It’s January 21, 2017 and the United States has just inaugurated its forty fifth president. Some people are happy….some frustrated and angry…some are spooked enough to imagine that he’ll be the last…that this man will start world war three and we’ll all be atomized before the end of next year. That’s the trouble with imagination…once you make a little leap…and let’s be honest, with this guy anything is possible…once you make that little leap it’s easy to go all the way to thinking nuclear holo-fucking-caust. Of course imagination is pretty much all we have to go on because in spite of his rants and twitter snits only broad brush stokes of his personal “inclinations” have emerged. Millions of people believe that he said this or promised that but this is a man who can deny today what he said yesterday even if it was caught on tape…He has made millions promising gold and delivering gold paint…or not at all. Now that he’s in the driver’s seat (let’s not talk about “THE BUTTON” or “THE RED PHONE”) he’ll do what all new car owners do. He’ll rev the engine, check the mirrors, turn up the stereo, check the gas and blast that baby straight out of the driveway. And at that point not even he knows where the hell he is going. So how can we?
There’s no point on speculating on the nuclear end of days or the dozens of other full-scale disasters that could be triggered by a rogue emperor penguin and his personally chosen minions. We can see that protectionism and hard core conservatism are on the menu…that global warming and the environment are not (what the hell is “clean coal”?) …and if your home is on a shale slope…your back yard could be fracked. But whatever is deemed to be good for American business will be good for …uh…America? So now we have to look to the notion of American business being the only governing restraint on the new government. But you know….surely not all American businesses…do you think? Anyway it doesn’t sound good for foreign interests…or foreign trade…or foreign affairs.
Well, regardless, the thing is done. As one of my friends said…a short armed, toxic, twitter troll with mad hair and a whole first family that looks like it escaped from an eighteenth century French novel now occupies the capitol. (If they make Barron a baron will he be Baron Barron Trump?) Our task is to learn to live with it all while finding ways to protest and resist the most egregious pieces of business that might flow out of the doors of Washington.
Hating all of this is a bit like hating the weather. Personally I hate winter. I didn’t always hate winter…I used to ski and loved it. But then I ended up in Ottawa and here…there’s a lot of winter to hate. Still one finds a path…between shovelling snow, scraping ice off cars, wading through slush and slipping on icy streets that the city can’t seem to keep clean. Oh and short dark days and wrapping in layers…but one finds ways and even joy with bright crisp days that steal your breath and your heart…and somewhere out there Spring awaits.
Hating doesn’t hurry Spring nor does it soften winter. Being creative, adapting, adjusting, getting outdoors anyway, being smart, gets us through winter. And love…Taking care of each other a little more…paying better attention to those we care for in winter is important. Because winter can be hard. So, the thing is, we can no longer imagine a White house without Trump..a man whose name is a noun an adjective and a verb. And that looks like a long cold winter to me.
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