This morning a #Mastodon friend called me out on my name-calling of our current President. They said it was hypocritical to do something we tell our kids not to do. I’ve sat with this all day. I actually care about my friend’s opinion, and, hey, I’m not a malignant narcissist. Upon reflection, I must admit that they are absolutely, 100% correct. I am being hypocritical, and at the end of the day it’s really not a good look. But, will this knowledge cause me to stop? Very frankly speaking, I don’t think so. Before you condemn me as a bad person, please allow me to explain where I’m coming from. This presidency has been like none other in my lifetime. I’ve had presidents in the past with whom I disagreed on policy, oftentimes vehemently so. See also Bush, George W. But these were strictly policy disagreements. I never once questioned W’s humanity. But #Trump is something completely different. Almost all of his policies go way beyond abhorrent, but it goes deeper than that. He’s the first president I’ve ever known of who has actively, and deliberately, set out to actually punish those who didn’t vote for him or support him, to hurt them, make them suffer. I actually think that’s a lot of what this #SNAP hostage crisis is all about. He has shown, in countless ways, that he has zero respect for anything or anyone aside from himself. So, in my opinion, he deserves zero respect in return. (1/2)
Mike Gorse
in reply to Kevin LaRose, Just So Tired • • •I'm feeling ... kind of jaded and discouraged. Probably similar to what a lot of people are feeling, though. I was just talking to a friend last night, and he was saying that, when they were younger, a lot of our mutual friends hoped that my generation of blind people would be the ones who would break out and be successful beyond what previous generations have achieved, but, for a lot of the people we know, things haven't worked out for them in the way they might have hoped. I think that a lot of us, myself included, felt that the left had won the argument with the younger generation, particularly after President Obama, but now this doesn't seem to be so, either. I have an old album where the last song is about building a world for women, and I'm not sure if its author is still alive, but, if she is, then I am sure that she also no longer feels the optimism that she might have felt when she was young.
I try to remind myself that we are at a point in time. We have been through dark times in the past. This is not the end of things. Donald Tramp will not be in the Whitehouse forever.
Kevin LaRose, Just So Tired
in reply to Mike Gorse • • •