The Women's March on Washington. It's hard to believe that this took place a month ago as I'm writing this entry. A lot of feelings were vented, but has it yet led to anything substantial? Probably not. The protesters were marching against Trump, and not FOR anything in particular. And this is where the problem lies. Trump's opponents are still divided. We think of women's rights, LGBTIQ rights, immigrant rights, but we're not focusing on what should be the core issue - Human Rights and how to achieve them for all. Each of these causes is important. But without a central focus, our opposition wins.
- - - - - -
In order for progressives to win both the cultural war and the ideological war being foisted upon us, we need to make sure that no one accepts any of the lies coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as anything other than what they are - tools being used to get the common person to stop paying attention to a critical press, and to only focus on what Trump claims to be truth. This is dangerous, as an honest free press is the most important check and balance against government overreach when the public feels empowered.
Right now, we're seeing attempts from the Trump administration to disempower groups that have traditionally been disenfranchised in the USA: Poor People, Blacks, Latinos, Gays & Lesbians, Transgenders, and Women. Ignore the rhetoric from both sides of the political aisle. We have an Attorney General who was once voted down by the Senate for being too racist to have a judicial seat. We have a Secretary of Education who has no clue how public education functions, and wants to replace the public school system with private schools. We have a Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who has never run an organization of any size. Virtually all of his civilian appointees are there to destroy the departments which they are supposed to run. We've already seen protections once held by the LGBT community overturned by the new Attorney General, as he won't defend protections established by the prior administration.
It's easy to give up hope. But the progressive movement needs a set of tactics that can be used to
- Maximize the impact of any protest.
- Prevent Trump's bullying of dissenters from being seen as "normal".
- Stagger large scale protests, so that people stay sensitive to the protest message.
- Disrupt the potentially authoritarian status-quo from being accepted as "normal".
- Develop a rotating focus on key issues, having an entire coalition protest one issue at a time, and preventing messages from becoming tired.
There is much more that can be done. But the people must stay alert to any lies that are being spewed as part of this administration's propaganda campaign. And then, they must expose those lies for what they are, using as much humor as possible in order to deny this regime the social legitimacy it craves.
- - - - - -
Every year, there is a "mooning" of Amtrak trains as they pass through a California town. The "Mooners" (not to be confused with "Moonies", who are affiliated with a Korean Church) line up along a 2 mile stretch of track, and expose themselves when an Amtrak train rolls by. Might we want to consider mooning Trump's motorcade to show him the respect he deserves? It's one idea among many we should be thinking about - we need the attention of the press, and we need to find as many non violent, but media catching methods possible. Hopefully, we will find a few things that work well, and will use them as long as they work well....
Does adding a second bible add any substance, legitimacy or truth to what Trump swore to on Inauguration Day? I doubt it. It only serves to create an image of false piety for a man from whose mouth only comes lies - including the words "And" and "The".
- - - - - -
As I write this entry, less than two weeks have expired since Trump took office, and we're already seeing chaos in the land. Previously approved refugees, legal residents/green card holders, and other vetted people are being denied entry to the USA, because of Trump's latest executive order. How does this make us any safer? How does this make us appear to the rest of the world? To me, it only gives nations such as Iran a propaganda advantage, as they will not reject previously approved holders of American passports from visiting their country. And to make things worse, the 3 Arabic speaking countries which are exempt from Trump's executive order (Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia) are those in which Trump has business interests. Two of these countries (Saudi Arabia and the UAE) are countries that supplied the 19 hijackers that commandeered the planes on 9/11/01, killing almost 3,000 Americans.
An op-ed piece in the Huffington Post is already.talking about the inevitability of impeachment. But is that what a Democrat should be looking for? Each day that Trump is in office, he tarnishes the GOP brand and helps to mobilize more potential Democratic voters - people who could be very useful in 2018 and 2020. When the Women's March gathered 3 times on the National Mall as many people as Trump's inauguration, one has a potential movement. But when one takes into account the other 1,500,000 people protesting around the world, it's easy to see that a raw nerve has been touched. We have to make sure that the reaction gets us the results we want.
- - - - - -
It is no accident that ALL of Trump's appointments have been to the extreme political right. His deal with Pence is likely the same he offered to John Kasich: You run both foreign and domestic affairs, while I make America great again. Kasich has some ethics, Pence does not. He is a religious wingnut, someone more dangerous to us than Trump - something that I found hard to believe at first. If we are stuck with a President Pence, he will follow the GOP policy with no compromises allowed. This is different from Trump, as he can easily be manipulated with flattery.
The Huffington Post piece noted that Trump suffers from Malignant Narcissism. Otto Kernberg characterizes it by an absence of conscience, a pathological grandiosity and quest for power, and a sadistic joy in cruelty. And everything said about Trump indicates a diagnosis of Malignant Narcissism would be one of the things high on the list of possibilities. Can we afford this in a national leader?
It is possible to manipulate someone like Trump. It has often been said about him, that if you are the last to give him an opinion, he will often lean your way - as long as he feels in charge and feels that he is the strongest alpha male in the room. However, it is much harder to manipulate someone like Pence, as his currency is power. Pence is smart enough to wait around until someone self destructs. And that's what Trump seems to be doing, seeing how much work and thought goes into being president.
- - - - - -
But I go back to the title of this entry, as it raises an important question: Is it in our best interest to help get Trump out of office, taking an immediate gain? Or, is it better to help Trump stay in office until the 2018 elections, preventing a potential President Pence from serving more than 6 years as President in his own right? Can we afford the damage that Trump will do to this country in a little under than 720 days?
I've already accepted that Trump will destroy as many external checks and balances as he can, regarding those we have on large businesses. I've already accepted that Trump will be a disaster for the environment, given his belief that Global Warming is a Hoax. And I've already accepted that he will be a disaster for human rights. Do we know ALL the risks of removing him from office either via impeachment or via the 25th amendment to the constitution? I don't think so. And that worries me.
