No Longer Speechless

It’s been nearly two months since The Doke Dispatch last appeared, with an admission of my being rendered speechless. Then I rattled on for a couple hundred words about the tragic early signs of what a Trump Administration would bring us.

I’m no longer speechless.

Instead, I am shocked, mortified, embarrassed and angry. The anger is aimed largely at myself for not doing more to activate the two-thirds of this country who did not vote for Trump and could have prevented this travesty.

• I should have been out there on the front lines, going door to door, helping convinced those who didn’t like Hillary that Hillary wasn’t the issue. Trump was.
• I should have been working to convince those feeling disenfranchised by Bernie’s loss that staying home on election day was not the answer.
• I should have been helping register scared and suppressed voters, then piling them into my car and getting them to early voting locations or to their precinct polling station on election day.
• I shouldn’t have believed that a man who is dishonest in business is going to be anything else if elected. That a man who won’t release his taxes has something serious to hide. That a man with business entanglements and huge debts with nations across the world is going to be compromised from Day One.
• I should have found a way to go steal the out-takes from The Apprentice, which I suspect would have made the bus ride with Billy Bush seem like a Sunday School lesson.
• I should have taken as my first clue that a person who stands before Christians and reads from “Two Corinthians” has no clue about Christianity or the message of love in Second Corinthians.
• I should have done more than make snarky comments and posts on Facebook, laughing at a guy nobody could imagine being President.
• And I should have done all this with a greater awareness of the deep hatred and divisions that allowed one-third of America to put an insane person in the most powerful position in the world — or what used to be.

We now have a  very dangerous man in the Oval Office — made all the more alarming and threatening by the people surrounding him and nominated to his cabinet. As frightening as Trump is the right wing nutcase Steve Bannon as his Senior Advisor, feverishly drafting outrageous, fascist Executive Orders without consulting Constitutional law experts or the lawmakers who ultimately have to fund and enforce these orders.

We have cabinet nominees so compromised by their own business dealings or massive wealth that there’s no way they can act in the country’s best interest. We have others nominated who have fought to eliminate the very departments they’re asking to lead. And we have a couple who are just dumb as bricks, with no business being allowed to step foot inside the District of Columbia.

And, of course, we now have “Alternative Facts” — an invention of the Trump White House so they wouldn’t have to use the word “lies.” Who knows what to believe if it comes out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? To be safe, believe nothing.

Don’t Give Me Your Tired and Poor, Yearning to Be Free

If the idiotic $15 billion wall that American taxpayers will pay for thanks to a totally fractured relationship with Mexico was not enough, we now are a global pariah thanks to an ill-thought but proudly displayed Executive Order banning all Muslims from entering the US. Some Christians from seven Mideast countries might be allowed in, of course in direct violation of the spirit and letter of the Declaration of Independence and U. S. Constitution, but law-abiding Muslims looking to escape the chaos in their own countries have now found a new chaos at international airports across America.

People are being illegally detained, with no due process, or sent back without cause. One brilliant post-doctoral fellow accepted at a prestigious Ivy League university was put on a plane back to where she came from. We’ll show them!

A nation founded by immigrants and nourished by diversity has slammed its doors shut because one ill-tempered, unfocused, not-terribly-bright President and his puppet masters said so. We have singled out one race and religion — the consequences of which will do more to foment Islamic radicalism than anything we could do. Congratulations, Mr. Trump, for making the U.S. an incredibly more dangerous place as a result of your over-inflated ego and narcissism.

Object, Resist, Defy, Obstruct, Rant and Scream — then Repeat

Since Mike Pence and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have become spineless pawns in the Trump game, refusing to stand up to him and stop his actions, we are at the mercy of sensible Republicans in the U.S. Senate to prevent any of the President’s actions from being funded and any taxes from being rolled back and any import tariffs from being imposed. Closure on any Senate vote other than the mindless cabinet nominations requires a 60-vote majority to go forward for consideration. With only 52 GOP seats in the Senate, it means on every vote a cadre of sensible Republicans needs to side with the Senate Democrats to stop something crazy from becoming law. And it means the Democrats must remain united.

There are lots of good, sensible and decent people among the Republicans in the Senate. They need to hear from the two-thirds of America who did not vote for Trump, and they need to hear loudly and often. You can bet they will be hearing from the Trump base, which still hasn’t figured out that he has totally screwed them. They believe his lies and distortions because they don’t read intelligent newspapers or consume balanced coverage. They watch Fox News and read Breitbart, which is the brainchild of Steve Bannon, and which makes Fox News look almost like a truth factory.

Make your voice heard. Go to rallies. Write and email Senate and House offices. Call Members of Congress every day to object to Trump’s absurdities. Bombard their social media sites. Rant on Facebook and Twitter, despite the fact that it pisses off some friends who prefer pictures of kittens and reports on what you had for dinner. Then go rant some more.

Get people registered to vote because in less than 2 years the entire House of Representatives and 1/3rd of the Senate is up for reelection.

We can take this country back.