A political lynching
Republicans, led by their president, Donald J. Trump, would have preferred to lynch Barack Hussein Obama—strange fruit in Jeff SessionsLand. That’s what they would have done with uppity types like him back in the good old KKK days. But, for various reasons, hanging black men isn’t an option anymore, so the GOP did the next best thing: If you can’t kill the one you hate, humiliate him. But rest assured, their little vote yesterday in the House was the political equivalent of a lynching.
It capped a few months of “will they or won’t they?” drama, but the result should not have surprised anyone. “Repeal and replace” was the Republican mantra for years, the dog whistle heard by every white supremacist and ignoramus who didn’t understand that the Affordable Care Act (which covered Grandma’s diabetes) and Obamacare (which was a “disaster”) were the same thing. In the end, Trump bribed just enough House members to score a narrow victory.
I try and put myself into the mind of Obama. How is he taking this? Is he humiliated, as a vindictive Trump—pure alpha male–intended him to be? Well, he’s had plenty of time to prepare for it. And there’s still a Senate vote whose outcome no one can predict. Obama is usually the most guarded of men, holding his emotional cards close to his vest. But this has to hurt—has to force him to see it in perspective. He has got to be looking to the future, not the present, to vindicate him: that History will reveal him as the great POTUS I’m sure he believes himself to have been (and I do, too), while also nailing Trump as a catastrophe for America and the world.
The problem is that we are now living in a post-truth world, courtesy of Trump. Things like “facts” that, once upon a time, we all believed in, now are open to debate. Did Obama wiretap him? Nobody really believes it–except his followers, who will believe anything he tells them: He had the biggest inaugural crowd ever; Hillary only won the popular vote because of illegal immigrants voting in California; he never groped any woman’s pussy; RussiaGate is fake news.
And so the Affordable Care Act is on the chopping block. The executioner dons his black mask and prepares. If it were simply a matter of a few Obama laws being overturned or trimmed back, America could get through this. But it’s not just a few Obama things. It’s the way America has been since the founding: rational, progressive, steady. The tea party loves the change. They came to disrupt, overturn, destroy, and they’re doing it. They know almost nothing of the particulars of what’s being destroyed, or how it will affect them, but that’s irrelevant. They like the feeling of destruction. The tea party is the political equivalent of soccer hooligans. Running amok feels great. Smashing things is fun. Blowing everything up is good for the soul. Sowing confusion is something they can relate to: they’re confused, so why should everybody else not be? And in Trump, they have the confuser-in-chief.
One despairs. But never give up, never give in. In times like these, the fact of The Resistance is the only heartening thing. Tens of millions of Americans are determined not to let this bloody fool continue his path of cynicism and fury. I am almost salivating at the thought of him using a nuclear weapon someplace. At least that will lance the boil and force Republicans to ask: Has Trump really been worth it?
“Is he humiliated, as a vindictive Trump—pure alpha male–intended him to be?”
Absolutely not. There is nothing a man as low as Trump could do to humiliate Barack Obama.
JacLyn: of course you are right. Obama has a mature spirituality, a largeness of spirit that helps him rise above the ankle biters.
I am still astonished at the amount of hate in this country for women, minorities, the LGBTQ community, anyone who is not a white, so-called Christian male.
I have been saying this for well over a year, and I still believe it’s true: Trump is a distraction being well used by the truly evil ultraconservatives trying to turn this country into a so-called Christian theocracy, no different than the Sharia law they supposedly hate.
I have to refer to them as “so-called Christians” because I have read both the Old and New Testaments, and I’m pretty sure that the god they purport to love and respect so much said something to the effect of “feed the poor”, “heal the sick”, and my favorite: “It is easier for a camel to go through eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.”
#Resist
Goddess, you and I are of similar mind! I too call them “so-called christians.” I too believe they want a taliban-style christian theocracy, and were they ever to get it, look out! Here comes the burka, christian (and conservative jewish) style. As for LGBTQ, while I don’t think the christians would kill them, I do believe the laws against them would be incredibly harsh. Thank you!