It must be so very hard right now for those of you who write, who make pictures or sounds.
I hope you find your words and worlds and songs again soon.
Gunlickers with rifles threatened to riot in the streets, murder the winner, and overthrow the government if Hillary won, so conservatives can just shut the fuck up about the #TrumpProtests.
Few intellectuals have waged a public battle against white supremacy and patriarchy like Toni Morrison. Morrison has both examined and challenged systems of domination throughout her intellectual life. With her novels, essays, and interviews she has taken critical looks at the interlocking systems of race and gender oppression. In this interview she is asked by PBS’s Charlie Rose what it is like for her to encounter racism. In true Morrison fashion she turns the question on its head, and places the onus for explaining racism back into the hands of White people. She asks Rose what he thinks of racism, why do Whites hold onto, and what are they going to do about it ending it. She rejects the notion that racism is simply something that Black people must grapple with, insisting, demanding, that White people also grapple with it. Fearless. Brilliant. Powerful.
Can you believe our parents and grandparents fought against fascists in World War II and now look at their kids and grandkids, voting for fascists.
If my granddad were alive, he’d be so steaming.
If it helps a little, picture your grandparents, anyone you knew who fought at that awful time. If they’re with you, if they’re not. Maybe there’s some strength there. Hold to it.
I do take some small, cold, bitter satisfaction in one thing, and that’s the fact that Trump is going to be absolutely fucking miserable for the next four years.
He’s an entertainer and an attention whore, not a public servant. He wants to be on TV and in front of crowds, not actually working a difficult, grueling, stressful job he can’t opt out of. He’s going to have to sit through SO many meetings, be forced to read SO many briefings, get shoehorned into serious business all day every day, without crowds to perform for, and he’s going to hate Every. Single. Minute.
And then, when he doesn’t deliver on his promises, when he doesn’t build the wall or create jobs or make people rich, when it becomes clear how incompetent and buffoonish he is, the country and all his supporters will turn on him. They’re gonna start blaming him for everything, and those crowds that cheered for him are going to start booing. He’ll be humiliated at every turn, and leave office with the lowest approval rating ever, and he’ll be universally despised.
Because if he’d lost to Hillary, he would have played the martyr forever, called everything rigged, and had a cushy gig on Fox News complaining every day about how he would have done it better. But now he’s going to have to actually WORK, he’s going to be forced to deal with RESPONSIBILITIES, while surrounded by people who hate him and don’t respect him, people vastly more intelligent and competent than him, and he will be exposed as a loser. And then, we’ll fire him. He’ll go down as the worst president in history. And he’ll have no one to blame but himself.
I know this isn’t much against the fear of what’s going to happen, but friends, hear me. We are going to make Donald Trump’s life a living nightmare, and I for one take immense pleasure from that.
Does this mean “Thanks, Trump” is going to be the new “Thanks, Obama”?
He’s also going to learn that, even with Republican majorities in Congress, and even with all that work he will have to presumably put into the job, being the President still isn’t going to be like being a CEO (recall: George W. Bush had a majority in both houses for his first six years, Obama had a majority in both for his first two years).
The things a President wants to get done are not going to happen quickly or easily, if at all. Passing important legislation is complicated and boring and lengthy. Even signed legislation can take a while to be enacted and is then always subject to appeals and challenges (recall the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate ultimately having to go before the Supreme Court).
The Constitution will not allow for a lot of Trump’s more horrific ideas to ever get close to reality (this ACLU piece written before the election breaks it down better than I ever could). His Supreme Court nominee has to be approved. His cabinet members have to be approved. Just about everything needs to be approved. And even with majorities in Congress, that’s far from a swift guarantee.
There are checks and balances. We lived through 8 years of Bush (including those first six I mention), followed by the economy collapsing; there are more vigilant eyes and ears watching now than there have ever been. The likelihood of a Trump administration getting away with shit without a drawn-out, bloody fight is slim. Especially when you remember that he’s facing a civil RICO trial at the end of this month plus numerous more lawsuits that have yet to be settled. Especially when you remember that he has no law degree, no political science degree, and has never held a political office of any kind. Especially when you remember that he lost the popular vote. His cabinet and staff will not be filled with the best and brightest because he alienated so many of them, even in his own party.
And most importantly, one or both of the House and the Senate could be flipped in 2018.
We’re all scared and worried and rightfully so. And the people who voted for Trump are as much a daily threat as Trump himself could hope to be. But this President’s only got two years before his legislative legs can be cut off. Two years from right now.
Learn who your representatives are, at every level. Figure out how to get in touch with them and get in touch with them, repeatedly. Relentlessly. It doesn’t matter if they’re Republican or Democrat or Independent. You don’t have to wait for some terrible Trumpish idea to get going in Congress – you can write to them about restoring the Voting Rights Act or preserving the Affordable Care Act or protecting LGBTQ rights or fighting climate change right now. These people do not have a job without you. You’re younger than them. The future matters more to you. I’ve seen the working life of a Congressman up close and let me tell you: you can reach them (surprisingly easily, actually). You can get through to them. You can put a face to these issues and you never let them forget it. Be relentless. Be memorable. If they ignore you or forget you, you let everybody know about it. We have the platforms to easily and quickly tell others. Let relevant activist groups know. Let the whole fucking world know.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” – President Obama
This is the post. This is the one giving me the most hope. This is the one turning most of my sadness (not all, lord knows I will never be rid of all of the sad) in to vindictiveness, into bitter action, into spite. Into action.
This, yes.
Keep writing to your representatives. Keep on the media, keep reminding them what their job should be. Call them out every time they try to normalise this mountebank. If his ‘administration’ should persist in areas that would deny/strip the rights of others, take away healthcare, take away anything that makes your lives a littler better – make the biggest fuss, ever. Keep marching. Stay loud.
Protesters took to the streets Wednesday night across the U.S. to mount a rallying cry against Donald Trump’s imminent presidency. In New York City, thousands marched from Union Square to Trump Tower in Midtown. Chicago, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Boston also saw large protests. Video shows their emotional displays and powerful rallying cries.
Being a part of this, marching with close friends and strangers last night, and feeling the collective roar of pain and support for one another, was an honour I will never forget.
We marched from Union Square to Trump Tower, peaceful protestors blocking traffic to keep those of us marching safe from cars. We chanted in English, Spanish, and Lakota. We cried out for Muslim, black, queer, Native, Latinx, trans, female, undocumented lives, now more in danger than ever before. We brought Manhattan to a standstill for hours, and we did it peacefully, with no police interference, because this was by the people for the people.
No matter what this looks like, I’ve never been surrounded by such unfailingly polite people. I’ve never been apologised to by so many people for bumping into me. A girl next to my group of friends started passing out Snickers. A young man fell to the ground sobbing at one point, and everyone nearby swarmed to protect him from the oncoming march, to hold him while he cried it out.
This may change nothing. Except that we know we’re not alone. That our capacity as individuals to take care of one another is more immense, more powerful than any corrupt government.
‘Not my pussy, not my president.’
If you were around then, you saw the ‘Lick Bush in 2000’ protest signs. I think this one is better.
There are a couple of things I want to tell you about today, and give you some encouragement with.
This is not the end. This is a beginning. And we’ve been fighting for a long time. We’ll keep doing that.
But if you’re weary, if you’re sad, take time for you. Take time to be weary. Take time to feel whatever you feel.
So my main point today is that self-care is not different than world care.
A lot of people get angry right away and wanna fight right away, and that’s good, we need those people. Some people feel crushed under the weight of it all and they feel afraid and they feel sad and maybe you feel all of those things. But allowing yourself to feel does not detract from changing the world for the better.
Regardless of what happens next, you are allowed to feel whatever there is to feel! And feeling it does not take away from your activism or your ability to change things.
Feeling what you feel actually is essential in being able to move on, motivate, and activate. Give yourself space over these few days. Give yourself time. While you’re doing whatever you’re doing: volunteering or jumping in or making videos, posting things online … while you’re doing those things don’t shy away from how complicated your feelings are and how complicated your feelings are allowed to be.
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has a great new interview with President Obama in Vanity Fair. In the wide-ranging interview, they discuss Abraham Lincoln, Obama’s biggest regrets from his time in office, and how a visit to the pyramids reminded Obama that cable news doesn’t really matter.
But perhaps the most intriguing bit was when, in a brief discussion of Obama’s plans for his post-presidency, Obama hinted that he planned to start speaking out more like an activist than a president.
There are “things,” he told Goodwin, “that in some ways I suspect I’m able to do better out of this office.” He elaborated that because of the “institutional constraints” of the presidency, “there are things I cannot say.”
He went on to essentially say he wanted to use his post-presidential bully pulpit more like an activist than a venerable elder statesman. “There are institutional obligations I have to carry out that are important for a president of the United States to carry out, but may not always align with what I think would move the ball down the field on the issues that I care most deeply about,” he said.
And while vague, this is an intriguing hint that Obama is thinking about being a very different ex-president than we’ve been used to.
The Doctor Is Out 