Remember that awful Civics class that you had to pass if you wanted to graduate from high school? Like algebra and geometry, it was one of those awful, painful classes that you scratched and clawed your way through, smug in the knowledge you’d never need this shit in real life.
Fast forward to adulthood when you have to find some way to pay all the bills. Every month. If you don’t, you have no place to live, no place to shower for work, no place for your kids to sleep. And politics meant recession and war, and everyone you know is out of work or deployed overseas, and you know you’re next for one or the other. You didn’t vote so why do you have to deal with this shit? Oh, yeah, it’s because you didn’t vote. Dumb ass.
And it turns out that even if you don’t use actual algebra or geometry, you do use the concepts they taught you, the logic, a completely different way to understand shapes and angles, the steps for solving a problem.
So because of that civics class that you should now be very thankful for (I know I am – thank you, Mr. Smith!), you have a pretty good understanding of how government works, or how it is supposed to. This isn’t about the election though I still do not understand how some people didn’t see this con a mile away. The first thing that always comes to mind for me is the conflicts of interest, the violations of the Emoluments Clause. Then, the current administration is stripping us of laws to protect our water and air, pushing very hard to pass a tax bill (they call it a “health care” bill to disguise that it has nothing to do with helping people get affordable health care and everything to do with putting more money into wealthy people’s bank accounts) before people notice just how bad it is, and even working to defund programs that feed hungry children and elderly citizens, to defund PBS, NEA, etc. There’s the lying and the racism and the hate. Trying to find a way to not say “crazy” but to point out the, uh, crazy behavior. For fuck’s sake, members of the administration AND the election itself are under FBI investigation.
What I’m trying to say is we know from our class what all this means. We know what has to happen. Why are there still people defending this president and this administration? The jig is up. It’s time to get moving on damage control. We’ve embarrassed ourselves enough. . . haven’t we?
Link: “THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY IS ALREADY A JOKE. But it’s no laughing matter.” – by Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair
Link: “Read President Trump’s Interview With TIME on Truth and Falsehoods” – from Time
Link: “Hawaii lawmaker resigns from Republican Party to join Democrats” – by Steve Gorman at Reuters