As someone who used to watch the news at least three or four times a day, I've now become a head in the sand person. Sorry, but I have. I can't watch. I'm still in denial. I hear snippets of what's going on and that's enough for me. I just can't believe what's been going on. I went on Twitter for some reason last night. I've mostly stopped going on there too. I don't follow Donald Trump on Twitter, but I KNOW that the asinine things he's been tweeting will somehow be in retweets in my feed. I don't want to see it.
I know I said awhile back that I wasn't going to talk about Trump. He's left me no choice. People- ordinary citizens have left me no choice. The lunacy of defending his actions, all of his actions, has left me no choice. So if you didn't want to read my thoughts on him, well, you're in the wrong entry. Go to the search on my main page and look up potty training or birthday parties if you don't want to read. That's your right. I lied. I'm talking about him. Lying is going around like the flu, apparently.
I went on Twitter last night and in seconds came across all the Meryl haters, that somehow there were people who put themselves in the position of defending Donald Trump for mocking a disabled person. There was a highly decorated military person who tweeted "I've lost all respect for Meryl Streep". When I pressed him on this opinion, he said his own daughter is disabled and there was "more to the story" in defense of the mocking done by Trump. I read this and realized, this is why this was a different election.
In prior elections, I had friends who are registered, voting Republicans who I could have healthy, open conversation and debate about politics. We didn't agree, but we could see some of each other's points, and have a mutual respect still. Because they didn't come off as batshit crazy defenders of crazy. Now, it's completely batshit thinking and there is nothing to combat that. This guy isn't my friend. I don't even know him. He's just indicative of the average Trump supporter.
How does someone with a special needs child defend this person? I've said I don't believe in God or religion. I don't really know what it means to be spiritual, so I'm not sure on that one. I will say that I often do believe that something in the universe gives certain people certain problems so they can learn empathy. Or use whatever platform they have to raise awareness. It's not karma- like, I don't believe a homophobic senator ends up with a gay kid as karma, but maybe to gain empathy?
I hate to have to believe that humankind needs adversity thrown at them to get them out of a selfish bubble but examples just seem to come up way too often. How do you prioritize the possibility of money in your pocket that may never come over programs and services for your special needs child? How do you prioritize defense of a man who mocks disabilities when you know all too well how someone you love lives daily with disabilities. How would you feel if just some random person made fun of your child with a disability. And then said it was okay to grab her by the pussy?
My kid was just diagnosed with something that *could* classify him as special needs. More on that another time. How stupid would I be to support a person that mocks special needs or disability? That tells me right there he definitely isn't an advocate of special needs. So is it just- too bad, so sad for me? I don't have funds for therapies or programs on my own. Do I champion and defend someone who clearly doesn't give a rip about making sure those who need extra help, get what they need? That instead, uses them as a target for laughter?
Yet, right now, it's like we're living in some alternate universe right now, where even people who have been thrown adversity are prioritizing their adversity without thinking. Coal miners heard Trump say he's bringing coal back and they believed that. Yet, he also said he'd repeal Obamacare and they didn't believe THAT. All of a sudden NOW they're worried about possibly losing their coverage. So they prioritized the very slim to none notion that coal jobs would become plentiful, over their HEALTH COVERAGE. Health coverage for "black lung syndrome" that only gets worse and before Obamacare, was often denied coverage because it had to be proved that their black lungs came from the job. So no coal jobs, and they get imminent death as a bonus. Awesome.
I don't care if you don't or didn't like Hillary. We're not talking about Hillary. We've talked about Hills ad nauseum and now, she's really of no importance as far as the presidency. We're currently talking about our PRESIDENT ELECT, the leader of the free world, the most powerful position in the world, and he's TWEETING insane things. He's mocking people. He's sitting home, watching the Golden Globes, waiting to fight with celebrities. Just before that, a few days ago, he went after Arnold Schwarzenegger, unprovoked, just to mock, discredit, and I don't know what. This is the person that Republican die-hards are still willing to align themselves with and DEFEND. None of this is defensible. Yet- they're doing it.
I don't understand blind defense. That is a huge problem in this current political climate. I was very vocal about wanting Scott Garrett out of congress in my area. I was vocal about my support of Josh Gottheimer, the democrat, to take Garrett's place. I like Josh, and even hosted a meet & greet for him at my house before the election. I was thrilled when he unseated Garrett after Garrett's seven terms. Josh voted for something recently, his first major vote since taking office, that I disagree with vehemently. I don't give him a pass and defend him just because I consider myself a democrat and I voted for him.
Politicians aren't flawless and they don't deserve our blind support. They ALL need to be held accountable. They are our representatives. To other countries, they are our first impression as a people. We now have a president elect who makes the first impression as a tantrum throwing bully. Is it not embarrassing to have our leader in social media pissing contests with anyone, let alone actors and other celebrities? IS IT NOT EMBARRASSING??? IT. IS. It SO is! You just CAN'T argue this one!
I'm not going to lie. It would be really hard and only become more difficult, to have friends on the other side of the aisle, who still support him right now. I actually don't know if I do have *real* friends, (not just acquaintances- like people I grew up with or am just friended to on social media from different walks of my life), who do still support him. I haven't asked. I never asked anyone I consider a friend if they were voting for him. Friends who I know tend to vote Republican but who never said how they were voting this time. I really didn't want to know, and if I haven't found out by now, I still don't want to know for sure.
Luckily, there haven't been more than one or two friendship casualties for me out of this election. And those one or two weren't any great loss. We hadn't had anything in common in years. The only thing holding us together was shared history. Sometimes, that isn't enough.
I DO have friends, who are still registered Republicans, who went out of their way to tell me that while they still believe in old school Republican ideals, they could never vote for Trump. That, was comforting. It was comforting to know that the entire world wasn't just clinging to insanity.
I want to believe that anyone who DID see something to support in him, now sees just how unfit he is to be POTUS, but that's the batshit part of this whole scene. All I'm seeing is the bizarro-world ability to explain, defend, and deflect every egregious behavior he displays with great pride.
How do you defend Trump's bullying behavior, without resorting to bringing Hillary into it, without coming off as batshit crazy, ignorant, and just totally obstinate? How else do you describe it? Twitter ranting insults is certainly not what anyone should consider presidential behavior. He's proven he promised things and lied. He ran saying he was going to get rid of marriage equality. Then he won and said he's leaving it alone. He said we're building a wall and Mexico is paying for it. Now he's saying the American taxpayers are going to pay for it. He said he's repealing Obamacare. Then he said he's leaving "some of it". Lie. Lie. Lie.
I don't have the time or energy to look for more of the lies, but I know they're there. Yet, somehow, even mocking the disabled becomes somehow defensible and his immediate clap back at Meryl was just more blustery insults. Also defended.
So Meryl made her speech, asking for compassion. "This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose." -Meryl Streep
What she said above, those are the kinds of things that are in that "Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten" book or poster or whatever that has been around forever. I appreciate that she said all this. Haters were saying that they don't want to hear politics on an award show. The definition of politics is: the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power. Meryl isn't running for office. So what she did, was simply use her allotted time to give her opinion.
Why not give her thoughts? It's her few minutes. She's no dummy. She's a well-respected, bright, articulate, worldly woman. She's won these awards before. She's thanked who she needed to thank. This was her Lifetime Achievement award. She's no spring chicken. She's seen a lot over her lifetime, and she's been entrusted to act out the stories inspired by events in her lifetime. I think her opinions on societal observations is warranted.
Right or wrong, celebrities are role models. Just like famous athletes. If you're a Trump supporter and you say that celebrities have no business talking about politics and should stick to acting, singing or being on reality tv, there's another batshit crazy response. You elected a celebrity to the highest office of the land. So whether or not it's a good idea to keep celebrities and politics separate, you said something different with your votes. That is if we're giving the Republican party credit over Putin for getting him elected. I'm not sure of which is actually worse.
You don't like Meryl's opinion, that's fine. She does still have a right to say it. For now. If you were really listening, she wasn't specifically and only talking about politics. She was talking about being kind. Holding the office of POTUS accountable. Protecting honesty and honest in journalism. Protecting and championing the arts.
Of course people, haters, focused on other things. That's what Trump has taught us. To take the focus off real issues, in a loud and insulting manner, to focus on minutiae. Get all offended that she mentioned football and professional wrestling aren't the arts. Well, they're not. She wasn't incorrect. She's in the arts. She got an award for all her time, energy, and schooling in the arts. Why wouldn't she champion them?
People said this wasn't the time or the place. When is the time or place? She has a platform. I, for one, would rather hear a positive message about not being complacent in this tyranny, than just listen to rich and famous people congratulate each other. But that's me. I like balance. With my fashion policing, I want to hear something that gives hope. The haters should be asking themselves how they got to a place of sticking their fingers in their ears to drown out someone talking about making the world a more compassionate place. It's like saying the sky is green just to disagree. But way worse. How do you explain to your children what you're against in that speech??
Son, we don't believe in a compassionate world. We don't think the POTUS should be held accountable. We don't believe we should support the arts. If a person who happens to be disabled disagrees with you, we have no mercy! Like Kreese from Karate Kid- NO MERCY! We go for the jugular and the laugh and we goof on them.
What. the. actual. fcuk?
I'm not going to have my head buried in the sand forever. I just still needed some more time to come to terms with this. Call me the P-word, if you want. I'm not going to just accept his "win" and "get over it". I think Trump lashing out at Meryl Streep, on social media, when he's supposed to be figuring out how to pull the nation together, has put me over the edge. Can you imagine any other president in the history of the country just publicly throwing out baseless insults every time someone said something against them? Then having people defend him? Of course not. IT SOUNDS INSANE. You wanted something different? Different, as a president, shouldn't have come in the package marked unpredictable, thin-skinned, childish, insulting and mocking. There is different and there is batshit.
I got my pussy hat, as part of the pussy project. It's like putting on armor. Like pink yarn mojo. I'm going to join the ranks of activists, not the social media slacktivists, and DO SOMETHING. It isn't sour grapes or being a sore loser to hold people accountable for actions you deem are wrong. Acceptance and complacency is what helped Hitler gain power in a very short amount of time. The alternate universe may not believe Trump = Hitler, but those of us who aren't willing to just get over it aren't taking that chance.
The speech that was everything:
Edit- January 18, 2017:
I just read something being passed around that was so dumb, I'm still not recovered. I know I can be verbose, but this was an avalanche of stupid that went on forever, saying nothing. Nothing of any substance. Meanwhile, people were congratulating like she wrote the Declaration of Independence. I'm offended as a writer.
If I was to write about every egregious thing Trump has done, said or is responsible for, I'd be writing every day. This isn't a specifically political blog so I'm not doing that. My head would explode anyway.
I'm just going to leave this here-
Stop, just STOP saying, "Give him a chance!". It isn't even Inauguration Day and he's already lost the chance. We've all GIVEN him a chance. He had the chance to say - To hell with party lines and old school politics. I'm going to make a dream team of the best of the best. I'm going to take all the best people from both sides of the aisle and unite the country, starting at the top. I'm *NOT* a politician. So I'm going to get the smartest, most capable people and make them my right hand. Together.
Instead, he's picked all the dregs of society. People no one else of whom would have even taken their calls. A head of education who doesn't believe in public school. Who will be detrimental to kids and families with disabilities in school. She's never been in a public school, her kids didn't go to public school, and has never taken out a loan. She knows nothing about the struggles of anything. Not poor people, not public schools, not anything. Her agenda is to create charter schools with a religious bend. Awesome pick. Add it to the line up of racists, WITH A RECORD OF RACISM, homophobes - THE VICE PRESIDENT, and more bottom of the barrel, unqualified lunatics.
So yeah, we gave him a chance. And he already failed us. I WANT THE COUNTRY TO SUCCEED. We'd all be fucking morons not to want the country to succeed. We're not going anywhere- we LIVE here. However- just stop with this give him a chance BS. Every day is a new day where he gets a chance. Every day he does or says something worse than the day before. Take your long winded nonsensical writings, shove them, and do something more productive with all of our time. Because I am now dumber for reading that drivel.
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