We've been here before, but not this low. I remember this level of fear, hate, and contempt for nonconformity just after 9/11, when there was an intense level of social pressure to back another bad president.
But making Bush look graceful may wind up being Trump's most dazzling achievement. Read or watch Bush's inauguration speech in 2001. Boob that he was, he at least acknowledged he hadn't won the popular vote and pledged to try his best to win over those whose vote he hadn't earned. Is anyone expecting anything that magnanimous to escape the combed-over gasbag on stage tomorrow?
That's the trouble with Trump. We keep lowering our expectations and he keeps finding ways to still disappoint. He must be unstoppable in a Limbo contest.
His primary weapon to date is atrocity fatigue. He called a judge unfit because of the judge's race? Must be Tuesday. He made fun of a disabled reporter? Yawn. He appointed Emperor Palpatine to run NASA? Well, at least that guy's more experienced than Betsy DeVos.
Disengagement seems like a form of self-preservation in this environment. Resist that. Participation is the only way out.
Look at history. By 2006 we'd learned our lesson and Bush lost his rubber stamp congress because an informed electorate demanded a change. That congress helped us recover from the Bush collapse of 2008. I am a homeowner because of good legislation passed by that congress under Obama. The Great Recession didn't become a depression because of that congress.
It took a very specific event for us to remember that contempt for government is not a valid replacement for functional government. Our impotent reaction to Katrina in 2005 sent two messages to most of the population. The first was that climate change was real and dangerous. The second was that we need a competent government and we need one another. Conservative contempt for government had led Bush to appoint friends based on their loyalty rather than professionals based on their qualifications. That choice cost lives, and we saw it on our televisions. Unfortunately, it seems to take a disaster in America for us to remember that we are a country at all. In times of relative comfort, we act like we're a series of competing small businesses.
There are reasons for optimism already. Maybe this man is all the disaster we need to make us something like a country again. Based on Trump's declining polls, people paid attention to the subtext of his cabinet appointments. It didn't go unnoticed how many wolves were put in charge of hen houses. It didn't go unnoticed how many alligators the supposed swamp-drainer nuzzled up to and how quickly he sold his working class voters right the fuck out.
There are protests. We need those. Please stop all this casual contempt for the people in the streets just because they care. Democracies need protests. If you don't agree, don't participate. Or run a counter-protest. Just don't be that asshole rooting for our too-militarized police to beat the shit out of everyone and ship them off to Guantanamo. That's too real a danger to be funny right now.
Watch what you allow this man to inspire in you. He's got a gift for hate, fear, and chaos. But that means we need to keep a closer watch on him. Do not allow him to wear you down with his Twitter-bombs and casual racism and depressing ignorance and exhausting entitlement and unforgivable lack of reflection and humility. There are still more of us (65 > 62!) and if we show the shortcomings of his corporatism dressed as populism, true populism can win out in 2018 and 2020.
But only if we resist his remarkable ability to fatigue.
But making Bush look graceful may wind up being Trump's most dazzling achievement. Read or watch Bush's inauguration speech in 2001. Boob that he was, he at least acknowledged he hadn't won the popular vote and pledged to try his best to win over those whose vote he hadn't earned. Is anyone expecting anything that magnanimous to escape the combed-over gasbag on stage tomorrow?
That's the trouble with Trump. We keep lowering our expectations and he keeps finding ways to still disappoint. He must be unstoppable in a Limbo contest.
His primary weapon to date is atrocity fatigue. He called a judge unfit because of the judge's race? Must be Tuesday. He made fun of a disabled reporter? Yawn. He appointed Emperor Palpatine to run NASA? Well, at least that guy's more experienced than Betsy DeVos.
Disengagement seems like a form of self-preservation in this environment. Resist that. Participation is the only way out.
Look at history. By 2006 we'd learned our lesson and Bush lost his rubber stamp congress because an informed electorate demanded a change. That congress helped us recover from the Bush collapse of 2008. I am a homeowner because of good legislation passed by that congress under Obama. The Great Recession didn't become a depression because of that congress.
It took a very specific event for us to remember that contempt for government is not a valid replacement for functional government. Our impotent reaction to Katrina in 2005 sent two messages to most of the population. The first was that climate change was real and dangerous. The second was that we need a competent government and we need one another. Conservative contempt for government had led Bush to appoint friends based on their loyalty rather than professionals based on their qualifications. That choice cost lives, and we saw it on our televisions. Unfortunately, it seems to take a disaster in America for us to remember that we are a country at all. In times of relative comfort, we act like we're a series of competing small businesses.
There are reasons for optimism already. Maybe this man is all the disaster we need to make us something like a country again. Based on Trump's declining polls, people paid attention to the subtext of his cabinet appointments. It didn't go unnoticed how many wolves were put in charge of hen houses. It didn't go unnoticed how many alligators the supposed swamp-drainer nuzzled up to and how quickly he sold his working class voters right the fuck out.
There are protests. We need those. Please stop all this casual contempt for the people in the streets just because they care. Democracies need protests. If you don't agree, don't participate. Or run a counter-protest. Just don't be that asshole rooting for our too-militarized police to beat the shit out of everyone and ship them off to Guantanamo. That's too real a danger to be funny right now.
Watch what you allow this man to inspire in you. He's got a gift for hate, fear, and chaos. But that means we need to keep a closer watch on him. Do not allow him to wear you down with his Twitter-bombs and casual racism and depressing ignorance and exhausting entitlement and unforgivable lack of reflection and humility. There are still more of us (65 > 62!) and if we show the shortcomings of his corporatism dressed as populism, true populism can win out in 2018 and 2020.
But only if we resist his remarkable ability to fatigue.
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