In this log, I will update on events leading up to the inauguration because it feels like we are living in a limbo, a fast creep from freedom to tyranny. A fast decent from a civil society to one that is out of control.
The log is written backwards so to read from start to finish, scroll to bottom and then scroll up.
Day 73… The End.
Day 72, January 19th
Last day of Obama.. We heard Tom Price deny his inside dealing: buying stock of a company and then pushing for a bill to help that company by pushing up prices for the products of the company meant to be used in hip surgeries instead of lowering them for the public. At the same time, Trump has already begun gutting the Dept. of Justice cutting lawyers working on race, women and environment.
Day 71, January 18th
Rick Perry goes before Congress and doesn’t even know what Department of Energy does. He couldn’t even do his homework… Such incompetent cabinet has never been in this country. My hope is that US population will finally understand just how much the government does in order for us to be a developed country.
Day 70, January 17th
Betsy DeVoss goes before Congress, she has no idea what’s going on in dept of education but she will be sure to profit. There has never been so much clear conflict of interest and corruption.
Day 69, January 16th
Today is MLK day and I feel an awakening, we see people wanting to protest and resist. There is a feeling of a movement from the population far and wide as we see the numbers climb higher and higher into dissatisfaction. Trump should have gotten a puppy if he wanted positive attention. I don’t think he knows what it is like to have an entire country hate him. He had it all, a show, fame and money. But he got greedy, he wanted the presidency but the presidency is a sword of Pericles, if you can’t handle it, it will destroy you. Too many people around the world depend on him doing well and he can’t do well, he’s just not capable of it. His every move is liked by only a few and the rest from across the country hate it. So here is a man who is now hated across the board. He has ruined himself and anyone associated with him. No one will perform at his inauguration except the most corrupt and greedy. The office just might destroy him if he doesn’t destroy us all first. He wants to dismantle UN and NATO. He will go too far and the powerful will stop supporting him. His band of NAZIs are not the Brownshirts of Hitler, he has screwed too many, too quickly.
Day 68, January 15th
More buses have been ordered by women’s march than for the inauguration. The Democratic party is not considering Trump legitimate. His lashing out at the media is beginning to not be as effective, we are seeing a serious move by the country to leave him.
Day 67, January 14th
Democrats have unanimously risen up against the Republican desire to gut ACA. They have all gone to speak out against it during the vote. Meanwhile Russians have shown just how much they control this country by cutting off power to Congress as soon as a Congressman mentions investigating Russia and a Russia Today feed replaced the CSPAN feed when Rep Waters mentioned that Trump is handing the keys of Wall Street and economy to Russia.
Day 66, January 13th
Day 65, January 12th
Day 64, January 11th
Trump says he is creating a blind Trust while putting his son-in-Law Jared Kushner as the senior advisor in conflict with Nepotism Law. The Trust meanwhile is meaningless according to the Ethics Department. He doesn’t take questions from reporters, he doesn’t feel he has to explain anything to American people even when his approval is at 37%, the lowest of any President and he isn’t even president yet. Is he doing this on purpose? Why is the Congress following him? What is going on with our reality?
Day 63, January 10th
Buzzfeed publishes an unverified account of Trump and golden showers. Russia supposedly has Kompromat (compromising info to blackmail politicians on Trump). News that would see, insane except not to us, not today, not with Trump. There seems to be nothing that can touch him. Gen Mattis committed war crimes? That’s ok. Sessions is a racist homophobe without respect for voting rights and women’s rights? That’s ok. The ethics committee disbanded? That’s ok. Repeal the ability for 20 million Americans to have affordable healthcare and then ban ability to measure economic impact of that action, that’s ok. How do we fight this? How is enough enough?
At the same time, Obama gives a farewell speech to the country that is possibly his best speech yet and we can see that from his dealings with Trump he is more worried for the Democracy, not less.
Day 62, January 9th
I’m writing this on January 12th and things are so bad that I literally cannot remember the horrible things that happened three days prior. It’s just one horrible day after another. The entire country seems to be on its way out.
Day 61, January 8th
I was sitting in my best friends Hot Tub, and we were discussing Trump and I was reminded of Truman when Truman didn’t think that Russians would ever create an atom bomb, which they did in a matter of a year. Trump doesn’t think that North Korea will make one that can reach US which they claim they have. When he does believe them, will we be hit by it or will we have struck them killing millions? My best friend only a few days before was saying how he as a lawyer making $250k will win big because he will get a tax break. But his hopes of a good life are sinking. He plans to divest of his stocks by inauguration day because he knows that when the repeal of Obama care goes through, Insurance companies will loose 20,000,000 subscribers sending healthcare into a tailspin. He knows that if a nuclear war happens in a country where we have 2% of people capable of providing food for the 98% as opposed to 1900 when 41% was employed in agriculture. My friend himself said that even with his plot of land, he would not be able to grow food and even if he could it wouldn’t be enough to feed himself or his wife. He kept saying “We’ll see, we’ll see, I’m hopeful.”
“How hopeful are you?” I asked…
“Not very” he replied.
Neither am I…. 12 days of freedom to go.
Day 60, January 7th
So for the first time since the cabinet appointees were required to submit their financial and ethics paper work, have the nominees not submitted their paperwork to the Congressional committees that are about to conduct their hearings. We are about to see the most corrupt process take place which will allow people with questionable ties, finances and allegiances take power of United States government. The electoral process failed us by discounting popular vote, then the Electoral College failed us by not taking a look at the conflict of interests or the preparedness of the candidate and electing him anyway, and now congress is failing us by allowing this corrupt President Elect to nominate people who are neither qualified for nor meet the ethical standards to hold the offices which they are about to take. The disintegration of this country and the institutions built for the people and by the people for 250 years is literally happening before our very eyes.
Day 59, January 6th
SEC chairman nominated by Trump is a Wall Street lawyer. Might seem good, to have the guy who has been trained to advise companies on ways to avoid SEC to head SEC. To have a man with connections and friends and people he knows, people whose wrong doing he protected to now go after them, a man with so many conflict of interests that going in to work at the SEC building as a janitor would be a reason not to have him there will now protect our entire financial system. Take your money out of the market, because the integrity of the market is gone.
Day 58, January 5th
Day 57, January 4th
Trump takes credit for forcing Ford to close down a plant in Mexico which Ford disputes but is alarming, then he says Toyota will have to pay tariffs for cars that it produces outside of US and Toyota quickly jumps, dictating to companies what they can and cannot do, something that Republicans felt the government had no right to do but apparently have the right when the government is controlled by the Government. Fascism in its purest form is taking place without a shot being fired. American people have been pacified by internet and TV to the point that they barely care and are barely aware of what is happening around them.
To some of course this is good, this is the forceful tell all what they should do and they do it America that they want. But this is short-term thinking, this will not last and what will happen when this disintegrates? Who is to know…
Day 56, January 3rd
Trump sides with Assange and keeps ignoring the intelligence services and undermining public trust in them. He nominated a person dedicated to undermining the economy. We are about to enter a dark dark time.
I was giving a ride to a couple of Navy Service men. I guess our ships are breaking down as they are aging, they have their concern and feel that their pay will go up with Republicans. However, they fear war. They see Trump and his rhetoric and know that they will have to bear the brunt of it. To him, they are just words but to them, it is their lives on the line. I am glad we have such intelligent and dedicated people in our military. They really are the patriots of patriots, putting their lives on the line regardless of what others say.
Day 55, January 2nd.
Gave a ride to a few people and a girl believed the fake news about Hillary. She had a piercing in her nose, seemed to be liberal and even she was convinced. I said: “If she really controlled the media and did all that she was accused of, is she was really that powerful, she would have won.”
The girl paused: “Yeah, I thought of that too, totally. I agree.”
Fake news can creep into our minds, we want to believe in the fake because it explains reality better. There are no loose ends, it is tidy and simplistic. The bad guys are clear and the good guys are clear, but it is fake, it is nor real, it does not lead us to the right place.
Day 54, January 1st.
Twenty days of freedom left. It is becoming more and more surreal that we are only 20 days away from autocracy.
Day 53, December 31st.
Trump tweets hatred to his enemies and a happy New Year as well as charges $500 for people to attend his New Years Eve.
Day 52, December 30th.
Day 51, December 29th.
Day 50, December 28th
Trump accused Obama of putting barriers before his administration. I don’t know how, he has been the one to comment on every action by Obama. He has been taking credit for economy when he hasn’t done anything. I feel that he is shaping our world into his reality. How he sees reality is literally insane. It is a world devoid of any morality or honesty and all whom he attracts are equally devoid of honesty and morality. The hawks of Israel are the only ones who seem to want him but their happiness will be short lived. War will be the life of Israel for the next four years as it was during Bush’s administration.
Day 49, December 27th
Republicans snuck in a provision into Pentagon funding bill to allow ex General “Mad Dog” Mattis to be a Secretary of Defense. This is an end to civilian controlled military. There is a reason why the seven year minimum is there, to allow the officer enough time out of military to weaken military control and influence on them. This consolidates power of the military over the country and politics.
Day 48, December 26th
Day 47, December 25th
Day 46, December 24th
Obama administration for the first time in over 30 years did not veto an anti-Israel resolution. Perhaps because it doesn’t matter anymore to piss off the Jewish vote, or perhaps because all who care voted for Trump. Either way, it was a bit weird to agree with Trump.
Day 45, December 23rd
Day 44, December 22nd
Day 43, December 21st
Stephen Bannon basically hacked the system. They used technology to co-opt public opinion. Democrats with their high and mighty opinions of their forwardness lost this battle in a way where Republicans used Google and Facebook to manufacture consent.
Day 42, December 20th
It was a bit surreal to realize that he will be the president. I was numb for many days, I simply don’t know what to do.
Day 41, December 19th
Trump is elected. Last hope was gone by mid-day in California. It’s real now. Electoral college doesn’t see a problem with the conflict of interest, or the hate or the misogyny. Saddest day in my 24 years living in this country.. Scariest day is till 9/11.
Day 40, December 18th
Tomorrow we find out if we live in an authoritarian state or continue to live in a free country. It is surreal and feels powerless. The election day you feel like you have power and ownership but on December 19th you realize you don’t have power. Some 55 people in your stay and 500 or so people around the country who are unknown to us, who are elected by people we don’t know in a process we have no influence over will decide the fate of the world. I had hope, I still have hope but it is anti-thetical to the process of liberty and democracy where you put hope into someone instead of trust.
Day 39, December 17th
More diplomacy blunders as Trump tweets to China to keep the underwater drone that they picked up in the South China sea. It is frighting to realize that this is how things will be and that there are people who want him to be president. That are country is so partisan that common sense is gone, that people are so ignorant that they prefer this to be how we act as a country than let someone from another party win. Perhaps this is Karma for all the wrongs America has done, perhaps we deserve this president.
Day 38, December 16th
North Carolina elected a Democratic governor. The governor had ability to influence gerrymandering and districting. Not anymore. During a last minute session they stripped their executive and judicial branch of powers because suddenly, they are not getting things their way. It is another sign that Democrats are not to be trusted with power, that power is reserved only for Republicans. It is a desperate but also dangerous tactic. Meanwhile Trump dismisses all national security advisors who say Russia hacked US. It seems like he is so sure that electorates will not vote for him that he can be as irresponsible as he wants to be and America will still be dumb enough to vote for him. I feel like his bullying is actually working on people. His brazenness makes everyone feel powerless and takes away any ability for people to face him. He paints all who face him as miscreants and degenerates and dehumanizes all who have any objection. An authoritarian ruler is about to become the ruler of the United States. I can’t say President because he isn’t. Not in any way that Washington or Adams envisioned the office. He looks and acts like a king, he sees himself as a king.
Day 37, December 15th
It is a little strange to live in California. I can’t speak about the basic thing like who voted. I can be shouted down pretty quickly by an pro-Trump voter. But even those who voted against Trump will quickly say: what’s done is done, get over it. I feel like I have to sensor myself at a time when our voice is the only thing we have left and we may loose it. Newt Gingrich seems to be going on attack against “Liberal media” which is only named that by Conservatives to deligitimize it. Most media is center, right in between Jill Stein’s green party and Tea Party but anything not conservative is automatically Liberal. This is why it is so difficult to discuss things with conservatives, as soon as you disagree you are labeled a brainwashed liberal, your ideas are worth nothing, your view point means nothing and you might as well not be alive. You count for nothing. It is a scary situation as we seem to be driving face first into a single-party system.
Day 36, December 14th
Trump tweets that 3 million voted illegally and everyone believes it (or at least 60% of Republicans seem to). Facts are no longer important, anyone with experience and expertise is no longer an authority on their area of expertise. Word of corporation is worth a million scientists. We are in a post fact world.
Day 35, December 13th
There has yet to be a day without a scandal. Back in the day each one would be good enough to destroy careers. If we have this now, how will it be when Trump actually gets into office and begins to have actual impact. His first impact will be to leave me without insurance. Being a start-up entrepreneur means relying on subsidies but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that once he undoes ACA.
Day 34, December 12th
Trump tweets and billions disappear from valuation of Lockheed Martin. Congress begins to move on investigating Russian hijacking of our election. The people who voted for Trump, the patriots who want to Make America Great Again don’t seem to care and point to “what about Bill, what about Obama” instead of looking at what is happening. My friends who were in the government or were applying cannot make up their mind to stay or go.
Day 33, December 11th
My friends who were working in organizations focused on developing democracy abroad and helping fight dictators are now looking how they will use their skills to do their work in United States. Each candidate picked is worse than the previous. A friend of Russia and Oil Executive and billionaire will be a Secretary of State. Goldman Sax CEO will be in charge of economy, a man who has been dessimating labor is in charge of Labor. It’s a complete dismantlement of a government by the people and for the people and a creation of a government by the corporations and for the corporations.
Day 32, December 10th,
Surreality is taking hold. The woman to be in charge of Small Business administration is the CEO of WWF (the wrestling company, not the wildlife fund. We are dealing with insanity, literaly insanity. Meanwhile Trump will outright lie that millions of illegals voted and people believe him and discredits the intelligence services not only by not going to the briefings refusing to understand or hear the threats in a similar fashion to Bush, but completely discredits their analysis by calling it fake when they say that Putin fixed our election. What we have is Bush II on steroids. Meanwhile he continues to travel around the country giving his election speeches.
Day 31, December 9th
Corruption has been normalized. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is officially a risk factor for companies. Meanwhile alt-right is now on a speaking tour around college campuses saying that he wants the racist movement to be a majority movement. Right now he only attracts majority protesters, but who knows for how long. Fake news retweeted by Trumps pick for NSA has caused a person to be shot in a pizza shop because the fake site said Clinton was running a child pornography ring out of it and people still believe it. Things will get far worse before they get better. And worst of all, Trump has shown to not care at all about our security by getting only four daily security briefings in five weeks.
Day 30, December 8th
EPA chief wants to undo EPA. Michigan passes anti protest law. Richard Spencer now is going on speaking tours where he can promote genocide. Trump’s Labor Secretary is the CEO of Carl’s Jr, meaning the person most against labor, who would love nothing more than make workers as poorer and less empowered. The person in the government who is supposed to look out for workers is the person most interested in destroying the worker.
Day 29, December 7th
The pipeline was stopped! Or so we thought. The DAP continued building, they just have to pay a small fine. Trump was alos named Time man of the year. It would have been horrible for that to happen but it became worse when it was pointed out that they made him look like the same cover of Hitler. It is my hope that they are only a like and that Trump is not worse. Generally when America has a bad president, millions of people die. Having watched the Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone, it became clear that American presidents who are good, kill thousands innocent people and those who are bad, kill millions.
Day 28th, December 6th
Trump gets angry at Boeing and his tweet actually crashes the stock temporarily. Trump can now pick and choose companies. He is flexing his muscle showing his power, his ability to pick winners and losers. This looks a lot more like communism. Another “communist” move is Trump paying 7 million to Carrier for 800 jobs, while 1300 will still be shipped to Mexico and the 800 will still be cut through automation. So basically it is just a 7 million tax break for a corporation. I don’t know if this is fascism or communism. Perhaps it is just Trumpism: the worst of all worlds.
Day 27th, December 5th
Trump nominates a Betsy DeVoss who wants to destroy education system after Michelle Rhee decided to bow out, very few people who are qualified join Trump. Another person to join him is Carson. Carson admittedly has never run anything and will be responsible for our housing and transportation.
Day 26, December 4th
In the next bout of foreign blunders, Trump endorses Duarte’s war on drugs. Basically vigilante and extra legal massacre that has been going on which has claimed thousands of lives and massive human rights abuses. If he can condone that kind of action there, he can condone that here.
Day 25, December 3rd
Trump takes a call with Taiwan. Apparently Taiwan has been working with Bob Dole to create this call. It’s a big deal because this hasn’t been done since 1979. The fact that it is on purpose will surely piss off China and is a scary sign of how things may go as far as foreign diplomacy.
Day 24, December 2nd
A congressman puts in a bill to prevent trump from being inaugurated due to his conflict of interest. I am starting to seriously consider of taking all my communications off non-encrypted transmission by January if electoral college votes for him. Somehow I feel that he can screw over enough people that that may still happen.
Day 23, December 1st
We find out about Trump’s conflict of interest. He is great at diverting the story. He tweets late at night knowing that everyone will have to write about the tweet and drown out the main story of his immense conflict of interests. We also keep finding out about his ability to double-talk. Apparently in a report to build a sea-wall in Scotland, one of the reasons is Global Warming. Yet he nominated a Global Warming Denier and a person of no scientific training to head the EPA.
Day 22, November 30th
Trump announces his Secretary of State a general with nicknames like “Mad Dog” and “Chaos”. He fired someone because they weren’t aggressive enough. The only positive, he’s not a fan of torture. He also can’t be a secretary of state because he hasn’t been retired for seven years. But rules have never stopped Trump. Meanwhile we find out that Trump has investments in the pipeline so we know how that will end.
Day 21, November 29th
Trump’s ability to navigate naysayer is dangerously scary. Even my friends are considering of going to work for them. He, like Hitler is giving people a chance at a government who never had a chance before, for good reason: they weren’t good or qualified people. My friends are very good and qualified and they are of age where they can join the government and they are but I fear for their conscience and their career of what that might mean, of what they might be forced to do.
Day 20, November 28th
The first delegate to say no has come out and resigned. I am starting to have stronger hope that the system will stop him. At the same time I see how many people are coming on board with Trump because he is offering them a chance at the pie and so that dismantles the idea that they will vote against him. His unpredictability is his key strength. He is water, he molds to any cup and even though people see this they feel that they can mold him and get their way not realizing that because he is in so many cups, the only thing of substance are his words. I fear they will elect him on empty hope.
Day 19, November 27th
Castro is dead and Trump celebrated it with a tweet. Followed with tweets that claimed that 3 million illegal aliens voted illegally. When he was asked to back up his false claims, he said that the journalists should look it up. Sending knights to find shrubbery as it would be the case in Monty Python. This whole fiasco feels like a Monty Python. A scandal breaks, he tweets, scandal shifts to something mundane. The only fix: Twitter ban Trump.
Day 18, November 26th
It’s Thanksgiving Day. There is of course news. Israel is on fire, people protest in North Dakota but it is hard to describe how each day feels. The anti-semitic attacks increase against people and reporters, we see Trump ditching his press corps, we see him pick more and more unqualified candidates. Every day is a fresh trauma and every day there is hope that perhaps all of this will not come to pass. But the only way to accomplish that is to actively try to keep it from happening. Given how Trump is going back on all of his promises, the question is, will his own hubris be to blame for his own collapse?
Day 17, November 25th
Jill Stein files for the recount and Trump announces another pick for the White House which can be called a White-er house given the amount of white people who are going to be running it. He picked a billionaire for education post who has no education experience who endorsed the supression therapy for gays. At the same time, who knows what is going on in the White House as the room of angry white men seems to get angrier as they vie for positions in the cabinet.
Day 16, November 24th
Thanksgiving day arrives while Native American people protest the pipeline. Emboldened police troopers shoot protesters with rubber bullets, concussion grenades and douse them with water in sub-zero temperatures. Makes me realize that this feeling of authority that we see in border areas where police feel they may do as they please is beginning to spiral out of control. Meanwhile police officers are being shot at ever greater numbers to the point that it barely makes the news. At the same time, anti-establishment Trump is getting chummy with Paul Ryan who wants to dismantle Medicare, the one reason why people are able to get medical care as they age and why young people don’t go broke trying to care for their parents.
Day 15, November 23rd
Trump meets with New York Times, disavows alt-right, says Breitbart is just another publication and Bannon is not a racist or gives platform to racists. He goes on to say that Global Warming doesn’t exist because of disproved emails and that him running his business empire will not pose a conflict. He says it means nothing to him and at the same time too complicated and too big to sell and he can’t have a blind trust because he has to see his kids. Meanwhile more allegations of possible electronic voter fraud and Jill Stein manages to raise enough to have a recount in Wisconsin and Barbara Boxer puts in an amendment to scrap electoral college.
Day 14, November 22nd
Shit hits the fan with neo-Nazis meeting in Washington DC and proclaiming a violent genocide of all non-whites in United States and at the end proclaiming Heil Trump. The world finally sees the true face of alt-right but alt-right in a Trump fashion calls the salutes just exuberance. In good news though, Obama gave Congressional Medals of Freedom to people who probably wouldn’t get them from Trump, like Ellen DeGeneres and Michael Jordan.
Day 13, November 21st.
Trump shows that he is as stable of an ally he is by becoming angry with Israel and cancelling his trip when Netanyahu said he disagreed with Trump’s stance on registering Muslims. He said he would loosen laws of libel undermining press, and when he met with the press called them liars. Another person who called them liars is a man who leads a white power group which held a convention in Washington.
Day 12, November 20th,
Trump finds a new way to get media to back off his lawsuit by getting in a Twitter war with Hamilton show when they asked VP-elect Pence to remember that gay, white, black and all other types of people are Americans too. Trump demanded the apologize which quickly dropped the lawsuit to the bottom of the news pile. We learned the work of fake news to undermine Hillary Clinton, the fact that most people but especially Trump supporters rarely check sources or facts. This in combination with the echo chamber of the Facebook creates a debilitating effect on truth. We saw it play the other way when reports of Trump talking business with Argentina was a false rumor that spread like wild fire.
Day 11, November 19th.
Blind Trust is eroded even further as photographs are leaked of Ivanka being in the room with Japanese PM. Trump settles a fraud lawsuit with students of his Trump University which allows him to take a $25Million tax deduction. He then explodes at SNL on twitter for how they portrayed what they imagine as a very disorganized process and a President-elect out of his depth.
Day 10, November 18th.
We learn that the “blind trust” is not so blind as Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Trump, son of a convicted criminal who bribed Harvard to get Jared into the school is part of the transition team as well as Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Erick Trump. All of whom are supposedly not supposed to be part of politics if they are part of the cabinet as that would defeat the purpose of blind trust. Lack of Blind Trust creates a corrupt system akin to that of Putin’s Russia. We also learned of a pick for Attorney General would be Jeff Sessions, a well known KKK supporter.
Day 9, November 17th.
Today felt better, I don’t know why but it did. Even though Trump went after New York Times and began to tweet again, it felt as if people are mobilizing to fight and things are still ok. I listened to a great interview of David Axelrod and another one with Simon Sinek and realized, we were all a little too late. However, I think there is a hope, there is a hope that he is the kind of motivation for us to do good as Obama was for him to do evil. The man and his actions and words seem to be truly evil, especially after watching Megyn Kelly describe how his staff encouraged violence against her. This will be a hard fought battle to keep this country great. And yet, people like Warren Buffet seem unfazed while the hate crimes continue to sky-rocket. It seems racist white people have completely lost it in this country.
Day 8, November 16th.
On this day we saw a complete disarray in the Trump white house. He cannot find decent people to join his administration so he literally opened up 4000 jobs for anyone on the internet to apply. A lot of people began to mobilize. Robert Riech and Elizabeth Warren unleashed a campaign and even Glenn Beck began to strongly speak out. We learned about the work of fake news through Facebook and how people’s false misconceptions and choice were only further ingrained by Trump. I began to work on an anti-hate hotline again and that gave some reprieve from the torrent of bad news that won’t stop coming. From the registration of Muslims and justification by comparing to internment camps to the billions of dollars it would cost to apprehend illegal aliens, tax the poor and single parents and build a useless wall. I decided to write up why people fight this, why it is so important to oppose the terrible policies and pics of this president:
https://medium.com/@samphittle/why-protest-736f8077319f#.y67vo667r
Day 7, November 15th
It’s fitting that only a couple months ago I was at the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles and saw the diary entries and the overall display of Anne Franks life. How lucky are we to have had an amazing writer like her put down into words he life as it neared it’s untimely end. This is how this feels and I hate it. It is a passive way to see the end of our freedom. Every day, the actions of Trump show that he is not interested in leading the country to Greatness but to consolidating his power by putting into power people whom he can control. Secretary of State Giuliani seems more like a way to hit Hillary than do advance our diplomacy. Myron Ebell a Global Warming denier to head one of the most important administrations in our Federal Government seems a way to destroy our system, not reform it. It is just one horrible news after another.
Day 6, November 14th
First day was shock, then denial, then anger and then shock again. We are not able to move on with this trauma because it is never ending shock. Trump meets with Obama and appoints Rince Priebus and seems like things might be ok, then he appoints Bannon, a white nationalist as his chief council as if we’re 1930 Germany and Hitler appoints Goebels. We are in a time of global warming and he wants to drill more and give EPA to someone who thinks Global Warming is a hoax and has no scientific background. In the morning he attacks New York Times and Kellyann Conway, a name I hoped to never remember, threatened Harry Reid with legal repercussions for speaking his mind: “speak carefully” she said.
The dictatorship has over sixty days but the wheels are turning on this locomotive. The worse they act the more the hope is for the country to wake up. Yet, my echo chamber of Facebook screams anti-Trump and I assume none of this information gets into the Facebook of Trump supporters.
We realize that this was a racist overturn because none of Trump moves towards establishment and bettering the rich makes a dent in his support. The FBI sees a rise in hate crimes to which Trump said “stop it” and joy over takes many as Bannon steps in and people like Gingrich and Rabbi Shumli Boteach find ways to twist to excuse his racism.
Day 7 preview: http://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/11/15/13637936/anti-semitic-propaganda?utm_medium=social&utm_content=ezraklein&utm_source=facebook
Day 5, November 13th.
Weekends are nice. We relax with family and friends and forget about politics. Except not anymore. Bush was terrible for my family. It was endless fights. Yet Obama was like a blanket of peace. We’d have small tiffs here and there but it was overall civil. Going for Shabbat to my parents home now was a bit of war. My dad called Hillary a crook who he would never vote even though he had no proof of anything she had done. This was Friday so come Saturday Steph and I try to check out a protest but no one is there but we check twitter on Sunday and find one. It was a small protest, maybe 150 people.
The crowd is nice and the ideas are diverse, everyone is fairly happen and only a few times some tiffs break out. Mostly between the organizer and some anti-police protesters who carry signs that say “Fuck the Police.” We walk down the street chanting Love Trumps Hate, Not My President, Hey Hey, Ho Ho, President Trump Has Got To Go. As we walk down University Avenue I take pictures but notice that in this gay area of San Diego, people honk and take pictures of us, the packed bars do not join us. It is this apathy of hey, our country is turning upside down but I will just sit back and drink my martini that seemed a little surreal to me. “Out of the Bars and Into The Streets” chant did not inspire them, they just took pictures and posted them on instagram.
Day 4, November 12th
Day four we start to breathe.
http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/11/election-night-hijab-attack-false
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Photojournalist-attacked-while-covering-Trump-10606690.php
And begin to fight.
Time for Trump to go back to business as usual.
Day four was marked by protests across the country, massive protests. We began to realize that we cannot be quiet. More articles are written about the possibility of Trump and what kind of of person he would be. Personally, I was in a way feeling worse and worse. I gave a Lyft ride to a woman whose girfriend of five years de-friended her and listened to my friend Amy Julia’s report of vote-rigging through voter purges in the states that flipped as well as tyrannical ethno-state that white nationalist see Trump creating.
One reads so much about this that one becomes sick to the stomach about what is and what will be. One thing is for sure, if we are silent, what can be will be horrible.
For instance, another tyrant that Trump seemed to welcome as a friend is Turkey’s Tayip Erdogan, not at all unlike Hitler who was helping Franco and Mussolini, Trump finds friends in clearly horrible people like Duarte of Philippines. If we allow him to proceed with the people he is picking for his candidacy, it is a clear destruction of all that America built.
By walking away from trade deals we are becoming economically erelevant, by going away from climate change we are becoming irrelevant as far as policy. It is the opposite of making America Great Again, it is making America irrelevant.
Another development was Canada taking away tourist visa requirements. Given that brown people are being attacked, it is not out of the question that a huge migration could be underway to get out of here. If we are to loose our work force, the jobs that white people don’t want because after all, they are protesting low-wages, they don’t want low wage labor, we could be in for a big-big recession.
Day 3, November 11th
Racism uptick seems to be out of control: http://billypenn.com/2016/11/11/n-er-lynching-group-text-shocks-penn-freshmen/
Every day brings a new surprise. Some for Trump supporters, some for his detractors. As usual, he keeps people guessing what he actually stands for or what policies he actually plans to create.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-obamacare-repeals-latest-policies-quote-replacement-president-elect-a7412621.html
I don’t know if liberals will throw him out through an electoral college or republicans. He seems far more “appeasing” to the inside players while at the same time, dismissive of the protesters calling them “paid off” similarly to Putin and Assad and not speaking at all with regards to the massive uptick in hate crimes across the nation.
He seems as cunning as an orange fox, acting very similarly to Hitler who seemed to tone down when elected but in reality was slowly working to coalescing power.
Day 2, November 10th
We begin to think, we also see the effects. While Trump is visiting Obama, we began to amass the damage. Hundreds of stories pouring in of hate crimes across the nation.
Trump may have gotten to the top through manipulation of the bottom, but he forgets that it’s the elite who will immortalize him and at this point, we already know it won’t be pretty.
He will have to walk a long path from the pit. He will try, because men like him rarely give up, hoping to come up with one more hand, but instead, as we see from his picks for cabinet and to his plans for the 100 days we see that things are going to get worse and the world will remember. Because those who forget facts don’t spend time to write them down. The world will have a long memory of Trump and how he got to where he is now.
On this day he met with the President and House Leaders. He tried to take a conciliatory tone. At night protests spread through out the country. Anti-Trump facebook groups sprouted and petitions were signed.
Day 1, November 9th
It’s like a punch to the gut, made worse by the hangover.
I did not want to wake up. I did not want to get out of bed. I knew the reality of the new day, of a new America. I couldn’t say the words, I didn’t want to say the words. As soon as I was up and reading, the depth of the danger was going through my mind only making me realize just how bad this can be. The messages of what’s going on at schools, the realization of who his pics are for EPA, for Education, for Economy. Reading his first hundred days and realizing that this is not a joke. First day was sever denial and shock and hope, that perhaps it isn’t that bad and then realizing, yes, it is.
Day 0 November 8th
People drank. We thought we would celebrate but we by six o’clock we knew that something had gone terribly wrong. The day before I was joking about the new age of what will happen when a woman is a president but there was a feeling that perhaps it won’t happen. When it was pronounced, for reasons we don’t know yet why, he was President. Perhaps the words of rigging and the threat of Trump armies at the polls, like Brown Shirts worked enough to intimidate just enough Latino and Black voters to pull out a win. There would be no end to speculation. But at this moment, there seemed to be a feeling of defeat. The feeling of defeat, of end of America as we knew it was heavy and unyielding. This was not 2008 when jubilation spread through the streets, it was quiet, it was sad. We remember Bush’s win but this was worse, far worse. The realization that there is no way to know just how bad tomorrow will be, how Trump’s vengeance on all those who crossed him and how his wrath will shape itself..
not-rushin 