Cat Videos, Food Selfies and Bad Jokes
By Sharon Synowsky
When Trump is gone and we no longer have to listen to hate-filled, grievance-laden, bullying braggadocio punctuated by sniffs and gaffes; when we no longer have to share warnings, whistles, sirens and breaking news; when we can get back to sharing cat videos, food selfies and bad jokes on social media, we can NOT become as complacent as before. We can NOT disengage so completely that another Trumpian individual gets elected to the highest office in the land.
I think, and this is only my opinion, that when America elected Barack Obama as President, a big portion of Americans kind of disengaged from politics. I think that a lot of us felt we had done it, we elected the first Black President in the history of this nation, and he was doing a GREAT job. This – THIS – was the beginning of the end of racism. Sure, there was a lot more work to be done, but we had finally gotten HERE, and the rest would fall into place.
Until it didn’t.
Until one tiny, malignant, orange-hued carcinogen of a man, who has the inability to take a fucking joke, who is as racist and misogynistic as they come, and who despised yet envied Barack Obama, tapped into the dark underbelly where others hid their ugly from the world.
Trump’s behavior and rhetoric gave the rest of the closeted racist, misogynistic, white supremacist bullies permission to unleash and proudly display their hatred. Trump entered the 2016 race for President by calling all Mexicans “rapists”. And his people cheered.
The rest of us should have sounded the alarm then. Some probably did, but not enough of the rest of us heard it. Or if we did, we brushed it off because surely, the American people saw what a joke, what an idiot, what an asshole Trump was. He was wholly unqualified; he lacked dignity, character, class, intelligence. Trump didn’t have a knack for diplomacy. He didn’t debate or even negotiate; he bullied.
During the 2016 Republican Presidential primary, Trump called Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” and insulted his wife (a Letter to Ted is coming shortly, dear reader, I promise!). He called Marco Rubio “Little Marco”. And we now know that he was behind every slimy story The Enquirer published about his political opponents. Despite all of this, he was elected…
And his presidency was one debacle after another, peppered with idiotic statements, disrespecting foreign leaders, bigotry, misogyny and golf. Trump shoved Prime Minister Dusko Markovic of Montenegro out of the way at a NATO summit. He called then-German chancellor Angela Merkel “stupid” during a phone call. Trump was a world-wide joke. Foreign leaders were caught mocking him. (On December 4, 2019, The Washington Post published an article titled “6 Times World Leaders Laughed at Trump”) The United Nations Diplomats LAUGHED IN HIS FACE!
The morning news had a Trump mouthpiece saying, “What the President MEANT when he said (insert something ridiculous, inaccurate, disgusting, or all of the above)…” EVERY DAMN DAY of his Presidency. His administration had a revolving door. According to Brookings.edu, his “A-Team” (senior-ranking advisers in the executive office of the president) had a 92% turnover, with 45% of those being serial turnovers. The next-highest was Reagan at around 78%.
Then there’s his mishandling of Covid, his 33,000 proven lies, his crimes…
And now, we face the prospect of Dictator Trump. We face the distinct possibility (probability, if he gets back in) of 2024 being the last time we have elections in this country. We are on the precipice, and we are ALL responsible. Not just Fox News, the MAGA cult of hate and the billionaires who don’t give a shit about anything but their overinflated egos and bank accounts, but we the complacent, the distracted, the disengaged, the defeatists bear part of the blame. Myself, more so than most. (I covered this in a previous article.)
It’s not too late. We can show up in numbers too huge to question and give Biden an indisputable win in November. We need to get out there and motivate the complacent, the distracted, the disengaged, the defeatists. Connect with your local Democratic committee and volunteer. We can knock on doors, donate, get people to register to vote. Talk to your family, friends, neighbors.
A Joe Biden (and Democrats down ballot) win won’t be an instant fix. Trump won’t go quietly. And is cult will still be hate-filled, angry, and loud. The MAGA politicians who retain their offices in November will whine and send letters and hold a few more performative bullshit hearings.
Eventually, though, the brouhaha will quiet down. And Trump will still be facing his next 3 indictments on 54 charges. He will still be losing his appeals of the NY Fraud and E. Jean Carroll judgements. He will still grift, but he won’t have campaign funds coming in with which to pay his attorneys. (Think Alina Habba or Todd Blanche or the others are going to stick around, and continue to put their law licenses in jeopardy, once the money stops?). He will still bitch about Jack Smith. He will still try to discredit and disgrace Fanni Willis. He will still spew hate-filled, grievance-laden, bullying braggadocio punctuated by sniffs and gaffes. But his bully platform will not be what it is now. He won’t be able to call the indictments, investigations and trials “election interference” anymore. He will lose his megaphone, and slowly, his stranglehold on the country. As he grows less and less relevant, the cult will ditch their diapers and slink back to their caves. GOP politicians will quietly shed their MAGA robes.
And us? While we will no longer watch C-Span every. single. day, we WILL watch from time to time. While we will no longer scour the legislation being introduced in Congress every. single. day, we will check in on it from time to time. While we will get back to sharing cat videos, food selfies and bad jokes on social media, we will NOT forget how close we came to losing our way of life, our country, and our freedoms.
And we won’t let it happen again.
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