The leader of the United States is a virulent mix of narcissism, sociopathy, psychopathy, and scumbaggery.  He just is.  Calling him Lord Voldemort is giving him too much credit. In point of fact, many psychologists (and by many I mean 15,000) assert that he is not just a run of the mill narcissist, but that he is a malignant narcissist.  For more information: http://www.decision-making-confidence.com/malignant-narcissism.html  This is one of many reliable sites where you can get more information online.  In other words, it’s not fake news click-bate.

I’ve had dealings with many people like this, and I can tell you that they are extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to deal with.  Your only snowball’s chance in hell of keeping up with them is if you somehow already have a leg up on them, and even then, they won’t go down without a fight resulting in major casualties on both sides.  Because they are ALWAYS right.  ALWAYS.  It is ALWAYS about them and their mental scoresheet to which no one is privy but them.

It is a no win situation, not to put too fine a point on it.

Mark Halpern, reporter and Executive Producer of Showtime’s, “The Circus” stated on The Late Show with Steven Colbert on election night that, “Outside of the Civil War, World War II, and including 9/11, this may be the most cataclysmic event this country has ever seen.”  I tend to agree.

Drain the Swamp

One of many snappy little phrases Trump ran on was, “Drain the swamp.”  By itself, it is indicative of nothing.  Coupled with messaging that was damaging to Clinton, such as her paid speeches given at Goldman Sacks gatherings, the rhetoric began to take form.  If you are curious about the highlights, you can read them here on yet another *not* fake news outlet: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/17/i-read-hillary-clintons-speeches-to-goldman-sachs-heres-what-surprised-me-the-most/?utm_term=.ea5ddba51e5e  What surprised a lot of people after reading the transcripts was that she didn’t release them sooner.  It would have quelled the skepticism swirling about them and her.

So Trump is going to “drain the swamp,” right?  Okay, sure.  To the uninitiated, frustrated, and/or uneducated voter, this call to action meant that should Trump get in, he was going to replace people in power currently who represent the wealthy class in leadership in Washington with people who more accurately resemble, quite literally, the other 98%.  Those who have lost their coal mining jobs, their manufacturing jobs, jobs which incidentally, in the age of automation and ecological awareness are not coming back no matter what legislation you pass (unless you give corporations free passes to go back to polluting the environment), thought Donald Trump was literally going to get rid of anyone and anything they perceived as an impediment to their livelihood.  Of course, many of these people didn’t realize that the ACA and Obamacare were the same thing and they now stand to lose their insurance.

What is the first thing Trump did?  Well, it was the first thing any President would do: He began making political nominations.  But the nominees he chose did not even come up in lower or middle class families.  No.  Nor are they particularly centrist.  He nominated people from the millionaire and billionaire class—people who have no idea what it is to be a lower or middle class American these days.  Five members of his cabinet at some point in time worked for Goldman Sacks, the very Wall Street group he used to paint a rather horrific picture of Clinton.  You can read more in the post script below.

Disqualifications

One of the most bizarre things to me was that somehow a private email server was more disqualifying to HRC as a candidate than ALL of the MANY disqualifying incidents of which Trump is guilty.  Trump uses a private email server and unsecure lines to discuss state business BTW, but hey, what the hell?  Here are some examples of events that should have long ago been disqualifying:

  • “They’re rapists, they’re murders,” referring to Mexicans using the kind of language that would get anyone fired from a regular job
  • “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people weren’t captured,” referring to Senator John McCain’s capture and time as a POW during Viet Nam
  • “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her, wherever,” insinuating that a female reporter who challenged him on his abhorrent name-calling of women only did so because she was on her period, and therefore, in his mind, negating her completely accurate argument
  • Made fun of a disabled reporter on national television who ticked him off
  • Insulted a Gold Star family
  • Shamelessly accepting and subsequently bragging about a purple heart given to him by an elderly gentlemen who put more faith in Trump than he deserved
  • Lying between 20 and 37 times per day http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/31/donald-trump-destroyed-fact-checker-reveals-trump-lies-20-37-times-day.html Here’s another interesting piece of information: http://www.livescience.com/17407-pathological-liars-honest-psychology.html
  • Let’s not forget Pussy Gate, a full transcript of which you can read here at the “failing” not failing real news outlet NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html

These are only a select few examples of the statements alone that should have been disqualifying, each on their own merit if you can call it that.  They should have been disqualifying.  And somehow they were not.  If you take into account other things, like refusing to pay workers, refusing to pay small business contractors thereby putting them out of business, refusing to pay the female owner of a catering company because he was doing her a favor by hiring her, filing for bankruptcy six times and numerous other business failures (http://www.snopes.com/2016/08/01/donald-trumps-bankruptcies/) which cost a lot of people such jobs about which he now pretends to be so concerned.

This all should have been disqualifying, and frankly, one would think that the average Joe would have been wary of this kind of activity as it doesn’t bode well that someone in the highest executive office can so easily throw people away on a whim, knowing full well that due strictly to his monetary stature he can defeat in a court of law by virtue of the fact that he can hold out longer than they can.

Trump was a joke, and for good reason.  Trump should never have made it to the Oval Office.  But he did.

Overconfidence in the Obvious

Walt scolded me this morning as we watched the documentary, “Trumped.”  His rebuke was as follows: “You and your cohorts should have been marching in the streets when he became the Republican nominee!  You should have gotten your asses off the sofa in your pussy hats and driven home the fact that no man is fit for the highest office in the United States who thinks you can randomly and without permission grab a woman by the pussy!  Where the fuck were you then?”

He’s right.  Where were we?

Upon reflection, this is where we got lazy.  Those of us who aren’t members of the Bible belt, who aren’t blatantly racist, who advocate for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, minority rights, who are in essence “Coasters,” looked around on multiple occasions and thought, “Jesus fucking Christ, he just did himself in.  He cannot possibly win now.  We don’t need to do anything because for fuck’s sake, people have been driven out of the primaries for far less.  Clinton is a shoe-in.  He just isn’t fit for office.”

We underestimated several factors:

  • The number of blatantly proud racists in this country
  • The number of ignorant evangelicals in this country
  • The number of poorly educated people in this country
  • The sheer lack of critical thinking skills in this country
  • The will of the GOP to cut off their nose to spite their face
  • The power of the oil and gun lobbies
  • The willful ignorance of the rustbelt and coal mining citizens pining for days gone by
  • The number of people who either don’t care about the environment or failed to make the connection between air and water pollution by oil and coal companies (among others), and their health issues and lack of clean drinking water (let me give you a hint: if your water looks like rust or you can light it on fire, that’s bad)

The centrists, independents, and liberals looked around and said, “Okay, that’s pretty much it then, our work here is done.”  We underestimated how desperate people are—desperate enough to believe that a billionaire businessman can walk into the White House and make things better for Main Street folks.

That’s on us.  We failed our country.  We truly did.  We should have mobilized sooner.  Our only path now is to #Resist, to call out every hypocrisy for what it is, to speak truth to power.

To the “Sit Down and Shut Up” People Who Don’t Like Protesters: Fuck You

I genuinely mean that in the most derogatory sense.  To those of you who voted Trump into office because, “He speaks his mind,” “He’s not politically correct,” “He says what he means,” “He’s direct,” here is some directness: If you think it is okay for a President to express all the heinous shit listed above, and then tell those of us who voted for someone else and won by #2,865,075 votes to sit down and shut up, the answer is, “Um, no.”

You, who call protesters hypocrites, you who call us sore losers, you are the ones who were happy when everyone was speaking their minds, so long as it matched up with your view of the world.  But if someone expresses dissent to your world view, well, by god we have no right to do so.  You are the hypocrites, pumpkins.

You, the “poorly educated,”according to Trump, you, the blue collar and low level white collar workers who will not benefit from the policies suggested by this now ruling class, you, the staunch republicans who don’t give a fig about anyone other than yourselves, you, the millionaire and billionaire class who will happily stomp on the people who helped you get there, you, the older retired republicans who don’t have to worry about women’s reproductive rights, you, the racist who thinks one man is going to give you carte blanche (look it up) to go back to pre-MLK days, I have news for you:

We, the resisters, will not be silenced.  We will not go away.  We will fight for our country, our Constitution, our sacred earth, our way of life.  You seem to like people who speak their minds.  By that logic it follows that you should love us.  But you don’t.  You make comments that range from, “Just give him a little time, give him a chance,” to “Stop being a sore loser and take your medicine.”  NO.

We are not sore losers.  We are concerned citizens.  And while it is clear we all have blind spots regardless of political affiliation, it is also clear that putting Trump in office was short-sighted on many levels.  I frankly do not care if you like that statement or not.  I’m done caring about the opinions of the deafening minority.  You somehow had your say at the polls.  Now we’ll have our say on the streets.  We’ll have our say in marches.  We’ll have our say in calls to our representatives.  We’ll have our say in letters to Congress and the White House.  We’ll have our say online and on television.  We will #Resist.

 

A Quick Summation of What It Looks Like to “Drain the Swamp”

Here is a rundown of the new swamp:

  • A counselor and chief strategist who is an alt-right (racist, to be perfectly blunt) conspiracy theorist
  • A racist nominee for head of the DOJ who frankly should never have been considered
  • An idiot billionaire who wouldn’t know a public school if it slapped her on the ass on deck for the Dept. of Education
  • A conspiracy theorist in charge of National Security
  • A former senior Goldman Sacks executive responsible for foreclosing on little old ladies as head of the Dept. of Treasury
  • A billionaire oil man as head of the Dept. of State
  • A guy with the nick-name “Mad Dog” as head of the Dept. of Defense (I actually like the guy)
  • A fellow who’s fervent desire is to replace the highly successful Medicare program with a voucher system in charge of the Dept. of Health and Human Services
  • A former neurosurgeon in charge of the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
  • A gentleman from Texas in charge of the Dept. of Energy who literally did not know that job included being charge of our nuclear arsenal but rather thought he would be something akin to a lobbyist for the oil industry (let me remind you here that the last two heads of the Dept. of Energy were award-winning scientists and this guy is a dolt),
  • A former CEO of fast food chains who is against raising the minimum wage in charge of the Dept. of Labor
  • McConnell’s wife for Dept. of Transportation (apparently Trump owes McConnell for something)
  • A fellow who supports mining and drilling as head of the Dept. of the Interior
  • A billionaire with a reputation of turning around companies at the expense of workers to head the Dept. of Commerce (yes, Trump supporters with blue collar jobs, I’m sure this will work out well for you)
  • An immigration hawk for the Dept. of Agriculture
  • A gentleman who is currently the under secretary for health in the embattled VA up to head that organization
  • A man who is suing the EPA and is a climate change denier in spite of conclusive scientific evidence to the contrary is now to head the organization
  • An advisor and surrogate who actually made up “the Bowling Green Massacre” to justify Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim ban and coined the phrase “Alternative Facts”
  • A sycophant who lectures the press on what they can and cannot do while lying to them repeatedly on his very first day officially on the job as Press Secretary.

What could go wrong?

Trump is just getting warmed up.  Let me make this perfectly plain for those of you who aren’t tracking with this: What is going on is not draining the swamp.  It’s flooding it.

Here is a little more information: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/trump-cabinet-tracker/510527/