Saturday, April 29, 2017

A Hundred Years, Er, Days Of Trump: Everything Awful, Oh God, Somebody Do Something

Today is the one-hundredth day of Donald Trump's presidency.

I never would have thought I'd have to type those words nor would I ever want to type that sentence, but here we are, through the looking glass and all that.


Let's cut the BS here, the election of Donald Trump to the highest seat of power is, without exaggeration, one of the most shameful events in America's history and something I'm still having trouble processing. This blonde-haired sexual predator with zero political experience now has access to nuclear weapons, remember that. Every day I wake up remembering that reality and a wave of fear, anger and confusion consume my body. Being a white boy in Texas too, I'm well aware of how I'm out of the line of fire for many of Trump's policies that strictly target non-white people, women and anyone who happens to live outside of our borders yet I still can't help but be gripped by fear over what he's doing to my country and so many innocent people.

We can all take mild solace in his abject failures in these 100 days, such as his inability to get a health care bill passed, his two Muslim bans masquerading as "travel bans" getting shot down and his attempt to restrict funding to sanctuary cities similarly failing to gain traction thanks to those Federal judges. Less solace is found in the wretchedness that has spewed forth in his presidency, such as his barrage of daily tweets that provide a look into his psyche that prove he has nowhere near the maturity or intelligence to occupy the position of POTUS or, far more worrisome, the rise of racist or anti-Semitic attacks in his presidency.

The Anti-Defamation League has found an 87% spike in anti-semitic attacks in 2017, and anyone who thinks the election of man with anti-Semitic tendencies whose been supported by neo-Nazi's the world over and this rise in attacks isn't connected is deluding themselves. We live in a world where bigotry that has always existed has just gotten legitimized in a major way. There are no consequences anymore, the gloves are off and white supremacist pieces of trash like Richard Spencer and Milo Yiannopoulos are using the rise and subsequent election of Trump to simply make the lives of the disenfranchised miserable, with high-profile media outlets tolerating these bigots for the sake of an incorrect interpretation of "free speech".

And then there are the bombs. Trump's already launched the so-called Mother Of All Bombs and launched it at Syria. Speaking of bombs, he's also incurred the wrath of North Korea and their (so far, notably unsuccessful) recurring nuclear weapons tests, though them hating America is far from new of course. Oh, and while we're on the topic of foreign affairs, am I the only one who finds it weird how Donald Trump has whined more about Snoop Dogg, Meryl Streep and CNN than Chechnya's concentration camps for gay men? Oh yeah, I forgot, he's Putin's BFF and he wouldn't want to stand up for basic human decency if it compromised the country that helped get him elected....

Am I coming off as salty as a pretzel in this essay? You bet I am. Some guy who and openly brags about how he sexually assaults women gets elected (via the electoral college, he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes and don't any of you ever forget that) and then causes widespread mayhem across the planet, I'm not gonna be a Respectful Randy about it. We all must resist, we all must fight back against this man's reign of ignorance and hatred by protesting and calling up our local representatives. We've gotta get involved and do our part in our local government to combat this guy's idiocy, not to mention coming out in full force for the 2018 elections.

Even with all that initiative on my mind, I can't help but feel tired at looking at the wreckage of Trump's first hundred days in office and I doubt I'm the only one who's just outright exhausted with living with this awful reality for already so long. All we can do now is participate in the aforementioned local elections and be there for each other. Stand up to bullying you see in the world, offer support for your friends who are hurt and do something that would make our tiny-handed President really mad: love the world around you instead of fearing anything remotely different from yourself. Our differences make us amazing and it's a shame Donald Trump isn't aware of that. That's his loss. For the rest of us, we can endure in this wretched presidency through uniting and standing up for what's good in the world.

I love all of you and I hope you know, no matter how downtrodden Trump's reign leaves you feeling, know that you are not alone in feeling melancholy over such matters. I and so many others are here for you and think you're awesome. We've gotten through the first hundred days of this elongated American tragedy by sticking together, spreading love and calling out wickedness and racism in the world and we'll get through the rest of Donald Trump's rule in the same way.

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