From a socio-political perspective, this past year has been a cosmic-level trashfire. Hell, one could make the argument that this quagmire we’re all trying our best to cope with began the day Cheeto Hitler declared his intent to run for president. Following his win, it has been a never-ending battle to minimize the harm he has sought to cause. In many cases, that harm has centered around attempting to eliminate the achievements of his predecessor, President Obama. He pulled the United States out of the Paris Accords (with Nicaragua and Syria having signed the Accords, the United States is the only major country in the world to refuse the deal), rejected the Iran Nuclear Deal, and he has pushed over and over again for a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (not caring that such a move would lead to roughly 32 million people–on top of the millions without coverage already–without healthcare coverage by 2026).
When he’s not trying to undo President Obama’s legacy, the bigoted bumblefuck has been aggressively working on his grand plan to Make America Great Again For Those Poor Persecuted and Aggrieved White Men, The Last Demographic Deemed Socially Acceptable To Discriminate Against (this, despite the fact that white men experience no measurable discrimination based on their race or gender). More a back of the beverage napkin drunken bucket list than a meticulously composed, well thought out, evidence based course of action, this grand plan (which honestly can’t really be called a plan) has included:
- pardoning the guilty and virulently racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio who really should have been imprisoned for the rest of his life (which is probably 10 years at best, given his age)
- attacking the Mayor of Puerto Rico (on more than one level, as the Petulant Pissant never wastes an opportunity to “put women in their place ” by indulging his sexist side) and blaming Puerto Ricans for not doing enough to repair their own island in the wake of Hurricane Maria (and don’t forget his declaration about the great job he has done, and throwing fucking paper towels at Puerto Ricans)
- rejecting any influence on the the 2016 presidential election by Russia and claiming (without a shred of evidence to support his position) that widespread voter fraud led to Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote instead of him
- undermining faith in and credibility of the Presidency with his inability to inform his statements with facts and evidence
- taking aim at Freedom of the Press by openly speculating on how he could censor media outlets that do not kiss his ass
- referring to NFL players protesting over police brutality and systemic racism in the United States as “sons of bitches” and calling for them to be fired
- disrespecting the family of a fallen U.S. soldier *and* the soldier himself (that he can bring himself to chastise anti-racist advocates for disrespecting U.S. soldiers, while he does that very thing is maddening)
- ending workplace protections for transgender people
- granting white supremacist fuckhead Steve Bannon a role in his administration, as well as nominating the Racist Ratfucker himself, Jeff “the Confederate loving, should have been born 150 years ago “Sessions, to Attorney General
- Muslim Ban 1, Muslim Ban 2, Muslim Ban 3
- seeking to punish ‘Sanctuary Cities’ for not participating in or supporting the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants
- That Fucking Wall
- Refusing to 100% condemn white supremacist violence in Charlottesville “but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides”, “I think there’s blame on both sides […]
- threatening federal funding for UC-Berkeley for shutting down one of his staunchest supporters, a speaker well known for ginning up hatred against women, gays, Blacks, Muslims, immigrants, and transgender people and who thinks of himself as a “provocateur” who is spreading truths that others are too fearful to speak (I refer to that wretched waste of space, Milo Yiannopoulous), and who has–on more than one occasion–referred to the Orange Menace as “Daddy”***
That’s not a comprehensive list, by the way. With the exception of maybe three items, those incidents were off the top of my head. Being an authoritarian bully and a fascist-leaning, racist rapist, who speaks without any care or concern for what he says or how he says it pretty much guarantees that anything he says or does during his tenure is going to, at the very least, piss people the fuck off. I really don’t want to imagine what his list of “accomplishments” will look like come the end of his term (which will hopefully be the only one).
Making matters worse for those of us who realize that “Make America Great Again” is a dog whistle is that the GOP controls so much of the federal government. You’d think that if one of the two major political parties in this country gained as much power as the GOP currently has, they might be able to get significant legislation through. Heck, they might even do something wild and totally unheard of like, oh, I don’t know…GOVERN. Alas, all they seem capable of doing is introducing legislation to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (they’ve backed away from that for now, but I am confident think they’ll be back at it in the spring of 2018).
You know, that’s not fair. Sure the Bigoted Blowhard is so incompetent that brokering a peace deal between kindergartners (let alone war-torn nations embroiled in combat whose origins reach back centuries) is far outside his wheelhouse and sure his party has tried (and largely failed) to keep out immigrants and MuslimsAnd never mind that he and his administration (and by extension, the Republican Party) have had success in one area: the advancement of progressive social or political agendas that benefit people other than rich, white men have been stifled. With these people in power, the best we’ve been able to hope for all year is that we’ll be able to minimize the damage he and the GOP want to cause. There certainly wasn’t any hope on the horizon that things would get better.
At least, not until Tuesday night.
Continue reading “Finally! Some political developments to celebrate”
