This certifiably awful, annoying, hysterical, factually wrong, ignorant, stupid, smug and inarticulate thing turned up on my Facebook feed last night for the first time. Except for the nice, once intelligent friend who posted it, none of the signatories—there are hundreds—were known to me, but I’m sure that will change now.
I had to wrestle with myself longer than usual not to append a sharply worded comment to it: I would have been the first one. As we have established here in the many posts (too many, I suppose) I have written about the tragedy of Trump Derangement, it is futile to argue with these people, as they are beyond enlightening or reason.
But I know, I KNOW, that many wonderful people I respect, admire and care about will blindly sign on to this statement, manifesto, letter, whatever you want to call it, and that some of them would turn on me viciously if I ventured to point out the document’s undeniable flaws. So I want to treat this as I would a giant wart on a friend’s nose, a birthmark, a stutter, an annoying speech pattern or habitual bad breath, but boy, it’s hard.
So behold the monstrosity!
I’ll have a few additional comments at the end, but it goes straight into the Res Ipsa Loquitur files…
Worth another post, on NO KINGS DAY …I will not be drawn into debate over this post. I am aware of the arguments of people who disagree with the statements below. I am posting this for all those who may be living in fear in this moment so you know you are not alone. I want to share this piece in solidarity.This is where I stand. The 45/47th President, his power-hungry cronies taking positions of authority in his Cabinet and administration, and the majority of Republicans in Congress are a real and active threat to me, my way of life, and all or most of the people I love and care about.Some people are saying that we should give Trump a chance, that we should “work together” with him because he won the election and he is “everyone’s president.” This is my response:•I will not forget how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for 8 years and Biden cleaning up his mess…Lies about his legitimacy and hatred for his principles and his attempts to work within the system.•I will not “work together” to privatize Medicare, cut Social Security, Medicaid or our postal service.•I will not “work together” to subvert the Constitution by illegitimately pushing unfit Cabinet nominees through on recess appointments without the advice and consent of the Senate.•I will not “work together” to build a wall.•I will not “work together” to persecute Muslims.•I will not “work together” to persecute transgender people.•I will not “work together” to shut out refugees from other countries who seek asylum.•I will not “work together” to lower taxes on the 1% and increase taxes and remove services from the middle class and poor.•I will not “work together” to help Trump use the Presidency to line his pockets and those of his family and cronies.•I will not “work together” to weaken and demolish environmental protection or science, or medical care.•I will not “work together” to sell American lands, especially National Parks, to companies which then despoil those lands.•I will not “work together” to enable the killing of whole species of animals just because they are predators, or inconvenient for a few, or because some people want to get their thrills killing them.•I will not “work together” to remove civil rights from anyone.•I will not “work together” to alienate countries that have been our allies for as long as I have been alive.•I will not “work together” to slash funding for education.•I will not “work together” to take basic assistance from people who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.•I will not “work together” to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.•I will not “work together” to eliminate the minimum wage.•I will not “work together” to support so-called “Right To Work” laws, or undermine, weaken or destroy Unions in any way.•I will not “work together” to suppress scientific research, be it on climate change, fracking, or any other issue where a majority of scientists agree that Trump and his supporters are wrong on the facts.•I will not “work together” to criminalize abortion or restrict health care for women.•I will not “work together” to increase the number of nations that have nuclear weapons.•I will not “work together” to put even more “big money” into politics.•I will not “work together” to violate the Geneva Convention.•I will not “work together” to give the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party and white supremacists a seat at the table, or to normalize their hatred.•I will not “work together” to deny health care to people who need it.•I will not “work together” to deny medical coverage to people on the basis of a “pre-existing condition.”•I will not “work together” to increase voter suppression.•I will not “work together” to normalize tyranny.•I will not “work together” to eliminate or reduce ethical oversight at any level of government.•I will not “work together” with anyone who is, or admires, tyrants and dictators.•I will not support anyone that thinks it’s OK to put a pipeline to transport oil on Sacred Ground for Native Americans. And, it would run under the Missouri River, which provides drinking water for millions of people. An accident waiting to happen.•I will not “work together” to legitimize racism, sexism, and authoritarianism.•I will not “work together” to legitimize bullying allied nations, private businesses, or academic institutions to further line the pockets of a corrupt authoritarian.This is my line, and I am drawing it, deep and indelible.•I WILL stand for honesty, love, respect for all living beings, for the earth, and the beating heart that is the center of Life itself.•I WILL use my voice and my hands, to reach out to the uninformed, and to anyone who will LISTEN: that “winning”, “being great again”, “rich” or even “beautiful” is nothing… when others are sacrificed to glorify its existence.Signed:
Ugh. That is even more idiotic than I remembered. My favorite part is the beginning, where the writer announces that he or she is “aware” of the arguments of “people who disagree” with the various assertions that follow and, as a defender of democracy, doesn’t want to hear them. How kingly!
Is the writer “aware” that among those arguments are undeniable proof that almost all of the bulleted assertions are misrepresentations, exaggerations, made-up talking points, fear-mongering nonsense or just plain false? To pick just one example, who in the Trump administration has seriously advocated eliminating the minimum wage, and why is that position worth opposing, since there is absolutely no chance that the minimum wage will ever be eliminated? Or…let’s see…what Cabinet official did Trump use a recess appointment to install? There wasn’t one. In fact, outside of the silly virtue-signalling at the end, which of the bullet points—I count 36 of them—can be factually defended even giving a pass to partisan exuberance? Find one for me, if you can.
I suppose we now know why the “No Kings” demonstrators were so reluctant to specify their points of divergence from President Trump: they knew that had nothing substantive and defensible. Trump hasn’t sought to criminalize abortion. He has never proposed selling off the National Parks to corporations. There is no “voter suppression.” Trump didn’t advocate making more nuclear powers, he bombed Iran to make sure it didn’t become one. When has anyone proposed that the KKK and the Nazi Party get “a seat at the table”?
I half-expected to read, “I will not ‘work together’ to create a subterranean race of mole people.”
The biggest tell, other than the “Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind’s made up” introduction, may be the echo of “common sense regulations on guns.” The writer mightas well have just said, “I have no idea what I’m talking about, this is just stuff I’ve heard people say.”
I really, really, really don’t want to lose all respect for anyone I know who signs this odious turd of a letter. But how do I maintain that respect while having any for myself?
Ethics Alarms 
You actually read the whole thing? Amazing. I scrolled down and did catch the common sense gun control, among other standard issue platitudes. I also liked the not adoring Barack Obama bullet point. They should make this into a yard sign. It will be definitive if illegible.
“You actually read the whole thing?“
Nope!
“I also liked the not adoring Barack Obama bullet point.“
That’s as far as I got; mercifully, that was the 1st.
PWS
Your well bred Facebook friends can’t stand Trump because he’s a totally different breed of cat. He’s a real estate developer. He’s a visionary. He dreams up developments and talks lenders into giving him money to bring them to fruition. But, he might as well be Bert Lancaster in “The Rain Man” as far as your Facebook friends are concerned. He must be scorned. He’s a flim flam man. Your friends are all ridiculously earnest and successful credential seekers and sceptcs and risk averse above all else. They’re also obsessed with getting good grades and being deemed successful. And here this slob is purporting to be entitled to run the country when he’s not one of them. He didn’t even go to Harvard or Yale. Of course, he did go to Wharton, but he’s from the Bronx.
in any event, the derangement among your Facebook friends comes from his negating every assumption they’ve operated under since they were at the top of their kindergarten clas. It’s deep and incurable and genuinely upsets them. Unlike you, i think they are, at heart, despicable.
The best response to screeds like this is not a reasoned response as that would be throwing pearls to a swine.
The AI video of the President dumping waste on protesters from a jet is more on the ball, as that is exactly the level of respect the “No Kings” protest deserves.
Sorry, but I just couldn’t read the whole list — my eyes glazed over about a third of the way through. It was just like the manifesto you posted a few weeks ago on “This is what I believe as a liberal” or whatever the title was. The same rubbish.
Projection is king (hehe) in the progressive world. These screeds are the things their leaders have done, or tried to do, or would have like to do so they assume that Trump must be doing them.
The one that really makes me laugh out loud is the assertion that Trump is only in this to ‘line his pockets’. How many millions or tens of millions of dollars has it cost him to venture into politics. He is that rare politician who will leave office poorer than when he came in. Not that he’ll be applying for food stamps any time soon, but it’s a relative thing.
Yes, that one I find especially unjustified, but I hear it all the time.
That one irks me too. There may be one or two people in politics who are truly in it to be public servants, but I’ve never seen one in my lifetime. Ironically, George W Bush probably comes across as the most genuinely good politician I can think of, and my formative years were spent seeing signs accusing him of being a war criminal.
Every politician is in it for themselves. The sausage-making isn’t pretty at the best of times, and we’re far past the best of times. This isn’t a rationalization–our politicians should, at the very least, try to fulfill their duties with honor and integrity–but to accuse Trump of lining his own pockets is to ignore every other politician in state and federal positions across the United States.
It would be wonderful and more convincing, if the people who post lists like this included footnotes that supported the claims. If that were required by sites like Facebook, it would at least make the lists shorter.
I don’t think Trump is in it for the money, unlike the Clinton’s and Obamas and Schumers and Pelosis, but I suspect the Trump organization is in fact getting development opportunities in all kinds of quasi shady corners of the world. Maybe Indonesia? There’s money to be made in hotels everywhere. Did you know there is a seven star hotel in the capital of Azerbijan? Neither did I until I heard it from some oil reclamation guys doing business there.
At least Trump builds stuff. What did the Clintons do with the 200 plus million the raked into their “foundation?” It’s doubtless in some Swiss or Panamanian or Singaporean bank. Or all three!
“What did the Clintons do with the 200 plus million the raked into their ‘foundation?’ “
The Clintonistas would prefer you not ask HAITI…
PWS
I got to 7 or 8 on the list before I finally gave up. The last thing I want to read is a bunch of DNC-approved talking points, which these are. They are also factually incorrect or extreme exaggerations. Nobody really believes this, and if they do, they are too stupid to draw breath and a waste of my good air. Approval of this nonsense is signature significance of an unserious person with no intellectual heft at all.
At the end of the day, this is just losers losing. They are attempting to cope with the reality that they have no power right now, and are failing miserably at it. The “No Kings” performative nonsense was just old hippies of my generation trying to recapture that powerful feeling of the Vietnam protests, or a bunch of young septum-piercers and girly-men yelling into the void at having to watch a president who is old but not senile run rings around people half his age.
Reminder: I strongly dislike Trump, but I am in favor of most of his policies and absolutely awed by his energetic efforts, even if they are too often infantile. What Trump is not is a decrepit, vegetative, intellectually flabby figurehead unable to complete a sentence (let alone speak extemporaneously) or prone to triggering golden alerts by wandering off aimlessly.
That, at least, is refreshing.
Jack, caould you please provide us the list of presidents who were likeable.
Objectively or in person?
Just offhand, I’d say the majority of them, at least since the popular vote became the main determinant of election.
They’re politicians, it’s their job to be likeable.
On the other hand, the Adams’s…..
I think I pulled a muscle rolling my eyes over “how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for 8 years”. I didn’t read much past that.
I’m trying to remember how Obama was subjected to more criticism/worse treatment than Bush was. Perhaps it was different because his level of perfection made the criticism undeserved.
If I had to write a response to such a screed of inane bullet points, it would follow as such.
To those who refuse to “work together” with Trump, who has actually asked you to support any of the items on your list? It seems to me that you have a very strange idea of “working together”, as though “working together” means leaving your brain at the door and simply agreeing to whatever the current administration has proposed.
“Working together” does not mean abandoning your conscience. “Working together” does not mean betraying your principles. “Working together” does not mean you have to be on board with or a cheerleader for something you disagree with. How, you may ask? What is left to “working together” if we exclude blind obedience?
Allow me to propose what “working together” should look like. First, it means you show up to the political process with your best game. You know the issues inside and out. You know what the opposition is proposing to tackle the issues, and you know the alternatives. You have a decent understanding of consequences, especially if you have insight about those pesky unintended consequences the opposition is either ignoring or has not considered.
Second, it means you use your time and resources wisely. Certainly a filibuster has its place, but sometimes it is grandstanding when honest debate is needed. Certainly at times you need unleash the primordial scream that is demanding to burst out, but when that is where you focus all your time and energy, it becomes nothing more than a temper tantrum. That is time that could be spent in committee, or if not in committee then in the public square winning over public opinion with better ideas, and if not in the public square, then in research so that you can bring forward something better than your opposition is proposing.
Third, it means being an adult. When you are in the minority, you’re going to have to accept there are fights you’re not going to win. Instead of crying over the loss, stand up straight and tall and work to mitigate the loss as much as possible. Screaming at the sky, throwing tantrums in the chamber, running away from your responsibilities, or dressing up in frog or phallic costumes at meaningless rally are all childish, make you look childish, and make it so people do not take you seriously. If you can’t be taken seriously, you can be ignored, and you no longer have the ability to influence anything.
Fourth, understand compromise. Compromise does not mean agreement with opposition, but it is a mechanism in which the worst tendencies of the opposition can be blunted. If the opposition has the votes without you, still look for some kind of deal. There is political capital in a bill that has bipartisan support.
Finally, listen. Just as your role is hone your opposition so their worst tendencies are held in check, so does the opposition hone you. You don’t know everything, and you don’t see from every perspective. The opposition may have valid points, even if they are coated in dross. You might be surprised at how much the opposition will listen to you, if you demonstrate to them you understand what they are saying. But remember that understanding doesn’t mean agreeing! The better you understand the opposition, the better you can counter them. And that starts with listening.
This is what “working together” really looks like. The refusal to work together, aside from seeming childish, is in reality an abdication of your greatest responsibility. So please, instead of telling us what you won’t do, spend your time showing us what you will do.
Excellent comment. I would say COTD worthy. Compromise was at the heart of our republic when it was founded, but it seems to have become a four letter word these days.