Every morning since November 8, 2016, has been the same. Like clockwork, I make coffee, then I sit down at my computer determined to finish editing my novel. Unfortunately, the endless jaw-dropping news of the day sweeps me into a spiraling tornado that is our country’s seemingly blind march toward ruin.
Once I’m in the news cycle, be it Twitter, Facebook, the New York Times, the Washington Post, usually all of the above, I can’t get myself out.
These are scary times indeed!
But yesterday, I read this article from New York Magazine, and suddenly I realized there is something I can do to change how this is affecting me. That is to do the thing that all of this has been preventing me from doing…to write!
So here I am.
I’ve always been a believer in you make your life what it is. If you’re unhappy, you can just choose to be happy, and voila, the problem is solved. But the unfortunate election of Donald Trump has caused a shift in me that I’m just now—three months later—sorting out.
I’ve never been interested in politics, never paid too much attention to it other than voting my conscience on election day. I honestly believed there was never any need to worry. Sure, I knew corruption, backdoor deals, and endless lies were happening behind the scenes, but I always believed the country was in capable hands.
But now, with Donald Trump as president, there is both corruption and the country is in the most incapable hands ever.
So, having hardly any experience with politics, after November 8, 2016, I consumed everything I could with hopes of making sense of what was happening to the country I love. As with a majority of Americans, I could not—for any sound reason—comprehend how someone so reprehensible could possibly have been voted into office. The concept is mind-boggling. But it happened, and here we are.
So I’ve read and read and read just about everything I could find about how Trump was ultimately elected and who his atrocious cabinet choices are. I also wanted to know how Russia is involved, and in that process of investigation, I discovered Trump has massive ties with China as well. And, of course, there are his vast conflicts of interest with his business empire which he still ultimately has control of, even though he claims as his sons are managing it without his involvement.
We all know Trump lies.
I feel I must mention that I’m not a Republican nor am I a Democrat. I believe I fall somewhere in the middle. First and foremost I am an American, and I love this country. So be it right or left, I just want what’s best for all of us.
But here’s the thing about our two party system and what we as Americans are facing right now, the issue of Trump being president should not, I repeat NOT be a partisan issue.
Trump is dangerous for our country, period.
This is where I’ve had to throw my hands up in the air and walk away a lot in the past three months. There are many people, friends, and relatives of mine, people that I love dearly that are supporting Trump because of party.
I’m sorry, but this deserves a gigantic WTF???
I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around this fact. How can any intelligent person support this embarrassment to our country? How can you look past the fact that he has refused to release his tax returns? How can you ignore his completely obvious ties to Russia and his treasonous behavior? What about his daily lies, how in the world can you be comfortable with a president that is a habitual liar?
And yet, people continue to keep their fingers in their ears, running around like school children saying, “I can’t hear you, la la la la.”
Now, since the resignation of Mike Flynn, National Security Advisor to the President, the wheels of the bus may be starting to come off. Democrats in Congress are demanding to know what Trump knew and when, and they’re pushing for further investigations. The GOP could care less, though. They seem to be putting party before country and continue to bury their heads in the sand regarding this very real problem.
The truth will come out, eventually. It has to. There are too many great investigative journalists and intelligence community members working to uncover this for it not to all come to light, hopefully soon.
And so, we have to wait.
But that’s not all we can do. If any good has come out of this election, it is that the people of our country have woken up. That’s how the election of Trump has changed me, I’ve woken up!
So what do we do now that we’re awake? We need to keep paying attention. Call our representatives, go to town hall meetings, make our voices heard, prepare for the 2018 mid-term elections, and make sure everyone in the House and Senate that voted for and stood by the catastrophe that we’re now in gets voted out.
We need to show them they work for us!
The bottom line is there are many people in this country that don’t care about rights or justice or the truth, and there are many people that are simply uninformed. So we have a long road ahead. But if you feel the same as me, join the resistance, but also make sure to try to pry yourself away from it all every once in a while.
Try to focus on something happy; a good book, digging into an art project, writing, movies that have nothing to do with politics, spending time with loved ones…whatever you can find to distract yourself. Because after a while, working hard against something so evil can become toxic itself.
We will win in the end. Good always prevails over evil.
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PS…if you haven’t already, check out Indivisible. It’s a great source to learn what you can do to help the country get back on the right track.
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