Well, I haven’t thrown my TV or computer out the window yet, but if they keep showing Donald Trump’s stupid face it’s gonna get harder to resist. If I may quote Robert DeNiro regarding Trump, “He’s so fucking stupid!” Ah, yes. But what’s scary is that, like P.T. Barnum, he knows how to put on a show and lie in ways that improve his own position while creating a following.
Meanwhile, so much for the “everybody is equal under the law.” Let’s get real. If one of us owed a bond and didn’t pay it, we’d be in jail until trial. Instead, on his way to November, he keeps talking in ways that should scare the living daylights out of every American. He threatens a “blood bath” if he does not win in November! What? It’s an election, idiot. You may lose (God willing). Somebody does. But, no. The Donald will, as his niece said years ago, never accept losing.
And if that wasn’t enough, he keeps talking like the dictator he wants to be. He continues to insult everybody who doesn’t totally support him. He is vulgar, nasty, uncaring, and completely un-American. He praises the January 6th rioters, Republicans who claim they support the police, after they beat up Capitol Police killing one. At the same time, he calls migrants coming into the country “not people” and animals. He lies every time he opens his mouth, saying, for example, that countries are sending people here who have been let out of prisons. There is no proof of that. But proof and truth have never been anything Donald Trump ever cared about.
When I was a kid, growing up in Brooklyn near one of the Trump housing developments, I clearly remember that they refused to accept applications from Black people, something the Trumps tried to deny. But it was tested and everybody in the neighborhood knew. Hell, probably everybody in NYC knew. I like to think that’s why he only got a tiny percentage of the vote in NYC.
So what can we do? I’m not sure. But one thing is clear: we have to vote democratic up and down the ballot in order to keep our country functioning as a democratic republic. It is clear that Donald Trump wants nothing less than total control – a dictatorship. He wants the power to purge everybody from the government who disagrees with him or doesn’t like him, to execute some people who really piss him off, and he never wants to give up power. This is not what this country was meant to be. Despite all the problems we do have, we’re supposed to be trying to form a more perfect union. We can’t do that with a self-involved, power hungry, uninformed leader and his cronies who just want power.
Betty, thanks for saying what so many of us are feeling. Robert Croonquist sends photos and reports of his activist group, Rise & Resist, in NYC. They have some great banners and slogans they parade at Trump’s trial (“Slept With a Porn Star / Screwed the Voters”). The photos of their protests have gotten world wide distribution. So, some vicarious direct action for all of us away from Lower Manhattan.
I wanted to leave a comment on last week’s BK posting. What was the name of the Gay paper you were writing for and distributing on Castro St.” Also, do you have any recordings of your music from that period?
Finally, have you written about the current campus pro-Palestine protest movement? I feel torn in several different directions and would love some considered guidance on the issue. /Eric
Yes, thanks Betty for channeling your TV-throwing anger into writing this post! I am coping by subscribing to all the optimistic and level-headed pundits I can find. I’m not sure where I saw it, but I liked this slogan “It’s okay to worry. Just don’t panic!” by which they meant get out there and do something and VOTE. For those of us who were part of earlier movements, and whose parents were too(!), it is terribly discouraging to find ourselves in this horrible period in our history. My mother always hated Trump too and I confess I thought she was worrying needlessly. I was so naive. Not no more!