The Trump daymare
Friends,
Many of you are struggling with despair. The level of anxiety, stress, grief, and terror among good people today is in the stratosphere.
Many of my students are not sleeping. Friends are haunted by what Trump and Musk and others in the regime are doing. Others I come across on a daily basis are freaked out. As for me, I’m furious.
Some MAGA types ridicule all this as “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” but they’re wrong. None of us has witnessed this degree of cruelty, this much disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution, this extent of nihilist destruction.
I will continue to give you the best analyses, most helpful advice, and most realistic assurances I can. But please know you are not alone in this nightmare that is now a daily daymare.
The poet Alison Luterman sent me this poem to share with you. (Thank you, Alison.)
At Albany Bulb with Elaine
By Alison Luterman
Side by side on a log by the bay.
Sunlight. Unleashed dogs,
prancing through surf, almost exploding
out of their skins with perfect happiness.
Dogs who don't know about fired park rangers,
or canceled health research, or tariff wars,
or the suicide hotline for veterans getting defunded,
or or or. We've listed horror upon horror
to each other for weeks now, and it does no good,
so instead I tell her how I held a two-day old baby
in my arms, inhaling him like a fresh-baked loaf of bread,
then watched as a sneeze erupted through his body
like a tiny volcano. It was the look of pure
astonishment on his face, as if he were Adam
in the garden of Eden making his debut achoo,
as if it were the first sneeze that ever blew,
that got me. She tells me how her dog
once farted so loudly he startled himself
and fell off the bed where he'd been lolling,
and then the two of us start to laugh so hard
we almost fall off our own log. And this
is our resistance for today; remembering
original innocence. And they can't
take it away from us, though they ban
our very existence, though they slash
our rights to ribbons, we will have
our mirth and our birthright gladness.
Long after every unsold Tesla
has vaporized, and earth has closed over
even the names of these temporary tyrants,
somewhere some women like us
will be sitting side by side, facing the water,
telling human stories and laughing still.
Besides a Pentagon leak, which is really not trivial (mission accomplished, sir/madam, that meeting was cancelled), a lot of citizens – thousands, actually - have been attending Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) and Representative Alexandria Octavio-Cortez’ (D-NY) “Fighting Oligarchy” tour meetings. According to Heather Cox Richardson, on March 21, 11,000 people turned out to hear Sanders and AOC in Republican-led Greeley, Colorado. Another 34,000 turned out in Denver. Greeley voted heavily Republican in November.
In other congressional districts, voters are holding “empty chair” town halls when their representatives don’t show up. Per MSNBC, the progressive organization “Indivisible” is helping to organize town halls in districts where Republicans are avoiding voters. Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski told MSNBC why she decided to speak out at a Wisconsin town hall where an empty chair was left for Republican Rep. Van Orden who voted for millions in funding cuts for people in her state. “How the hell do you get the gall?” was her question.
At New York Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko’s town hall on March 17, a 20-year veteran teacher stood up and told Tonka “When I saw you at (NOAA and the U.S. Department of Education buildings) ...I know what John Lewis would have done. He would have gotten arrested that day...make them outlaw you. We will stand behind you. I will get arrested with you...We will stand with you. ..If you ask us to show up, we will show up in D.C.” and the packed high school applauded and cheered in agreement.
There are also more than 100 lawsuits against the administration, and a March on Washington is planned for April 5th. Billed as a Hands Off mass movement, their website reads “...we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies. Alongside Americans across the country, we are marching, rallying, and protesting to demand a stop the chaos and build an opposition movement against the looting of our country.”
This is all to the good. But it will not immediately oust the White House occupants, nor its funders, nor its Congressional codependents, nor its mugs and thugs.
The issue is how long do any people have in which to depose a dictator? Is the answer not 4 years, not 2 years, not 1.5 years, not 1 year?
Thank you, Robert.