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

3 Reasons Why It's Bad Trump Tweets--But Don't Look Away!

Make no mistake about it -- the revolution will be tweeted.

There were many things that distinguished this year's presidential election. It was longer than elections past, and uglier. It's looking more and more obvious to more and more people that Russian hackers interfered to sway the outcome in favor of Trump. 

But the thing that perhaps most distinguished the 2016 presidential race was the role of social media: Facebook, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Twitter. Social media sites are modern-day salons. They are places where partisans of all stripes go to meet like-minded individuals and have their viewpoints vindicated. And, to an ever-increasing degree, they are places where regular Americans get their news (or fake news, as the case may be).  

Donald Trump was the first American presidential candidate to fully embrace the use of social media in his campaign. For Trump, a through-and-through Twitter man, that meant weaponizing his Twitter account in service of his campaign. Unlike many celebrities of his caliber, Trump has (with few and brief exceptions) always run his own Twitter account. And again, unlike many celebrities of his caliber, Trump has never been above using his Twitter account to malign or complain about the people he doesn't like. And, of course, the election didn't change any of that. 

Only his targets changed.

No one really knew how to treat this sort of a presidential campaign. Not journalists, not the other candidates, and certainly not the American people. This sort of behavior is not part of the traditional political script. But it made an amazing spectacle, so no one could look away. We all just stared--some of us in horror, some of us in glee--as Donald Trump barreled through all of his competition in the primary. When the primary was over, we all breathed a momentary sigh of relief, because surely Trump would change direction during the general election part of the campaign. Surely, now that the partisan circus of the primary season was over, he would start acting more presidential.

But he didn't. And then he won the general election, too.

At that point, many of us were hoping he would announce that is was all a joke. We assumed Trump would tweet that he just wanted to prove that he could win the presidency, and that he would go back to Celebrity Apprentice and resume his regular life. Others waited with bated breath for him to change, to abdicate his Twitter account and start acting more presidential.

Trump hasn't done any of those things. And his Twitter account hasn't changed a bit.

In our last discussion, 3 Reasons We Need to Hold Onto the First Amendment For Dear Effing Life, it was said that we were taking the content of all of the President-Elect's tweets seriously as they were written. For today's argument, we are looking at those tweets themselves. Here, we examine why it is so very awful and scary that our next American president communicates the way he does. 

3 Reasons Why It's BAD that Trump Tweets (But Don't Look Away!)

• The President-Elect weaponizes his Twitter account against particular companies and individual Americans

So far since winning the election, Trump has aimed the full force of his Twitter account against three American companies (not including media outlets, as that is a topic covered in a different post) and a slew of individuals, including the entire cast of the Tony-winning Broadway musical Hamilton. 

Here is a list of the companies and individuals attacked by President-Elect Trump through his Twitter account:

Companies
Rexnord (Trump says they are moving to Mexico)

Boeing (Trump derided the price tag of the new Air Force One they're building)

Lockheed-Martin (Trump complained about the price tag of the F-35 program)  

Individuals
Cast of Hamilton (Trump demanded they apologize for addressing Vice-President Elect Pence after a show)

Alec Baldwin (Trump belittled his impressions of him on Saturday Night Live)

Former presidential candidate Jill Stein (Trump called her a scam artist for calling for a recount of several key states)

Leader of Local Steelworkers 1999 Chuck Jones (The union rep publically--and rightfully--accused Trump of lying about the terms of his Carrier deal)

And here are the President-Elect's actual tweets:

• The President-Elect's public whining about the election reveals him to be thin-skinned 

Every time Donald Trump complains on Twitter about the recount in Michigan, or reiterates what he sees as his "landslide" Electoral College win, or calls Jill Stein a scam artist, or claims he would have won the popular vote, too, had it not been for all of the imagined voter fraud, he makes himself look like an ass to Americans and a weak, easily-manipulated despot to foreign powers.

Which might actually be exactly why Russia worked so hard to install him in the White House.

• The President-Elect's Twitter feed serves as a constant, horrifying spectacle to distract and confuse the populace

Do a Google search for "Evidence that Trump's tweets are a distraction" and you will get just as many hits for news articles that claim they are not mere distractions and need to be taken seriously as you will articles that warn against spending too much time staring at them.

I contend they are both.

Yes, the President-Elect tweets spontaneous, angry tirades when an SNL skit offends him. But also, yes, the President-Elect tweets crafty, well-thought-out messages designed to distract the American public from the fact that, for example, he appointed the racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic head of Breitbart to be his chief White House strategist. Or that he appointed the CEO of Exxon-Mobile to be his Secretary of State. 

This is why we Americans now have the seemingly impossible task of watching the Donald's tweets AND watching the Donald's deeds. It's too big a job to handle alone. This MUST be a group effort. Talk to your friends. Talk to your neighbors. Talk to your family. Form resistance groups. Resistance is patriotic!

We have a long, hard, road ahead of us and we will tire. Nurture each other. Remind each other about the end goal: taking our country back. 

The revolution will be tweeted!

Follow me: @LiteraryGrrrl 

3 Reasons Why Trump's Carrier Deal Should Alarm You

Unless you've been hiding under your bed since Election Day without your phone or any other access to the news or social media, you've undoubtedly heard about President-Elect Trump's recent deal with the Indiana-based air conditioner company Carrier. (Read this if you need a primer on the situation first.)

On Thanksgiving Day Trump tweeted (see picture below): "I am working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A.C. Company to stay in the U.S. (Indiana). MAKING PROGRESS -- Will know soon!"

I don't know what you first thought when you read that tweet. My first thought was: "Huh?" And my second thought was: "How much Carrier stock does Trump have?" And then I might have (probably) called him an unflattering name. 

The thing is, though, Trump's hands-on intervention in Carrier's labor strategy is a really, really bad thing. And now we will take a look at 3 reasons why that is. Our argument will be illustrated with some more of the President-Elect's tweets.

3 Reasons to be Alarmed by Trump's Carrier Deal

• It's not the President's job to negotiate with individual businesses. 

This might actually be the most minor problem with the whole Carrier shenanigans, but it bears mentioning. I don't think there are actual legal prohibitions on the President engaging in such negotiations with individual businesses, but it really just doesn't make sense for him to do so. Not only would it be incredibly time-consuming and tedious to sit down with every company that is thinking of moving overseas one by one and hammering out deals to get them to stay, but the President has more important things to do. That is why, historically, negotiating with businesses has been left to state and local governments. As the heads of their respective economies, mayors and governors are best positioned to do the street-level deal making required in such situations.

The stakes in deals like these are high, frequently involving millions of dollars in tax incentives and potentially thousands of jobs saved or lost. Once the President gets involved, those stakes get even higher, and that leads to the second reason we should all be scared:

• Crony capitalism

We have to ask ourselves why President-Elect Trump made Carrier's labor issues his own personal business. One answer, that we will get into in point three, is most certainly "a craven grab for accolades", but another is definitely crony capitalism. (If even Sarah Palin is saying so it must be true.) 

How much Carrier stock does Trump own? Maybe none, but according to this WSJ article, in 2014 he owned up to $250,000 worth of their parent company. Did that factor into his decision to cut Carrier a deal? Of course it did. 

And what did he mean when he tweeted "They will sell many air conditioners!"? Is Trump going to buy Carrier air conditioners for all of his hotels now? I wouldn't be surprised. Would you? 

In Fortune magazine, the venerable onetime VP nominee Sarah Palin wrote: 

“When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent,” she wrote.

Has Sarah Palin ever sounded so rational? 

And, oh look: it didn't take long for Trump to move from praising one company to denouncing another. Eight days. Then he tweeted this: 

• It's all about the spectacle

Donald Trump the man is a carny. He is long on spectacle and short on substance. Donald Trump the president is shaping up to be largely the same. He has said that he wants to continue to hold rallies as President, and indeed held the first of these on December First in Ohio when he kicked off his so-called Thank You Tour (#ThankYouTour2016).

In fact, the entirety of the Thank You Tour should be concerning to all Americans. The President-Elect is making a tour of states that were key to his win. He is holding huge self-congratulatory rallies in states that he won. Does that sound like the behavior of an American president? Or does that sound like the behavior of an emperor or fascist dictator?

And what better way to kick off a victory tour--because let's be serious, that's what the Thank You Tour really is--than with the backdrop of a victory for American jobs? 

Stick with me for a minute, because this bullet point needs explanation. The reason spectacle is a problem in terms of national policy is because it is used for its psychological effect on the population. History shows us that spectacles have been used to control the population through fear and national fervor. In terms of a Trump presidency, spectacle will likely be used to distract us from the president's YUGE conflicts of interest with his business interests. 

I'd say something about those conflicts of interest but those will have to wait for (several more) posts.

The revolution will be tweeted! 

Follow me: @LiteraryGrrrl