Ranting On...Why Trump is Different

President Donald Trump (R-NY)

I'm tired.  Not because of me having to battle a cold this past weekend (hence the absence of articles for the last few days as I tried to turn my cold into a 48-hour affair instead of the two-week residency it usually takes on my immune system), but because politically it's very hard to get out of bed anymore.  This past weekend, with Donald Trump, the sociopath who runs the United States, was in some of his rarest form, blasting the Mayor of San Juan, insulting NFL players once again, and throwing his Secretary of State under the bus while he tries (potentially in vain at this point) to save the lives of millions of people, including potentially countless Americans and members of the armed forces.

I genuinely used to like talking about politics, and I had a respect for the opponents.  I've been into politics since I was a little boy.  My parents remember me, in 1988, campaigning for Michael Dukakis to their friends despite the fact that I was not yet old enough to read.  In 1992, I polled my playground for that year's presidential election (Ross Perot ended up winning the most votes, even though I pushed for Bill Clinton).  I was the only person in my middle school to stump for Skip Humphrey over Jesse Ventura, and I beamed from ear-to-ear the first time I got to vote, soaking in at eighteen what it meant to be in a voting booth for the first time after imagining that moment an infinite amount of times in my head.

I have knocked on doors, made phone calls, sat through speeches, and cleaned up after them.  I hate interacting with strangers and small talk, so this is a personal hell for me, but I do genuinely care about people and I want what's best for our country and our environment, so I put myself outside of my comfort zone to try and help people I believe in win elections.  I'm not one of those hyper-cynical people-I believe in politicians who can do the most good, and I believe that the government can be an advocate for change, for the betterment of all people's lives.  I donate regularly to campaigns, even when it means I'm going to have to be short a little bit that month on other things I enjoy.  This year I have donated to, according to my ActBlue account, nine candidates and one political committee, including two just this past Friday (Kyrsten Sinema and Doug Jones, for the curious), and provided I am able, I'll be doing a few more at Christmas.  I truly believe in being an active citizen.  I have protested, I have marched, I have been called names on a street corner while holding a sign all in hoping for a better tomorrow.  I'm not as impressive as others, and I always think I should be doing more, but I am not a passive person who avoids politics.  I enjoy it, and I like studying it.  And of course, as this blog is a testament toward, I also like to write about it.

But it's hard to get out of bed when it comes to today's political climate, and I've honestly been so worn down by President Trump that I don't know exactly how to proceed from an involved standpoint.  It is partially that, like so many Americans, I still don't know if it's quite sunk in that he's president-I kind of wonder if it will ever sink in.  While I expected it to be closer than others were projecting, I, like every other person in the country, assumed that Hillary Clinton would win last November.  All of the horror stories that I had told to on-the-fence voters I had said like someone warns their child against being naughty before Christmas-I meant it was important, but it never really occurred to me that they'd receive the coal if they weren't good.  That she didn't win, and that Trump's presidency has been worse than I could have possibly imagined, has unsettled me to the point where I have started to doubt the decency of half the country, the half of the country that voted to give this man the presidency and hasn't stopped their support after months of atrocities.

I didn't always feel this way.  Now, mind you, I'm a deeply partisan person who cheers (hard) for my side, but I never really felt hatred or doubted the moral compass of people who voted for Mitt Romney or John McCain.  Profound disappointment, and occasionally I needed to just stop talking politics with them until after the election, but it never really affected our relationships.  Perhaps this was because I never doubted these men's own commitment to their country.  Even when they steeped to insane lows, like Mitt Romney blatantly lying through his infamous "Jeep Ad," or McCain's choice of the unqualified, dangerous Sarah Palin to be his running-mate (a thankfully failed Hail Mary), they clearly had a devoted vision for the country, and for all citizens within the country.  Even George W. Bush, whom I have said some truly horrendous things about through the years (especially when he was in office) or Dick Cheney-I never doubted the former's sincere belief in wanting to help Americans or the latter's competence to handle a national crisis (though the reverse for both I would raise an eyebrow toward).  I don't like these men, but I can bite my tongue with them-I believe that they want a safer, better America, however misguided some of their approaches are.  I don't apologize for them, and I don't want to rewrite history-what some of them have done in office is bad, but it's also hard to compare them to Donald Trump and his administration, because Trump crosses the line.  I genuinely don't believe he wants what is best for all Americans.

I don't come by that lightly, and it's hard for me to find a spot lower in my opinion than ones I reserve for Mitt Romney or Dick Cheney, two politicians until Trump I would have struggled to name someone I disliked more in the past twenty years of American elections, but it's true.  Trump's comments this past weekend, particularly against San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, were beyond-the-pale.  Trump, degrading her and calling her "nasty" on Twitter, seemed to indicate that she wasn't being complimentary enough to his administration and essentially indicated that the people of Puerto Rico "want everything to be done for them," while he played golf-it's unconscionable.  It is hard not to see the not-so-subtle dog whistle politics here, and the fact that Trump is once again attacking a woman-in-power (Carly Fiorina, Hillary Clinton, Megyn Kelly, Mika Brzezinski...the list is getting longer and longer), but the truly shocking thing is watching a president make a national tragedy (and yes, Puerto Ricans are Americans, so this is an American tragedy), into something where he can turn inaction into a partisan decision.

President George W. Bush (R-TX) embracing
Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D-LA) after Hurricane Katrina

It is impossible to imagine President George W. Bush publicly attacking Kathleen Blanco during Hurricane Katrina.  The same with President Obama and Chris Christie after Hurricane Sandy.  The thought honestly would have never crossed my mind at the time that it could be a possibility.  They may have been political adversaries, but they were all Americans first.  That doesn't excuse in the case of Bush and Blanco the horrendous way that they handled Hurricane Katrina (let's not rewrite history here as some anti-Trump Republicans have been trying to do on Twitter-how Bush handled Hurricane Katrina was unforgivable and deserving of the harsh criticism that it received), but Bush and Blanco publicly were adults, not letting politics set in even as both were enduring mile-high disapproval ratings.

Trump's handling of Hurricane Maria, the way that he has spent the past few days trampling on the first amendment of athletes, criticizing a mayor literally waist-deep in water as she struggles to save her constituents, and how he is attacking his own Secretary of State over North Korea, perhaps the last refuge of a truce with the rogue nation, is unthinkable with virtually any other politician I can think of in modern American politics.  It may be because Trump's political policy is soulless, without any sort of principle or substance, it may be because the Republican Party has devolved so ferociously into the party of the rich and the white that it's a struggle even to connect President Bush to their policies.  But at this point I've lost a lot of the interest in writing about politics, of wanting to interact with politics with average Americans because of one, simple fact.  I don't think Donald Trump is a good person.  I, in fact, think he's a cruel, vindictive person.  And as a result any discussion of his methods or his beliefs feels like it always arrives at that same conclusion.

I cannot find a redeemable factor in him as a human being.  He is not the devout family man that Mitt Romney is, he is not principled in his beliefs like Dick Cheney, he does not show interest in issues that won't score him an immediate political point like George W. Bush (it says something that perhaps the longest positive legacy of President Bush's time in office will be PEPFAR, a program that saved millions of lives in Africa and is now unthinkable to have come from a Republican lawmaker).  He is not a war hero like John McCain or Bob Dole.  Donald Trump is a bad person.  He doesn't have these men's decency or character.  They may have propagated horrendous, sometimes even vile public policy, but it was easy to separate their politics from the men they were in their private lives.  It's hard to even find Trump's claimed love of family easy to believe, particularly the way that he has tried to score political points off of discussions of his youngest son Barron or the way that he has cruelly talked about his daughter Tiffany in interviews.  Even Dick Cheney didn't try and do that, publicly supporting gay marriage in the face of a party that deeply disagreed with him (while admittedly doing as little as humanly possible to actually turn it into law) rather than turn his back on his daughter Mary.

I don't see Donald Trump as anything but a horrible blight, something un-American.  A racist, sexist, egotistical, shallow, uncaring, unprincipled troll intent on only benefiting himself.  Not just his constituents, not just his family.  Only himself.  I have little doubt that he would, if he could, lock Hillary Clinton in jail even though she didn't break the law; he basically said as much during the campaign.  I honestly think that he could make Puerto Rico's recovery that-much-harder just because of Carmen Yulin Cruz's dislike of him as a politician.  He has never exhibited, not once in the past two years of his life as a politician, any sort of kindness that feels genuine, or shown any sort of principle or love for anyone other than his publicity, money, and ego.  He makes politics seem like a lifetime because he so persistently revels in taking all of the decency out of politics and government, leaving nothing left but the parts that people most detest in the electoral process.  It's hard to fathom that just a week ago he was lambasting John McCain, a war hero from his own party who is dying of cancer, for voting to ensure millions of Americans have access to health insurance.  That that isn't the defining moment of his presidency, much less his week, proves to me that hope is what is being squelched most effectively by the Trump administration.  A presidency that has accomplished virtually nothing it promised, and has ruined the country for decade's both domestically and especially internationally, has been most successful in making people feel hopeless in the face of the literal years we'll have to sit through Trump in the White House.

And so I won't write/discuss Trump or his presidency with the same regularity as I did his predessors, because how many times can you say "he's a truly terrible man, a truly terrible person," as there's no other explanation for what he did.  There's no greater purpose here-Trump does whatever will best feed his ego that day, make him look better in his thickly rose-tinted vision of the world.  Instead we just wait and pray, not for him to see the light (there is no pivot), but that the likes of Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, Dina Powell, and John Kelly can keep him in check long-enough for Nancy Pelosi to become Speaker and get him impeached, or until Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or John Kasich (I could care less who it is-now is not the time to be picky), beats him in 2020.  I will continue to fight and protest and vote and donate, but the discussions will continue to be light when it comes to the cruel force at the center of them because I can no longer find a common connection with Trump's world philosophy, or deduce the actions of a man who seems only intent on making himself happy, even at the expense, or perhaps if-he-can-help-it, especially at the expense of those he considers beneath him.  I can no longer talk to supporters of Trump because my opinion of them drains the second it comes up, probably forever.  I have people in my life I know I'm never really going to look the same at after all of this.  There is no silver lining in Trump's presidency-it is just an awful experience we need to hold each other close throughout, donating to those most hurt by policies and standing tall with them when he uses them for attack fodder, and for the love of god never missing another election, no matter how "small" or quiet or insignificant, and never being convinced that there isn't a difference between the two candidates.

President George W. Bush (R-TX)

I want to end with a story I remember reading about George W. Bush, someone whose face keeps coming to the forefront of this article as I write it, struggling to put into words how hopeless Trump feels.  I never felt hopeless in the face of George W. Bush's policies, even as they made me weep, even as they made me stand in protest on my college campus, and I think former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino was able to explain why that was in her book when she discussed an encounter Bush had once with a Gold Star mom.  It was 2005, and at the time we were getting near-nightly reports from Afghanistan and Iraq of American soldiers who had died or sustained debilitating injuries in the line of duty.  During a visit at the Walter Reed Medical Center, a mother of a soldier from the Caribbean who had died during the Iraq War, stood and yelled at President Bush, his staff looking on as he motioned for them to let her speak, trying to comfort her at first but then sustaining her anger in silence, listening to her demand why it was her child who had died and not his, unable to come up with an explanation that could take away her grief.  Afterwards, Perino wrote that no one spoke for a while on Marine One, President Bush finally breaking the silence simply by saying, with a tear rolling down his cheek, "That Mama sure was mad at me...and I don't blame her a bit."

George W. Bush was not a good president.  But perhaps in those moments he proved that he was, at heart, a man of compassion who understood the incredible sacrifice Americans made as a result of his policies. That Donald Trump wouldn't have been able to endure that moment illustrates the difference that others have struggled to try to illustrate in differentiating between the two.  Trump would have yelled back at that woman, made his staff escort her away as he claimed that her dead son was someone else's fault, and then tweeted about how great he was and called her nasty, showing in the process that he is neither a good president nor a good man, but someone who cannot understand the pain of others.

That such a man is our president is a fact that we must all endure.  There is no silver lining in Trump being president, but there is a hope in knowing that time will bring us through-whether it's in 2019 or 2021 or 2025, he will eventually stop being president, and while we'll never return entirely to normal, we can at least pray that there will be light at the other end of the tunnel.  Even if it's a struggle to talk about the anguish as we endure it until that light shows itself.