The United States of Trump: A Fantasy

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Civil War, fantasy, Political, Politics, Trump, Trump Nation, USA

Forgive me for fantasizing. With so many Trump followers now calling for succession after their loss in the Supreme Court, I can’t help but wonder what a Trump Nation might be like.

What follows is a lazy Sunday afternoon fantasy of how such a horror could evolve and what a Trump Nation might look like, based on what Trump has already done or advocated.

So here’s how it happens: Trump and his cohorts of rebel militias threaten civil war. Riots break out, chaos reigns. To avoid further violence and outright war, the Biden administration agrees to allow up to 5 contiguous deep-red states to succeed, if their citizens so approve by a 75% majority. North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Idaho vote to withdraw, and pressure Montana to do likewise.

But Trump isn’t satisfied. He wants Florida as well. To end the conflict for good, a compromise is made. Mara Lago and its surrounding golf course becomes a sovereign state within the state of Florida, like the Vatican in Italy— a retreat where Trump can rule in the winter months.

Half of the 7 million who voted for Trump in 2020 eagerly migrate to Trump Nation. New cities named after Trump, his family, and their Confederate forefathers, rise in once rural areas. Among them are Trumptopia, Barronapolis, New Melania, Stonewall, and Ft. Bragg.

Grateful Trump Faithfuls ecstatically pronounce him Supreme Leader for life and establish his progeny as legal heirs to that title. No Constitution is necessary, just as no Republican platform was needed in the 2020 election. All agree that Trump will rule with wisdom and courage to protect and bring prosperity to his people.

The individual States within this new nation will remain states in name only, governed by Trump appointees. A system of oligarchs will be set up to control industry and natural resources, as advised by Trump’s mentor and closest ally, Putin. Safety and environmental regulations are abolished. Industry will be regulated so as to maximize profits. Unions are outlawed, and the minimum wage abolished.

People of color are considered second-class citizens and and seen to be a dangerous threat to the nation. They are forced onto tribal lands where they can be isolated and controlled. Tribal leaders who cooperate are compensated. The others are threatened and penalized.

Michael Flynn is named General of the Armed Forces. Militias and their weaponry are drafted to serve under his command. Citizens are no longer allowed to own guns for fear they will fall into liberal rebel hands and be turned again Trump Faithfuls. A draft of all able-bodied citizens between the age of 17 and 25 is initiated to build Trump’s army, which, Trump proclaims to wide applause, will become the biggest and most powerful in the world. Military parades become wildly popular events. Children between the ages of 12 and 17 attend military summer camps to help prepare them to serve.

Although forbidden under the Succession Agreement, Trump enters into secret negotiations with Russia and North Korea to obtain nuclear weapons. When the USA learns of this, it threatens crippling sanctions on the new nation. But Trump is not deterred. While his citizenry will suffer, it will be for a noble cause, and the sanctions will not interfere with the Oligarchy’s lavish lifestyle.

Public education ends in the new nation, and for-profit education run by Betty De Vos takes its place. If citizens cannot afford tuition, they will be required to provide homeschooling for their children using a Trump-approved curriculum. History will be rewritten to favor and flatter Trump, his Confederate forefathers, and strong-men nations.

Free speech and the right to assemble are no more. Trump creates a law and order police state where criminals are not coddled. Suspects are considered guilty until proven innocent. Ted Cruz establishes a judicial system that rivals Russia’s. Prisons are run for profit, and inmates are charged for room and board which they must repay at labor camps.

The media and internet servers are now under government-control. Disinformation tactics are used to spread conspiracy theories that help to control the people by making them fearful of what is happening beyond their borders and grateful that they live in Trump Nation.

A border wall is built around the country to keep citizens safe from the outside world and keep defectors from leaving and spreading lies about life in Trump Nation.

Healthcare is run by pro-profit Health Networks, where people with pre-existing conditions pay dearly, abortions and birth-control are outlawed, and women who attempt to defy this law are sent to prison. Same-sex marriage is outlawed, and LBTQ communities are encouraged to go back into the closet because there are no protections for them under the law, physically or civilly.

Social Security is eliminated. Citizens are encouraged to work well into their senior years and then turn to their own families to take them in. Poor Farms and Debtor prisons will take up the slack.

Freedom of religion will end. Christianity becomes the state religion. A hierarchy of state-approved evangelical churches is established and run by Jerry Falwell and his wife. Trump is worshipped as the Savior of Christmas, the champion of Christianity, and the second-coming of Christ. His statue is displayed in every town center, and his image decorates the walls of all public buildings. His face is etched into Mount Rushmore, bigger and better than all the others.

In time Trump will feel restless and land-locked. He will covet the rich resources and harbors of Alaska and send his military to take it by force. The USA will stand strong and defeat him. His nuclear proliferation will be ended. New punishing sanctions will brought against him. His people will wake up from their fever-dream of Trump-worship. Realizing their mistake, with the help of the USA, they take up arms against him. Eventually Trump Nation is overthrown. The individual states that succeeded ask to be reunited with the United States of America, and we graciously allow it. Democracy reigns once again in the land of the free.

So goes my fantasy. What do you think? Any changes or additions you’d suggest?

BTW, that’s a real flag at the top of this post that you can buy on Amazon. Scary, huh?

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The Gift of Consession

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2016 Presidential Election, 2020 presidential election, an alternate reality, Concession speech, democracy, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Politics, USA

“Donald Trump is going to be our president. We must accept this result and then look to the future. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”

This is what Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech in 2016 when half the nation was in deep mourning. Many were convinced that the election had been “stolen”: by Trump’s call-out to Putin and the following Russian disinformation campaign, by Wiki-Leaks hacking of Democratic servers, by Comey’s disgraceful announcement of yet another fruitless investigation only days before the election, by the media’s constant hounding on the now debunked email scandal, by the razor-thin margin of votes that cracked the Blue Wall, by the fact that three million more people voted for Clinton than Trump.

As an avid supporter of Clinton, it was not easy to let go and move on, as I wrote about four years ago in Waking Up in an Alternate Reality. It still seems we are living in that alternate universe where half the country believes that Trump won instead of Biden.  But Clinton’s concession speech, so full of grace and dignity, was a shining example of how to do so. It helped me immensely. She went on to say:

“Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.”

“This is painful, and it will be for a long time, but I want you to remember this: Our campaign was never about one person, or even one election. It was about the country we love.”

I wish President Trump could give this gift of concession to his supporters, a speech that would help them to move on to fight another day. And encourage them to give the next President an open mind and chance to lead. That’s what true leaders do. They put their country and their supporters first. But Trump’s presidency was never about this nation. It was about one man, Trump, who he will always put first.

These lawsuits will not change the outcome of the election. But in the meantime, chaos still reigns supreme under this administration. January 20th can not come fast enough.

Truth and Love Wins, and I Can Breathe Again!

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America is Back, Biden wins, celebration, Love, Politics, Presidential Election 2020, truth, Truth and Love wins, USA

I feel like I’ve been ship-wrecked at sea for the past four years and finally have reached the shore.

I want to kiss the ground.

And then get up and dance.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, America!!!

Grieving for America, and Getting Past It

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2020 presidential election, America, faith, Fear, grief, inspiration, Mary Oliver, patriotism, poetry, Politics, pride, Starlings in Winter, the United states, USA

Worldphoto.org

I found this quote by Mary Oliver in a recent blog post and it struck a chord.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it

— Mary Oliver, from “Starlings in Winter”

So many of us have been grieving and fearing for our country of late, with the upcoming election and all the uncertainty and chaos it promises.

Feeling so keenly the need to get past this grief and fear I eagerly sought out the full poem to see what wisdom or encouragement Oliver’s “Starlings in Winter” might impart. Not surprisingly, I was not disappointed.

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

What I read in this poem is a metaphor, not so much for what is happening in our country today that makes us grieve, but for what is so resilient and beautiful about who we are as a people, as a nation, and why we will survive even this.

The starlings and the miraculous murmurations they create in flight are a symbol for the principles upon which this nation was founded and our messy history in striving to live up to those principles, to create a more perfect union.

Like the starlings we are “chunky and noisy, but  with stars” in our eyes as well as on the back of our flag.  We created and continue to create this miraculous, exceptional, “notable thing”, this republic, this democracy, these United States. And we did so during the wintry blasts of protest and rebellion against an authority we no longer wished to follow. We did so as acrobats, flying through the uncertainty of the times, “dipping and rising” across time and space, through decades of challenges, “fragmented for a moment” and then reuniting again and again.

Like the poet’s narrator, I “simply cannot imagine how they did it,” our forefathers and foremothers, how “in the freezing wind,” through “the theater of time” they created what we have today, this “silent confirmation” of a miracle,  “this notable thing,” this free-flowing, ever-changing but endurable nation.

Even now, during these challenging times, this “leafless season” of Covid, this “ashy city” of race riots, this chaotic election where our democracy itself appears to be in peril, even now what makes us great is that this “notable thing” we still are, still endures. Still is viable.

“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America.” –President Bill Clinton

I believe this in my bones, and with all my “heart, pumping hard.” What lifts me past the turmoil of the times, past the grief that seems so prevalent, is the remembrance of and faith in this “this notable thing, this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin over and over again, full of gorgeous life.” Full of purpose and promise.

One man, one administration, one season of cold wintry blasts, one chaotic election— even one devastating defeat—will not defeat us. Will not diminish this “notable” nation that stands out unique in all of history. This “city upon a hill,” as another President called us.

It’s not hope but faith in who and what we are, for all our faults, that moves me past grief, beyond fear.

“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America.”  We will right this.

Steeling Myself for Tomorrow: The Day After the Election

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Current Events, Despair, election, Election Day 2018, Hope, Politics, Survival, Trump, USA

Carmen Herrara, Art in America

Recently, in a morbid mood, I told my husband that if the Democrats do not win back the House I would slit my throat.

I know, YIKES!

Even I was shocked by that imagery. But I remember grasping for something dire enough to describe how I felt. How such an outcome would signal the end of something I dearly love. How another two years of Trump unchecked would usher in “the end times,” the end of the United States as I know and love it.

And yet, I felt much the same way when President Bush won a second term, and I know Republicans felt that way when Obama won again. We each survived our defeats to fight over our differences once again, as we have down through the ages and will continue well into the future.

Our nation survived a Civil War, a Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, Hitler’s Holocaust, Vietnam, Watergate, 9-11, and the financial crash of 08. We will survive Trump, whether we win back the House or not.

And things will get better, as they always have in our strife to create a more perfect union.

Slowly over time we abolished slavery, gave women and Blacks the right to vote, ended child labor and won a 40-hour work week, desegregated schools and drinking fountains, ended the constant flow of litter beside our roadways, turned the yellow-smog skies of LA blue again.

Martin Luther King once said: ” The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.”

Even emphasizing the LONG, and the achingly SLOW BEND, another two, or even six, years under Trump unchecked will not break us.

Or so I reassure myself. And steel myself for tomorrow: The Day After the Election.

Will there be a great Sigh of Blue Relief? Or a great Cry of Blue Despair?

Either way, the slow, sure bend toward the promise our Nation stands for will continue.