fighting of 2016 that so damaged Hillary Clinton’s election to occur again.  We must be on guard for the “fifth column” of Russian social media or electoral intervention, and we need to recognize that others, including those in the US, will have learned from the Russians of 2016 and will try to do the same things.  The enemy may be within this time, rather than without.

And I’ll keep writing, both to express and to persuade.   Maybe I can find some more conservative friends who are willing to recognize that while they don’t agree with much of what I espouse, they are willing to do anything to avoid the past four years.  If not, we all need to show up and make a difference, every time the polls are open.  That’s not just resistance, that’s taking command of the future.