The other night, we were watching Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. He was going through the résumé of Mike Flynn, ex-general and current conspiracy theory tweeter who was fired (by Obama) from his Pentagon job for incompetence but is the man Trump chose as his National Security Adviser. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Well, maybe not. Trump seems to have a natural attraction to the apples at the bottom of the barrel.
Not only is Flynn openly anti-Semitic, but he’s a frothing-at-the-mouth Muslim hater. He probably also hates immigrants, Latinos, Black people, and Natives because haters usually run the table and hate everyone. And he believes in every conspiracy, no matter how ridiculous and unproven. Appalling that this guy is supposed to protect us. But the most horrible part was that I was laughing as I watched. I was really laughing. Not a giggle, either. A full, wholehearted guffaw.
Things have gotten so bad there’s nothing left to do but laugh. I find myself yearning for the good old days of Richard Nixon. That’s pretty bad.
The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza put it well: “… what we’ve learned so far about the least-experienced President-elect in history is as troubling and ominous as his critics have feared. The Greeks have a word for the emerging Trump Administration: kakistocracy. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as a ‘government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.’ Webster’s is simpler: ‘government by the worst people.’ ”
I could rant. I could impotently shake my fists at the heavens while shouting expletives, but I doubt it would make me feel better. Nothing is going to make me feel better until this awfulness ends. So … I might as well laugh.
There has always been a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle bigotry, hatred, and racism in this country. What Trump did to win the vote of millions of people was to offer them validation. He told them it’s okay to hate. Okay to blame foreigners, immigrants, Muslims. Those People. No need to sweep the ugliness under the rug. You can let it all hang out. With Trump at the helm, hating is okay. You can hate everyone! Welcome to America, land of blatant bigotry.
“Oh no,” you cry. “They were tricked by faux news and fake stories.” You really think millions of people believed baseless, fake “news”? They are that stupid? Maybe it’s because they liked what they heard. Because it confirmed their own prejudices and preconceptions. Truth, facts, and reality were irrelevant. Individually and collectively, these citizens made no effort to make an intelligent choice. They didn’t care if what their candidate said had any basis in fact or even reality. They only cared that it was what they wanted to hear.
Those of you who voted for Trump will have a lot to answer for. The only people who are going to thrive under his administration are his cronies — rich people. The rest of us will be lucky to survive with medical care and a place to live.
I think I’ll go get another cuppa coffee. Read a book. Maybe take a few pictures. It’s going to be a long time before I feel safe coming up for air. There is a lot of hunkering down in our future.
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Categories: #gallery, #Photography, Election, Humor
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Honestly, I think “the system” would prevent such an early attempt to oust a sitting U.S. President from his office.
Fear appears to be the primary motivating factor for those who would have voted for Donald Trump, I’d guess. The media uses fear to create the conditions by which any number of things can happen, it all depends upon who is driving some agenda.
Perhaps capitalism is to blame: ratings mean money and fear means ratings. Perhaps our own lack of personal confidence is to blame: a confident person wouldn’t be afraid of people who are different than theirself. Perhaps globalization is to blame: if companies didn’t outsource our labor to other countries, our own economy would be stronger and people from other countries wouldn’t seem like competitors for our own jobs. Perhaps the Internet is to blame: it’s too easy to move labor to other countries in the first place. Perhaps our own lifestyle is to blame: marketing pressure has taught us that we have to live a throw-away, consumption-driven life to be successful. Perhaps we’re all to blame: we complain without actually attempting to fix things to make them better.
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I’m honestly not sure what point you are trying to make. Would you like to explain?
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I guess the shortest way I could say this is “complain less, do more”. Better?
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I would be more inclined to suggest that always looking for the biggest profit and the cheapest prices/sources are not necessarily the best direction for a country to go. I think most of us work very hard indeed with damned little time off and few benefits. Every country in Europe gives its people a better life than we get here.
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One expects a corporation to want to do that (seek profit without a conscience). At the time of the signing of our own constitution, corporations were distrusted. It wasn’t until 1811 that they went mainstream in America. In a list now of the top 100 global economies, 31 are countries and 69 are corporations. Countries are populated by people who have morals and corporations are entities which have none of that—they’re without a soul.
Back to my original sentiment, unless people are willing to revolt against the global control of our planet by corporations then complaining about it does little to solve the problem. You suggest that “all you can do is laugh”, I would suggest that it’s okay to laugh… as long as you have a strategy first for dealing with the problem.
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Good luck with that.
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I fear for the world. Thank you for sharing your voice! ladyhoodjourney.com and my post http://ladyhoodjourney.com/2017/04/11/the-land-of-the-captivethe-home-of-the-afraid/
I definitely would love your feedback!
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I love everything about this post…i hate everything about the state of our country.
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We are pretty awful these days. I can only hope we get better. Soon. Very soon.
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You speak truth. I have moments when I stop and really process how we got to this point. I worry for my daughter the most. She will be possibly 8 years old with this foolishness.
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The most profound example of “The Peter Principle:. Everybody eventually rises to their own level of incompetence.
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Kakistocracy. Based on the word “kaka”? I keep thinking it can’t get worse, but it can. It does. I’m glad I have a blog, cameras, dogs, and Garry.
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Hunkering down, preparing for the rise of kakistocracy in America.Added a new word to my vocabulary. Hope the ‘disease’ is completely eradicated on or before the end of its four year incubation period . Thanks for sharing. 😀
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Kakistocracy is a great word, but it’s a horrible reality. I’m definitely developing a bunker mentality. What an awful world we seem to have stumbled into.
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We live in interesting times.
Leslie
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I would prefer boring, personally.
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Boring sound good to me.
Leslie
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What would Elvis say?
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Ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog!
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The late great Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher wrote in his song “Bullfrog Blues”
Sit there laughin’,
Laughin’ just to keep from crying.
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I’m sure I’m not alone. I thought this would be awful. It’s so much worse than awful.
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Four years. As British mothers used to advise their newly married daughters, “Just close your eyes and think of England.”
I am aiming for the amnesiac state (“President? We have a new President???”) since there is nothing I can do, and like the drip that you can hear but can’t reach, put out a pan, close the door, and wait for the weather to change.
(Four assassinations, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy) Sorry to be so anal about it, but we don’t want to leave anyone out, here.
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I forgot McKinley. He IS forgettable. I don’t remember how many died in office either, but it was I think around half a dozen. We elect old guys. We’ve elected another old one.
We are in a news moratorium because I can’t deal with terrible news every night at 7. We’ll eventually drift back but for now, I need some air. I’m so glad we live up here where life is likely to remain relatively sane. It is going to be a very LONG 4 years.
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I can’t begin to think how I’m going to cope with the next four years. THAT’S my problem. I THINK!
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Today. and then tomorrow. and then the next day. for various and personal reasons (and not always to my credit) I learned a long time ago to never look further ahead than I absolutely had to. It does help, most times. And since there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it anyway, it’s best not to watch when the surgeon shows up with the scalpel and a gleam in his one good eye…
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I agree. It’s also the only way to stay sane in a world that makes no sense at all.
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Just close your eyes and think of England. Is my new mantra. I love it.
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If we dump Trump we get pence. That’s how our system works.
I told friends at work that Hillary didn’t have this wrapped up, they didn’t believe me.
I’m really worried about the next 4 years.
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We are VERY worried, which is also why I’ve called for a moratorium on news for a few weeks. I need a break. It’s like every day, a new bomb hits. Pence may actually, in his own way, be MORE toxic than Trump because he’s a real politician and a dug-in anti-everyone-who-isn’t-just-like-him kind of guy.
No one believed ME, either.
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We have good reason to worry, Ben.
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I have to be careful what I say being an anglo-swiss, original Brit with Huguenot blood in the veins, but is there not some way you could impeach the red headed nutter and send him to a funny farm to get him sorted out. That is only a mild solution, but other solution might lead the CIA to begin watching my blog.
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I have NO idea what will happen. We haven’t ever unseated a President. We had a couple die in office and three were assassinated. One (Nixon) resigned. Two were impeached, but that didn’t mean they left office. It’s like a seriously bad mark on your report card. You’d have to commit treason or something to get actually removed … and then the majority of your colleagues would have to agree to do it … which I think is pretty unlikely. I think we are just going to have to grind our teeth and hang on. It’s times like this where a parliamentary system is so much more flexible. But that’s not the way our system works. I wish it did.
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If only, Mrs. Swiss.
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