By Ernie McCray
I don’t know about y’all but, with all the Three Stooges kind of shenanigans going on in the White House, I feel like we’ve entered the Trump Zone.
It’s definitely not the Twilight Zone, that’s for sure. The Trump Zone’s stories go way beyond any episode I’ve ever seen on the Twilight Zone.
No character in the Twilight Zone comes close to the main character in the Trump Zone, an orange faced villain with hair a scarecrow would refuse to wear, a man who, wherever you look, he is there.
Go on the internet. There he is. Read the paper. There he is. Turn on the TV. There he is. Buy a magazine. There he is. Take in a few deep breaths to meditate. There he is. Podcast? There he is. He’s a piñata, a poop emoji and a figure in coloring books, a favorite Putin joke. His name is on golf courses and buildings, toilet paper, red caps, tote bags, t-shirts, pins, buildings, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, placards, Trump scented candles, balloons…
We wake up every day in the Trump Zone wondering, based on the horrors we’ve seen flow from his multi-flawed bizarre immoral mind, what dimensions of sight and sound and mind and dimensions of things and ideas will he unleash on us that day.
We wonder what lies he will tell as the truth is right before our eyes, totally undisguised, as transparent as an eagle searching prey from high in the skies.
We wonder who he will decry like he’s done to the CIA and the FBI. What law will he obstruct? What top secret will he share with our enemies?
We wonder what thug he will praise. What head of state he will haze or push out of the way to get to the head of the line?
We wonder what will make him ever change if prefacing a bombing with talk about the most beautiful cake he’s ever seen doesn’t make him lower his head in shame?
We wonder why he doesn’t know Israel is in the Middle East or why he’s so fearful of diplomacy or why he hasn’t provided a shred of leadership to the country’s vast bureaucracy. Will he ever get a clue about anything?
Oh, this Trump Zone is so tiring to me, as it’s frustrating to see incompetency and non-caring and rampant stupidity reigning supreme, with some folks saying we need to give the jester a chance when there seems to be absolutely no chance that he is capable of “do overs.”
Why should we want him to “succeed” when, to him, success is:
- making life miserable for Muslims and building walls that separate parents from their children;
- taking away food stamps and opening up more prison cells;
- flattening the tires on Meals on Wheels;
- denying health care for the ill;
- denying women control of their bodies;
- letting the environment fend for itself;
- leaving our national monuments unprotected…
In the Twilight Zone characters face unusual or extraordinary circumstances. But in the Trump Zone the main character, rather than facing abnormal or astonishing situations, is creating them in a frenzy. The Twilight Zone’s tales were exquisitely entertaining fantasies. The Trump Zone is one continuous depressing reality.
But every story has a beginning and an ending and, although this one has been frightening so far, a principal character in the story, Melania Trump, the nation’s First Lady, has signaled what we need to do to end this good versus evil narrative. With an attitude, like ours, of “I didn’t bargain for this,” she moved her hand when the president reached for it and better yet she swatted his hand away on another day and kept on walking.
We need to do likewise, brush this president aside and make our way out of the Trump Zone in as much haste as we can mobilize, seeking as we flee, new ways to proceed as a society.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Let’s take this opportunity not forget how we got to this awful place. Elections have consequences. Those “Never Hillary” people who had to lodge a protest vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson should consider the adverse consequences of their decision that put Trump into the White House; polluters have the support of the federal government, minorities’ right to vote infringed upon, the gerrymandering of legislative districts to elect more Republicans, Trump packing the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary with reactionary judicial officers, the denial of women’s right to exercise reproductive rights and access to abortion, the undermining and dismantling of our educational system, the threat to our most basic freedoms and the denial of health insurance to those who need it most. Let’s remember so we won’t make the same mistake again.
Interesting logic. Johnson voters came at the expense of the Republicans more than the Democrats. If the Democrats want the Green votes they could fry adopting the platform. The most recent BC election shows how the Greens can make a difference. The Liberals won 43 seats, the NDP 41 and the Greens 3. That was enough to form a coalition and knock the Liberals out of power. Green candidates have been running since the 80s without winning seats until recently. Nobody is saying they a protest vote now. Values matter, pointing at how bad the otber candidate is only gets one so far. Arguably people voted for ‘Not Hillary’ as much or more than they voted for the Repub candidate. Many didnt see the point in voting at all and still dont.
Facts are horrid things. The facts are that Trump won the White House by winning Michigan. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by 77,000 votes. Jill Stein got a total of 85,000 in those three states. People need to accept responsibility for their bad voting behavior and not voting is the worst of all
The fact is the Green Party brings something different to the table. For all we know the second choice of those Green party voters in Wisconsin could have been another candidate besides the Democrats – or no one at all.
It also doesn’t take into account the votes siphoned away from the Republicans by the Libertarians. By the same logic – without Johnson in the race – Stein’s numbers would have been smaller than the margin of victory. Why not blame Evan McMullin and the Constitution Party whose total votes were also larger than the margin of victory? Not to mention the fact that the Democratic candidate in Wisconsin was not the most popular one. Sanders beat Clinton by 14% in the primary.
A lot of media pushes a simple left/right paradigm – but is it really that simple? What do Democrats expect – no third parties? Or at least none with any ideological overlap I suppose. When does the party look inward to answer the question of why people would choose the Republican or Green candidate? In the US there has been a Green Party candidate for 6 presidential elections. In British Columbia the Green Party ran candidates in 7 elections before winning a seat. Now they have 3. So were those Green Party voters wasting their votes all those years, or were they building something?