In a political and social climate this volatile, it can be difficult to stay positive or know what to do or say. It’s incredibly simple to get swallowed by this feeling that a sentient grocery sack is driving a wedge not only between people living in America, but between America and most of the rest of the world.
In Trump’s first two weeks we saw, in no particular order, protesting on a scale we’ve not seen since the Vietnam War, the “alt-right” becoming an official mainstream movement and scrambling desperately to convince everyone that they aren’t neo-Nazis (they are) and China gearing up their navy in the South China Sea. I could go on, I haven’t even mentioned Iran or Israel yet.
I can’t help but clutch the knot in my gut, like the whole of America is a powder keg waiting for someone to drop a match.
For example, Trump threw out the pool reporters on Friday the 3rd for asking a question about Iran saying, “They aren’t behaving.” That’s genuinely scary.
We saw the match almost light the fuse after Richard Spencer, a neo-Nazi who’s before advocated for “peaceful ethnic cleansing”, was assaulted during Trump’s inauguration.
We saw sparks fly at UC Berkeley after protests against chauvinist and professional bully Milo Yiannopoulus turned violent.
I don’t condone violence on anyone, even Nazis who lie about being Nazis, but if you walked into a street and dared passing cars to hit you, eventually one would. Because they’re cars and you’re standing the middle of the road, the chances of you being hit increase. Obviously.
Then imagine that you flipped around and used the car hitting you, despite you being in the middle of the road, as proof of your theory that cars have bad blood with humans and are actively seeking them out to hit.
Finally, you get a book deal and appearances on mainstream media outlets to add credibility to your incorrect theory on car accidents.
Got ‘em.
It’s also now apparent that large swaths of the right have accepted Trump as their guy, and are now riding first class on the train no matter if they supported him in the beginning or not. Hypocritical, when you think about it, as the GOP spent most of the Obama years up in arms about his supposed abuses of power. It seems odd in hindsight, now that Trump is actually abusing his power and they’re silent. Hm.
Party loyalty is a damn strong motivator and an effective delivery system for propaganda. At least they won’t choke on it. Probably.
The sum of all this is an extremely combatant and gullible right-wing who have tricked themselves into cheering for fascism and for advocating Trump burning the entire governmental rulebook before he figured out what might have been beneficial to keep.
So, when Trump floats around the idea of “destroying” the Johnson Amendment, which states that churches and other similar non-profit, tax-exempt entities "are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office,” I get nervous that I don’t hear too many voices from the right speaking out against this blatant destruction of the separation between church and state.
You know, that thing that’s one of the basic pillars our government was built upon.
They are, however, totally prepared to defend Trump’s executive order banning Muslims from certain countries. Effectively doing the hard work for his administration by clinging to the belief that it somehow isn’t a Muslim ban, when it absolutely is.
I just, I don’t know, man.
From my vantage point, Trump’s administration silencing government agencies, referencing repealing Dodd-Frank and steamrolling through the process of erasing Obamacare seem to be unassailable positions due to their total disregard for the health of the nation.
What can we do? How loud is our voice?
How are we supposed to fight such a ravenous army so determined to physically alter the state of the union to their will?
Wouldn’t it be better if we all just took a step back from the 24/7 intravenous injection of news media and reset ourselves?
I don’t know. I just don’t know.
