Friday morning, I'll be faced with a similar situation. The fear is psychic not corporeal, unless throwing up counts as a physical threat. I have to decide whether or not I will join TBG as he watches the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States of America.
I don't know what I'll call him in The Burrow. I have respect for the office, but I cried last week when I saw Barack Obama's portrait in the Federal Courthouse lobby... cried because his replacement has yet to demonstrate that he, himself, deserves my respect.
He thinks it's okay to brag about grabbing and seducing and kissing with impunity. I am as appalled by the bragging as I am about the acts.
I used to take the kids out to Bill Clinton Dinners.
We'd dress up and find a restaurant with tablecloths and behave as if POTUS was dining with us. We had serious conversations and practiced being adults. It was playacting and it was rehearsals and it was altogether wonderful.
The name became somewhat risible once this photo surfaced in 1992, but we never stopped having Bill Clinton Dinners. The lessons were important.
FlapJilly's invitation to a Donald Trump Dinner would involve warnings about inappropriate touching.
Seriously. Would you encourage your daughter to spend time alone with him? Am I overstating the case? I really don't think so.
As the inauguration comes closer, I'm finding myself unable to listen to NPR; they keep talking about President Trump. I'm not a safe driver when I hear that. I had this reaction immediately after the election, but, up until today, I was feeling proud of my ability to accept the reality of the result.
Then, as I watched the Trump family leaving Blair House for a gala at Union Station on Thursday night, I found myself taking deep breaths, trying not to retch.
This is really happening and I'm having a panic attack. It's not a useful reaction, but it's my reaction and The Burrow is the repository for my truths.
I know I'm not alone. The Bride bristles with righteous indignation and a modicum of fear as her Facebook feed fills with incidences of anti-Semitism. Little Cuter worries about the world in which her daughter will grow to girlhood. Mrs & Mrs Realtor are bringing a new life into a world which is becoming ever more hostile to their love. My gynecologist is doing 7 or 8 IUD's a day, every day since the world went to Hell in a hand-basket.
I just don't think that I can sit on Douglas and watch this happen. I don't want to listen to the list of those who are not attending. If Rep. John Lewis thinks it is appropriate to absent himself, res ipso loquitor (the thing speaks for itself).
And then there is the whole thing about the ratings. I'm turning all the devices in the house to NatGeo; TBG can switch to the parade and the speechifying and the swearing in if he feels the need. I'm going to walk on Christina-Taylor's path and try to make sense of things. Perhaps she has some suggestions. I'm fresh out.
I am watching because it's about more than the man-- as it was with Bush or Clinton or even Obama.
ReplyDeleteAs for the inappropriate words, likely Clinton said the same things from what I've heard-- it just wasn't near a hot mic. A lot of our leaders weren't the same in private that they were in public. The stories about Johnson, the first President I voted for and later regretted not because of the dark side but what he did with Vietnam... and Kennedy, who we all adored, let's not even go there as he was basically a sex addict-- while he was President. Whatever Trump did was likely in the past.
There are reasons I won't like what he does as President but they will be issue oriented (and Congress is worse from the sounds of it).
Despite our having donated a lot of money to Obama's campaigns, there was some he did that we didn't like. And his last news conference was disappointing, where he made no attempt to bring the nation together, to say that Trump is a legitimate President, where he went off on the dreamers knowing Trump has long said he won't be deporting them and that his first work on immigration will be deporting those who broke the law up here. The Border Patrol guy said he'll be glad to see Obama's rule ended where they would stop someone here illegally and have to almost immediately give them a bus ticket to some American city- telling them to come back for a hearing-- which they knew they'd never do. Why even stop them? Why have immigration laws?
But I don't expect to like all any president did and Obama was generally a pleasure to listen to him talk-- but if someday a dark side should come out, things that were hidden, I won't be the shocked one. After all my years of voting for Presidents, they have almost all had a dark side and it either involves what they do in office or secretly. I have become a little cynical, I guess...
Anyway I'll watch it and just hope nothing violent happens. That's what scares me-- the violent threats out there that some are welcoming, and by some I used to think would never say such things or urge on that kind of a political goal as their way to win. Okay, I am cynical without the guess-- except I still believe in most people being good. Hope that's all we see today for this civic event.
"I still believe in most people being good." You and Mr. Obama, Rain :-)
DeleteEverything you say makes sense, and yet both Johnson and Kennedy and Clinton had the chops to do the job. Winston Churchill ran around naked, had meetings in the bathtub, and saved a nation because he saw outside himself. Johnson understood the process (better than anyone before or after, perhaps?) . Kennedy's father was an ambassador - he saw political power first hand. Were Trump's missteps (a small word for a larger issue) all in the past? Hardly - Megyn Kelly, Serge Kovaleski, & Jorge Ramos can testify to his misogyny, disrespect, and xenophobia.
This is happening. He will be President. I have to live with the outcome. I don't have to watch the train wreck itself.
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Not watching or listening. I'm getting my hair done today.
DeleteNOT watching or listening to any of it. I am sick to my stomach and sad and scared to death. :(
DeleteI will never call him President. He's not deserving of the office or title. He didn't earn it, he stole it. He's a conman and all he knows is how to steal from others. And that includes not paying people who work for him. My term for him is jackass. And I will never apologize for calling him that.
ReplyDeleteMy children deserve better and our nation deserves better.
I will not in any way support him. I will resist.
Megan xxx
Loving your passion <3
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I was with friends at our breakfast cafe, TV on but sound muted. Back at home, we listened only to his speech, which we had recorded, then went for a brisk, refreshing walk. And we decided we had to attend the Womxn's March in Seattle tomorrow. My husband will be at my side, and we will join the march in progress from our light rail station, falling in behind thousands of women and a few other good men who feel we have to do something significant to make a statement.
ReplyDeleteand all the while thinking... "Didn't I do this once already!?!?!?"
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