livebloggingmydescentintomadness:
I do take some small, cold, bitter satisfaction in one thing, and that’s the fact that Trump is going to be absolutely fucking miserable for the next four years.
He’s an entertainer and an attention whore, not a public servant. He wants to be on TV and in front of crowds, not actually working a difficult, grueling, stressful job he can’t opt out of. He’s going to have to sit through SO many meetings, be forced to read SO many briefings, get shoehorned into serious business all day every day, without crowds to perform for, and he’s going to hate Every. Single. Minute.
And then, when he doesn’t deliver on his promises, when he doesn’t build the wall or create jobs or make people rich, when it becomes clear how incompetent and buffoonish he is, the country and all his supporters will turn on him. They’re gonna start blaming him for everything, and those crowds that cheered for him are going to start booing. He’ll be humiliated at every turn, and leave office with the lowest approval rating ever, and he’ll be universally despised.
Because if he’d lost to Hillary, he would have played the martyr forever, called everything rigged, and had a cushy gig on Fox News complaining every day about how he would have done it better. But now he’s going to have to actually WORK, he’s going to be forced to deal with RESPONSIBILITIES, while surrounded by people who hate him and don’t respect him, people vastly more intelligent and competent than him, and he will be exposed as a loser. And then, we’ll fire him. He’ll go down as the worst president in history. And he’ll have no one to blame but himself.
I know this isn’t much against the fear of what’s going to happen, but friends, hear me. We are going to make Donald Trump’s life a living nightmare, and I for one take immense pleasure from that.
Does this mean “Thanks, Trump” is going to be the new “Thanks, Obama”?
He’s also going to learn that, even with Republican majorities in Congress, and even with all that work he will have to presumably put into the job, being the President still isn’t going to be like being a CEO (recall: George W. Bush had a majority in both houses for his first six years, Obama had a majority in both for his first two years).
The things a President wants to get done are not going to happen quickly or easily, if at all. Passing important legislation is complicated and boring and lengthy. Even signed legislation can take a while to be enacted and is then always subject to appeals and challenges (recall the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate ultimately having to go before the Supreme Court).
The Constitution will not allow for a lot of Trump’s more horrific ideas to ever get close to reality (this ACLU piece written before the election breaks it down better than I ever could). His Supreme Court nominee has to be approved. His cabinet members have to be approved. Just about everything needs to be approved. And even with majorities in Congress, that’s far from a swift guarantee.
There are checks and balances. We lived through 8 years of Bush (including those first six I mention), followed by the economy collapsing; there are more vigilant eyes and ears watching now than there have ever been. The likelihood of a Trump administration getting away with shit without a drawn-out, bloody fight is slim. Especially when you remember that he’s facing a civil RICO trial at the end of this month plus numerous more lawsuits that have yet to be settled. Especially when you remember that he has no law degree, no political science degree, and has never held a political office of any kind. Especially when you remember that he lost the popular vote. His cabinet and staff will not be filled with the best and brightest because he alienated so many of them, even in his own party.
And most importantly, one or both of the House and the Senate could be flipped in 2018.
We’re all scared and worried and rightfully so. And the people who voted for Trump are as much a daily threat as Trump himself could hope to be. But this President’s only got two years before his legislative legs can be cut off. Two years from right now.
Learn who your representatives are, at every level. Figure out how to get in touch with them and get in touch with them, repeatedly. Relentlessly. It doesn’t matter if they’re Republican or Democrat or Independent. You don’t have to wait for some terrible Trumpish idea to get going in Congress – you can write to them about restoring the Voting Rights Act or preserving the Affordable Care Act or protecting LGBTQ rights or fighting climate change right now. These people do not have a job without you. You’re younger than them. The future matters more to you. I’ve seen the working life of a Congressman up close and let me tell you: you can reach them (surprisingly easily, actually). You can get through to them. You can put a face to these issues and you never let them forget it. Be relentless. Be memorable. If they ignore you or forget you, you let everybody know about it. We have the platforms to easily and quickly tell others. Let relevant activist groups know. Let the whole fucking world know.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” - President Obama
This is the post. This is the one giving me the most hope. This is the one turning most of my sadness (not all, lord knows I will never be rid of all of the sad) in to vindictiveness, into bitter action, into spite. Into action.
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