Sometime in the late 1980s I started to hear the name Trump. Trump this, Trump that, Trump blah, blah, blah. He'd built a building in New York City; something so banal that it certainly did not warrant such publicity. One thing it did tell me was that this man was in love with his own name; and himself. A few years passed and I was flipping through the channels one day and happened across him being interviewed along with his wife, in a parking lot of all places. She didn't say one word, he however did plenty of talking. Not only was he in love with his name, he was in love with the sound of his own voice; the why of that I will never comprehend. He talked about how the only thing important in life is one's health and other such platitudes.
As I watched him my gut reaction was, “every word that comes out of this man's mouth is a lie. He is a con man; and he is cheating on his wife.” I changed the channel and hoped I would never have to hear about him again. Of course the news was unavoidable when it was announced a couple of months later that he was divorcing Ivana in favor of his mistress.
Through the ensuing years I have never had reason to change that impression of him. All through last year's campaign I thought people would be able to see through him. His skills as a salesman served him well as people bought his rhetoric. He claimed that he would make America great again while never once defining how or when it had lost its greatness and what he planned to do to restore this so-called lost greatness. Apparently this is what 62 million well placed people wanted to hear. I can't recall anyone, either citizen or press asking him straight out how America was not great.
He played into insecurity and fear, enticing voters with catch phrases and sound bites, using the old ploy of: The Other. All the voters' problems are the fault of The Other and he can swoop in and fix everything. It's a tactic so overused it's become tiresome.
Have people forgotten how their ancestors were once not wanted here because they too were deemed to be terrorists?
I have tried to look at the election through the eyes of a Trump voter and I can only see people looking for a scapegoat, which I find ironic. I have had to make peace with the fact that no matter what there are fellow Americans who will support Trump even if he manages to get us all nuked off the face of the earth. There is someone whose last thought just before being vaporized is that this man was the best president ever. Tact and diplomacy are vital skills for a president, yet he has neither. He has bluster and chicanery. He dangles a shiny object (a wall, for instance) in front of people to distract them from what he is really doing (dismantling democracy.)
I'm still not convinced he ever really wanted the job; the publicity, absolutely, but not the job. I'm definitely not convinced that he has what is best for the country at heart. I am convinced that his primary goal is to further enrich his family and himself.
I'm exhausted and depressed to the point of physically aching, and there's something deep in my soul that is tired of the cycles of history and sighs wearily as it says, “not this sh*t again.” I try to take comfort in the unity that has arisen, but I am worn out from a lifetime of clinging to silver linings from storm clouds. Right now I'll settle for no nuclear war and for national lands to be saved. I remember the Cold War and never once believed that we would actually be attacked or that we would attack, I am not so self-assured now.
Being Independent, this election, to me, was not about Democrat vs Republican or liberal vs conservative or man vs woman. It was about this particular candidate. If any other Republican had been elected I don't think we would be seeing the protests that are happening. It's about competence more than politics. On election night I felt as though I was falling down the rabbit hole and I thought I could handle this because I naively thought he'd be kept under control by less impulsive people around him. I thought Congress would keep him in check, as it is supposed to do. At least the Judicial branch still remembers how to do its job. The rest of the government should take heed from one of its founders, Alexander Hamilton, who wrote in 1778: "When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall."
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