I'm Still With Her

I decided after the election that for the most part I would give myself the gift of not reading about it.  I don’t usually go the way of sticking my head in the sand, but I couldn’t bear to fill my brain with any more Trump minutiae (and everything about Trump is so very, very small).

I have read some blog entries and comments, and then a few postmortems, and I am impressed with how eloquent people have been about their shock and despair, because in the face of my own shock and despair I have been struck dumb.

Sure, I have managed to pass on the cute things my kid said – “But what about America?” and then he suggested that to cheer Hillary up we send her a toy, or maybe a cape?  “Do you think that would help?” – but my overall state is of scrambled brain, wherein my instinct becomes a primal one of wanting to compress all the words into a howl of rage.

And perhaps in this new world, a howl of rage is good currency, or at the very least a starting point.  Because this IS a new world.  There are jackals soon to be in the white house, and their minions are riding roughshod all across the country.

As is any person with a heart and a brain, I’m bothered by so much of what Trump says and what I can thus only assume he stands for.  What bothers me most though is his ignorance about…well, about everything.  In a few short months he’ll start his job as one of the most powerful people in the world, and he’ll be learning the job from scratch.  FROM SCRATCH, people.  He knows nothing about government, or other countries, or agreements, or diplomacy, or culture, and I’d venture to say he knows very little about being a successful business man either.

He’ll be learning everything as he goes, and how is that reassuring?  It seems to me the equivalence would be if I decided to be a doctor, and then my first day of learning to be one was not in medical school but as the chief surgeon of a large hospital.  Good luck to all my patients! 

I’ve been voting for presidents for thirty years and have voted for the winner four times and the loser four times, but this loss is different. 

It’s been a week and I still walk around feeling like we have fallen through the looking glass and everything is askew.  I am heartened by all that people are beginning to do to fight back and to not let Trump’s lyrics become the song of this country, and I think we all need to join in.  In time, perhaps, we’ll even feel good enough to manage a shoulder shimmy.