President Trump

Like virtually everyone I’ve spoken with today, I’m in shock.  I simply can’t believe that our nation has elected this miscreant, Donald Trump, to be the leader of the free world.  Trump’s victory represents a triumph of ignorance over reason, hatred over tolerance. His campaign has brought out the very worst in us as a people, and I fear we are heading down a treacherously dark path.

The first person I spoke with at work this morning was a colleague who had, like me, arrived at the office early. She was visibly upset and angry.  As a thinking person, and a married lesbian, she spoke of deep concerns that she and her wife shared – will a Trump presidency coupled with Republican control of both chambers of Congress spell the end of marriage equality?  Will the hard-fought gains of every disenfranchised group since the civil rights era begin a long, backward slide toward oblivion?  How can any woman have voted for Trump?  We pondered that question together and came up empty; it was incomprehensible to both of us.

What lessons has this election cycle taught our children?  That the meanest bully wins?  That no matter how reprehensible one’s words and actions may be, they won’t matter in the end?  We’ve elected this man to the highest office in the land; the only logical conclusion to be drawn is that it is acceptable to brag about having sexually assaulted women, to describe these assaults in the most vulgar imaginable language, to have all of that recorded and made public, and to still expect the job – whatever “the job” may be – because after all, every other job in the country is of less importance than the presidency.  There simply are no consequences for egregiously misogynistic words and [self-described] actions.

What can we expect in the foreign policy arena from this man whose narcissism compels him to brag about the size of his penis during a presidential debate, or to send 3 a.m. tweets about Saturday Night Live skits that displease him?  How will he behave when sitting across a negotiating table from Kim Jong-un?  Maybe, with great luck, we as a nation may manage to avoid sending our soldiers to fight and die in yet another pointless, unwinnable war on foreign soil. Or, alternatively, maybe my daughters will be among the first women to be drafted when our all-volunteer military has been spread too thin to deal with an onslaught of self-inflicted foreign threats.  The possibility is not beyond the realm of imagination.

Today, my social media feeds are awash in Monday-morning-quarterback comments about the election. Amidst the vitriol, there are many noble, conciliatory posts along the lines of “give him a chance.”  Okay.  Fine.  We will give him a chance.  We really have no choice, have we?

 

As I ponder this, I’m reminded of two memorable, long-ago presidential elections:

1980: Ronald Reagan won in a landslide victory over Jimmy Carter.  I remember being stunned.  Being 21 years old, Reagan was, to me, some ancient B-Grade film actor who had done a stint as governor of California, whose politics were reactionary, far-right, and dangerously hawkish.  He seemed, to me, a joke.  I was astounded – and very upset – by his victory.  I couldn’t believe that this cartoon-character buffoon with a head full of Brylcreem was to be our new president.  If I'd had a blog at the time, I probably would have written a post very much like the one you're reading.  For the record, I “wasted” my vote on third-party candidate John Anderson, for reasons that made sense to my 21 year-old self, which I can no longer recall.

So yes, I see parallels between Reagan in ’80 – or at least my perception of him – and Trump today; although I think we can all agree that Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan.  Still, I suppose the possibility exists that Trump may surprise on the upside.  We’ll call this the Happy Path.

On the other hand… the other long-ago election that comes to mind was 1972, Nixon vs. McGovern, at the height of the Vietnam War.  Nixon was re-elected in an absolute rout.  McGovern carried only one state – Massachusetts.  By the time of the election, the seeds had already been sown for the Watergate scandal that would soon unfold.  Nixon resigned in disgrace.  When I first arrived in Boston to attend college in 1977, there were still many cars on the roads bearing my favorite bumper sticker of all time: “Don’t Blame Me, I’m from Massachusetts.”

The Trump / Clinton race was far from a landslide, so I doubt we’ll see a resurrection of that particular bumper sticker anytime soon.  Still, with Trump facing multiple active lawsuits on countless fronts, stemming from his business practices and personal conduct over the course of many years, it’s conceivable that he may one day soon face his own Waterloo (or Watergate,) and that history may more closely associate him with Richard Nixon than with Ronald Reagan.

Time will tell.  Until then, we can engage in catharsis – I feel better already - and, hopefully, healing.