Day 8

Well it is 8 days into the Trump administration, and it already feels like years. Years living in some sort of bizarre alternative reality. Things are not unfolding as I would have wanted them to, not by a long shot, for the country as a whole. Day to day for me personally, life goes on as if none of this madness in Washington matters. But it does matter. Immigrants stopped at the airport, subjected to confusing interrogations. Our international obligations to care for families and the environment, to expand economic opportunity, tossed out the window. Wow, it is just so dumbfoundingly stupefying. The waste of it all, watching potential evaporate minute by minute, but in slow motion, as if it were taking days, weeks, months and years. And having no way to turn back the hands of time, to undo this disaster. Under Obama, it seemed the emerging global world was on the verge of environmental and economic responsibility and justice. I miss that feeling. And I'm sad it was all so ephemeral.  

Comments

Jenny Woolf said…
I think the truth is that we took it all for granted. We had let our guard down and thought our views had prevailed. Well, I guess we won't be thinking that any more. Here in Britain, with the Brexit vote, 60 years of progress towards European peace and unity have been thrown away and the hard thing is accepting that many, many people WANTED it to happen. Far more people than are fools and extremists. They had their reasons. What could they be? Figuring that out will mean some hard mental adjustments for those of us who disagree.

As it is, the world is stuck with Trump and his people, and let's not forget Trump was voted in using a system that has served America well for many years. Here in Britain, too, we are facing it that we had a referendum, i.e. not on party lines, and the majority to leave was 4 percent on a very high turnout. I hope that the next few years will show us why it happened, and why it is bad that it happened, and I hope liberals will be working out how to counter this and offer voters what they want - which clearly isn't more of what made them lose this time.
February 10, 2017 at 8:47 AM
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