A few months ago I lived in country with healthcare available for pretty much everyone. I also lived in a country that seemed to be opening its arms up wider and wider for people of various sexual preferences, gender identifications, religious beliefs; in which the poor and underserved were thought of as our neighbors who could use some help, rather than as lepers to be ostracized. I lived in a country in which respect for women was a given, where a free press was central to an informed society and where tantrums by eight year olds were actually thrown by eight year olds, not 70-year-old billionaires. I lived in a country in which the president did not go on national TV to belittle, denigrate and insult various groups of people. Where he could put together thoughts longer than 140 characters, where he did not resort to cartoon voices and grotesque facial contortions to get his point across. Come to think of it, I was living in country in which the leader actually had a point to get across, not merely a barrage of hyper-defensive attacks on anyone who dared oppose him, challenge him or, god forbid, call him to account for a seemingly endless wellspring of “alternative facts.” I lived in a country where numbers meant something, a country where “alternative facts” where called what they really are: lies.
I read again and again how this man (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) may have mental issues, but then I run across an article pointing out that, to accuse our president of being mentally ill actually marginalizes people who really are ill. This armchair diagnosis lets him off the hook for his behavior.
HWMNBN may indeed be as sane as you or I, (well, at least you), so his random lashing outs may not be the result of a chemical or emotional imbalance, rather they could be the result of a broken moral compass, an ethical blind spot, a missing decency gene.
Paul Simon had a song years back, entitled When Numbers Get Serious. HWMNBN has no such relationship with numbers. He prefers to throw a bunch of figures together to see what will stick. Thanks to the Huffington Post for many of the following items:
He claims three to five million unauthorized immigrants voted for Clinton, robbing him of a popular vote victory. Uh, no.
He claimed he had the biggest inauguration audience in history. Have you seen the photos?
He claims to have received many awards for the environment. Does none qualify as many?
He claimed he won more electoral votes than any Republican since Reagan. George H. W. Bush had more. Perhaps he forgot that Bush came after Reagan.
He claims the national homicide rate is horribly increasing. Fact is, it is actually significantly down.
He claimed his new economic adviser Gary Cohn paid $200 million in taxes to take a job at the White House. Cohn didn’t have to pay taxes; he had to sell more than $200 million of Goldman Sachs stock. Oops.
He said that Obamacare covers “very few people.” Nearly 20 million people have obtained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
The most troubling number of all is this: HWSNBN has a 42 percent approval rating. I’ll let that sink in. Four out of every 10 people in this country think he is doing a good job. That astounds me. Now 4.2 percent, that seems about right.
This is not sour grapes. Heck, I resented every day of the George W. Bush presidency but never did I feel he was a man who had a soul as black as tar. He was a man I saw as someone trying to do his best and who genuinely cared about people. I just disagreed with most of his methods.
Can we say that about ol’ 45? We continually debate his myriad shortcomings and honestly I don’t know if I have the strength to do this for another three years, 10 months and five days, but I know I must because if we don’t keep up the pressure, if we let these rampant lies take hold as accepted truths, if we allow the environmental, social and civil progress for which we have fought so hard crumble under this regime, we will end up getting more of it. And even worse, if that’s possible. This is a man who is reckless and dangerous, who is incapable of disagreeing with someone without making personal attacks. This is a bully. And apparently 42 percent of us are okay with a bully-in-chief. I am not.
So I will fight but, in a radical move, I will fight with real numbers, reason and compassion. I assume the administration won’t know what to do with that kind of offensive. In fact, I presume the two words most feared by this “government” are the words, “in fact.”
Steven welcomes your comments. You can reach him at st***************@gm***.com.
