Geez, it has not been pleasant to read the news this past week. It is, all at once, horrifying, and horrifyingly familiar. I thought I’d had outrage overload watching Mike Harris and George W. Bush take power, but what Trump has been doing has been gleefully disassembling American civil society, and just as gleefully directly and deliberately bringing harm to thousands of people. Look at what’s happening at airports across the world as even Green Card holders from several Middle Eastern countries (but NOT mid-east countries that Trump has a business interest in) have been refused entry, detained at entry points, and blocked from getting on planes.
These are real families that have been disrupted in horrible ways. Pray that something like this never happens to your family.
The thing is, while Harris and Bush may have had that businessman’s arrogant belief that governing is easy, that there is a gravy train that they can locate and liquidate and everything will go just fine, they at least wanted to do right with the people — all the people. Harris seemed genuinely surprised that his policies didn’t work in reducing poverty and making Ontario better. He even, to his great credit, acknowledged his mistakes and reversed some of his decisions. Even Rob Ford, who shares some of Trump’s delusions of being a heroic bull in a villainous china shop, was controlled by the fact that he was just the mayor of a city, not the leader of the most powerful country in the free world.
From where I’m sitting, it feels as though everything that is good about America is being attacked by its own president. The National Endowment for the Arts, the National Parks, even possibly Amtrak, are being sighted for vengeance. I can tolerate somebody who gets it wrong as he’s trying to do right, but vengeance is a whole other kettle of fish. By definition, it is out of whack with justice. It needs to be fought back against. But right now, I have no idea where to begin.
I do appreciate the sentiments of this blog post, however. I should turn off Facebook and stop reading the bad news. I need to, for a little while at least. Valerie Aurora notes that doing so is not surrender, but a valuable means of restoring your reserves so you can continue to resist.
On the other hand, Facebook does seem like such an addiction sometimes. I don’t know how to look away.