Taking a Deep Breath

Welcome back, dear friends.

It's been two weeks since I checked in with my public journal of Life in Trump's America. Last weekend my husband and I went away to La La Land, where we took in some comedy, some bad ass women's wrestling, and generally avoided anything news-related.

It was great, but in the end the real world caught up to us. It does tend to do that.

I've had a lot of thoughts since returning to Real Life, and believe it or not, not *all* of them have been about the obnoxious Orange One who now inhabits the White House. Some of them have been about chocolate, for instance, and others have been about wrestling.

Indulge me in a divergent train of thought for a moment, reader. Is it weird that at the same time our nation is facing a crisis, one pillar of which is about reality itself, professional wrestling is experiencing a much-heralded revolution? Professional wrestling, an athletic endeavor whose detractors deride as being a "fake sport," is about spectacle and storytelling and seeks to wring emotions out of its followers. 

Professional wrestling is also a big business, and its billionaire administrators have ties to the White House and the Orange One himself. Linda McMahon, wife of WWE owner Vince McMahon sits on Trump's cabinet as Secretary of the Small Business Administration.

President Trump loves to rail publicly against what he calls the "Fake News Media." A very real argument can be made that he and his administration seek to shape public opinion and push policy agendas via the creation of spectacles and sowing fear and discord in our citizenry.

Is that weird? Or am I simply, as is my wont, overthinking this? Is there a connection or am I nuts?

It's weird. Anyhow. Sorry for the digression. 

Actually, no. I'm not sorry, and frankly that wasn't much of a digression. Because the rapidly vanishing distinction between what's fake and what's real--between surreality and *actual* reality--is a central problem to life in Trump's America. I'm no longer talking about the twin rise of professional wrestling and the Trump administration. I'm talking about EVERYTHING about life now. All of it.

Our President last weekend made up a terrorist attack in Sweden. In the past month, his surrogates have also made up terrorist attacks in Kentucky and Georgia.

Trump constantly refers to the media as "fake," and polls that show his low approval ratings as "rigged."

All members of the GOP have taken to pretending that the millions of Americans who now routinely protest this administration are paid agitators. At a conservative conference this past week, NRA president Wayne LaPierre said: 

“Right now, we face a gathering of forces that are willing to use violence against us,” he said. “The leftist movement in this country right now is enraged. Among them, and behind them, are some of the most radical political elements there are. Anarchists, Marxists, communists, and the whole rest of the left-wing socialist brigade.”

LaPierre also noted that “many of these people hate everything America stands for,” including “democracy” and “free-market capitalism.”

All of these activists, LaPierre continued, were funded by left-wing billionaires such as George Soros, and are also “angry,” “militant,” and “willing to engage in criminal violence.”

Read the full article here. 

Friday the White House officially banned many solid, well-respected media outlets (including CNN, NYT, BBC, and more) from its press briefing, but allowed overtly biased outlets such as Breitbart to attend.

FYI: Breitbart's twitter bio is: "News, commentary, and destruction of the political/media establishment."

For comparison: the new masthead of the Washington Post, one of the outlets banned from the White House's press briefing, is Democracy Dies in Darkness.

Did I mention that Steve Bannon, Trump's chief political strategist, was until very recently editor-in-chief at Breitbart? Or that at least two other senior editors from that media outlet now serve the administration in a national security advisory capacity? (Read the Times article here.) 

I could cite many more examples of truth-bending from the Trump administration and its advocates. But I won't. Instead I will leave you with this quote from British politician and social activist Arthur Ponsonby:

When war is declared, truth is the first casualty. 

The revolution will be tweeted. Follow me: @Literarygrrrl

Am I Losing My Effing Mind?

Greetings. We just finished the third week of our new America. We now know that it's possible for the entire nation to live in a state of perpetual shock and outrage for at least three weeks without exploding.

Today is Saturday, February 11. Yesterday I woke up with one question in mind: What horrible thing is going to happen today? What horrible revelation or new Executive Order will come out of the White House today to horrify the nation and dominate the weekend's news?

Because that's been the pattern so far. Two Fridays ago, the Executive Order known colloquially as the Muslim Ban came out and we had a weekend of detentions, deportations, and families ripped apart. Last Friday a courageous judge in the state of Washington placed a restraining order on the ban, so we got a weekend of DJT maligning that judge, and, indeed, the entire judiciary, on twitter. So I knew that something was coming. Something had to. 

And indeed it did. It came to the nation's attention yesterday that Trump's promised mass-scale deportations of undocumented immigrants have begun. As it turns out, the operation began the previous Monday, but it ramped up towards the end of the week. You can read about it here. 

Yesterday when I turned on my car and NPR's Morning Edition poured from the speakers, I heard a report about an ICE detention that happened just two hours earlier less than half a mile from where me and my family live. A family of undocumented immigrants were stopped on the highway. Why? It wasn't reported. The driver, an adult male, was detained. ICE says he has a criminal record, but they won't provide details or evidence. He and his family fought back, and an ICE officer was taken to the ER with minor injuries. I'm positive there will be repercussion from that.

This shook me. I immediately texted my husband with what little I gleaned from the half of the news report that I heard. He looked online but couldn't immediately find any other news. By yesterday evening, however, there were reports coming from around the country.

That's exactly what I thought would happen. That's this administration's pattern: dump scary or ugly news Friday evening to whip the nation into a frenzy and encourage more protests in the nation's cities. That serves two functions: it puts on a big show of force, and it mobilizes the opposition, which will play into the federal government's hands whenever they decide to go ahead and criminalize protests and demonstrations.

Do I sound crazy? Paranoid? That's what living in Trump's America has done to me. But I'm also right. Trump's administration is working hard to divide us, and they're succeeding. There are many, many Americans who will not and do not understand why we are outraged over the start of coordinated, nationwide mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. After all, the laws being enforced predate the Trump administration, and THOSE PEOPLE ARE HERE ILLEGALLY, ANYWAY. This will be the third straight weekend of large nationwide protests, and this time we've gone from marching against a ban on refugees and LEGAL immigrants from specific Muslim countries to marching against deportations of immigrants who came here illegally.

The marches, demonstrations, and protests against Trump's unconstitutional Muslim ban, border wall, and mass deportations are wonderful and amazing and I'm so very, very proud of my fellow Americans. But that's not how everybody feels. And by associating these loud, disrupting events with so-called 'Criminal Aliens' and 'Illegals' will further inflame the passions of the Americans who wish we would all just shut up and adjust to our new way of life. 

News flash: we will not and MUST NOT shut up and adjust to our new way of life.

Even if (when) things get worse. Even if (when) the new administration criminalizes protests. Even if (when) the new administration criminalizes aiding undocumented immigrants. 

We must resist. We must persist.

I ask myself at least twenty times every day if this is real. Is Trump really saying what he's saying? Does he mean what he tweets? Is Bannon really masterminding anarchy? Are they really turning our democracy into an authoritarian regime? Or do they just want us to think so, and to be paralyzed by fear? Because it's really one or the other, right? Surely they don't believe what they're doing is democratic.

I'm trying to train myself to stop asking those questions, and to stop getting trapped into the logical mazes they create. Because, in the end, it doesn't matter. In the end, it amounts to the same thing. The only reason to cripple us with fear tactics is so they can do whatever they want without challenge. 

Whether Donald Trump calls himself President or Fuhrer, and whether Bannon ever steps out of the shadows is irrelevant. They ARE what they ARE: evil, greedy, corrupt, racist, misogynist and hell-bent on a world of chaos.

Last weekend I was demoralized. This weekend I'm ANGRY. Time to #Resist!

The revolution will be tweeted! Follow me ----> @LiteraryGrrrl

Two Weeks Down, An Infinty to Go?

If I had to choose five key words to describe the way I feel after lurching through Trump's first two weeks as president, I would go with:

1. Tired
2. Achy
3. Demoralized
4. Nauseous
5. Irritable

Welcome back to my public journal of Life in Trump's America! Sorry to begin with such an odious tone, but I vowed to be honest with you. I wish I could say that my 5 key words these past two weeks were motivated, self-empowered, powerful, excited, and successful, but that would be a lie and I think we both know it.

The hardest part for me (and maybe also for you) is trying to strike a workable balance between keeping up with my regular day-to-day responsibilities and staying on top of--and trying to fight--every single awful development in the Trump administration. 

So many horrendous changes happen every single day. From sunup to sundown, I'm hit with periodic waves of terrified nausea.

The good in all this, if there is any good, is the tremendous backlash Trump's administration is receiving from the American people. I am so proud of my country for not rolling over.

Congress, on the other hand...

Anyway. Just this morning it came to my attention that the USDA has removed a bunch of information about animal safety from its website. (Click here to read). The information is from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. From the Associated Press article: 

The information is used by advocacy groups and other members of the public to look up information on commercial dog and horse breeders, some of whom have had a history of abuse. The reports included lists of animal welfare violations at those facilities and also at animal testing labs, and whether those violations have been corrected.

Nowhere does it say that the Trump administration forced USDA to do this, but that does seem in line with actions taken by the Trump administration since assuming office. 

Why do I care? My daughter is studying chemistry in college, with the goal of first working for and then (hopefully) running her own cruelty-free cosmetics company. If the government is no longer going to provide the public information on which companies are abusing animals, how can we make informed decisions? Also, it follows that if the government stops reporting on companies who abuse animals, it will likely stop (if it hasn't already) inspecting those companies to make sure animal rights laws are followed. 

And then guess what? Those laws aren't going to be followed anymore.

USDA says the public can still access the revoked information through Freedom of Information Act requests. Oh, really? I decided to test that by making a request.

Aaaaaaaannnnnnnnndddd ran into a brick wall. I will have to return to that later. I am in a considerable amount of pain and this isn't helping.

Now to go analyze the President's tweets, because that's the world we live in now.

See you next time. #Resist

3 Facts About Trump and his BFF Putin

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.