Well, here we are.
For the politically faint of heart
Guess what? Do you believe it? It’s now eight-something weeks into Donald Trump’s second term as president. Blink your eyes. Now open them wide. Do you recognize what you see? When he was on the campaign trail this last year did the president elect warn us of this new America he was going to try to create? If he did, I don’t remember it. I don’t remember him talking of tariffs and slashed budgets and fired government workers. I don’t remember him mentioning a desire to eclipse Greenland, rename the Gulf of Mexico and declare Canada the fifty first state. Cozying up to Putin? Yes, mentioned or not, one might have expected that. But did he warn us he was going to eliminate humanitarian foreign aid? No. Did he say he was going to declare Joe Biden the head of a political crime family? Not that I remember. Were his campaign speeches full of insults and threats declaring anyone who disagreed with him scum, destined for federal prosecution? Oh, wait, okay, maybe we should have seen that coming, yes. But did he talk about sharing the presidency with Elon Musk? No, I don’t think too many people expected that. Maybe he felt a need to find someone people would dislike even more than him. Advisors should have told him that JD Vance would be more than disliked enough. And by the way, why would a sane president ever want to take over the Kenned Center for the Performing Arts? My sense is that Donald Trump’s taste in the arts runs parallel with his taste in food – he likes McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried chicken. I’m not sure how that translates to theatre and opera.
When you get down to it, all my dazed brain really remembers Trump saying on the campaign trail – other than making America great again - was that he was going to lower the cost of eggs. Well, so much for that.
In some ways this tells you what a disaster this last shortened election cycle really was. Trump and Kamala Harris never really demanded answers from one another, they never asked the other to present a fully thought out, straightforward, presidential agenda. This is what I will do, and this is why I will do it. Instead it was a TV show battle of gender and personalities. Did people really know what they were voting for or was it just who? And now, here we are. The world’s new pariah. What’s next? I have no idea. Sometimes if feels as if my mind has stopped working correctly. I’m seeing everything through a battered lens.
I know I’m not alone.
Did you know there’s a new term in the political lexicon now? It’s called TDS meaning Trump Derangement syndrome. It’s defined as the acute onset of paranoia in an other wise normal person that is in reaction to the personality and policies of Donald Trump. Symptoms may include fear, confusion and feelings of hostility so intense they can effect a person’s judgement.
Has my judgement been severely affected? Is it possible America is not going down the rabbit hole? Time will tell.
Give it a few more weeks.