Apply Pressure

If it's Monday, it must be time for another letter to Congress.

That's the way it is here in Trumpistan—every day there's a new outrage. So, gotta make our voices heard, especially since I didn't participate in the airport demonstration or the downtown rally last night. I sent the same one to all three of my reps, and by all means, feel free to crib for your own letters to Congress (though if you do, don't copy me verbatim, if it starts to look like a form letter it'll have less credence).

January 30, 2017

Dear Sen. Maria Cantwell :
Dear Sen. Patty Murray :
Dear Rep. Pramila Jayapal :

Hi. Me again. I know, this is starting to become a ritual.

Today's plea regards the upcoming votes on cabinet nominees. Please, for the sake of all humanity, oppose with vigor the confirmations of Betsy DeVos, Jeff Sessions, Scott Pruitt, Tom Price, ... you know what? Every remaining Trump cabinet appointee is horrendous. They ALL need to be denied.

Perhaps more importantly, it has become crystal clear that the president is being controlled by Steve Bannon, a man no one elected to anything. This neo-Nazi is writing presidential executive orders and directing policy, taking advantage of Mr. Trump's obvious intellectual and psychological deficiencies to pursue an agenda of bigotry and mayhem. (He has said -- out loud! -- that his goal is to "destroy the state.") Steve Bannon needs to be denied as well. I don't know offhand what authority Congress can bring to bear on someone with a "White House adviser" title, but somehow, some way, he has to be removed from his position of influence.

The Trump Administration has been in power for just a week-and-a-half and the damage has been mind-boggling. Trump and Bannon's disregard for civil norms, policy procedure, legal review, and basic decency—not to mention the Constitution—must not be allowed to continue, lest the chaos of these last few days turn into complete and utter disaster in the next few months, let alone four years. And I haven't even mentioned the brazen, naked corruption happening with the president, his staff, and his cabinet nominees! The number of outrageous things this administration represents is almost infinite.

I'd say focus on the top of the food chain and "simply" impeach Mr. Trump, but I know the Speaker and most of his fellow House Republicans aren't likely to entertain that notion, at least not yet. So until that course becomes feasible, please: Give no quarter.

Oppose these horrid cabinet nominees. Find a way to remove Steve Bannon. Support the judiciary when Trump and his people break the law, as they did with the Muslim immigration ban (and let's not mice words, that's what it's intended to be).

Protect us.

Sincerely,

Mr. Tim Harrison
Seattle, WA 98103

Tagged Dystopia, President VonClownstick, Congress   |   Posted on January 30, 2017 at 4:31pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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One Week On

So, we've all had a week to process. Our collective wish to wake up and discover it was all a dream has gone unfulfilled. How do things feel now?

Still shitty.

Mr. VonClownstick seems to be a bit deer-in-the-headlights about what happens now, which in a way is a consolation, because that's how a lot of the rest of us feel too, just for different reasons. But what is not consoling in the slightest is how he's preparing to take office, which is to say, not preparing much at all in terms of basic things like hiring staff and returning calls form the Pentagon, and who he's surrounding himself with, the horrid details of which I don't want to get into here.

So there's nothing in the way of mitigation to make us feel better, and the surreal nature of the past seven days promises to continue indefinitely. But life does go on, and spending all of our time semi-catatonic, compulsively checking Twitter feeds for some bit of reportage that can make sense of this nightmare, or frantically busying ourselves with anything and everything mundane to just focus on something, ANYTHING else (I've been doing all three) isn't healthy or practical. Everyday life will reassert and we'll begin to function again, sooner than seems reasonable, and we can resume enjoying things again. But with a new feeling of vigilance attached.

I say "new," but it's really only new for some of us, isn't it? I've been neglecting my cartooning endeavors for far too long (and though I do want to resume it at some point, I've no immediate plans to do so), but I have had the basis for a Cloud Five sequence swirling around my head about the new vigilance; for people like me, who have lived entirely in the context of relative privilege and the normative majority demographic, it's new, even shocking, to feel threatened like this by agents of authority, and my C5 alter ego would express this. His best friend and crush would have to explain to him that to her it isn't so much a new feeling as one that had always been there at lower volume, but now it's been cranked up to 11.

Anyway, this post is unfocused and kind of rambling, but worthwhile to get out even as a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing. Part of the process of processing, and all that. Yes, now we have to band together and fight for the forces of civility and inclusion and basic reason, but first we have to come to grips and regain some equilibrium.

Tagged Politics, Dystopia, President VonClownstick   |   Posted on November 15, 2016 at 9:41am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Ship of Fools

This is not how it was supposed to look.

I'm stunned.

"Unbelievable" is the  word that keeps occurring to me. This election is literally unbelievable. I am still in denial a little bit.

How could so many people — so many women — be suckered so thoroughly, be so fully hoodwinked by this, this overgrown spoiled brat? This obviously incompetent and dangerous man that campaigned on ideas and statements so beyond what had been acceptable discourse for American politics? A man who championed war crimes, tax evasion, and science denial; who defrauded Americans wherever and whenever he could (and who has a court date in a few weeks on fraud charges), who made no secret of his contempt for women and who has another court date upcoming concerning his alleged rape of a child.

This man won a presidential election. In the United States of America. In the twenty-first century.

He had plenty of help, to be sure. All of it unsavory, and none of it terribly concealed. Help from Russia. Help from rogue agents in the FBI. Help from cable news (a whole lot of help from cable news). But in the end, people still voted for him, and despite the abject failure of the Fourth Estate to do its job, a lot of those people should have known better.

Of course, plenty of other people didn't even show up. And that may be the root of the problem. Voter turnout was lower than any time since the last time there was a split between the popular vote and the electoral college. And I dare say a lot of those that didn't bother were also played for fools. Suckered by a bombastic grifter and his henchmen into thinking his opponent was the one guilty of all of the deplorable (yes, that word fits perfectly) behavior that he himself had dispensed in "huge" quantity. A lot of other people voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, two horrible candidates in their own right, and those people also, I have to believe, were played for saps (Johnson's totals were greater than the margin between Trump and Clinton in at least five states). I've no doubt that the dirty tricks of voter suppression played a role as well, that the gutting of the Voting Rights Act aided and abetted this nightmare, that the efforts to falsely convince people that they could vote online even prevented some votes from being cast.

But still.

Fifty-nine million people voted for this man, this personification of chaos and dishonesty and ignorance. Sure, some of the fifty-nine million are racist misogynist assholes who greedily anticipate the coming downfall of civilization, but most are just dupes. This election has revealed us to be a nation of idiots, at least outside of the Pacific and northern Atlantic coasts.

I am terrified that we will suffer greatly in the next two years. Assuming no electoral shenanigans in the meantime, the midterms should swing Congress heavily back toward the side of sanity, but by then it will be too late for some, and even then Congress can't check everything.

America, we've been had. Conned. Fooled like never before. And we will pay for it in ways we can't even imagine yet.

Tagged Politics, Dystopia, Fear   |   Posted on November 9, 2016 at 4:20pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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