Millions of women swarmed into the nation’s capital and other cities on all seven continents (yes, including Antarctica). They dwarfed the inaugural crowds, as demonstrated by a parade route filled with more secret servicemen in the street than watchers in the stands. Alternative facts aside, no honest person could deny the pink hats signified the beginning of the resistance.
The sea of dissension brought me back to something I had written last October, weeks before the presidential election. Rereading “Waiting at the Free State of America” is disconcerting. I had written:
It’s only an election, they said. Both parties are the same, they said. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, they said.
They were wrong.
The initial shock lasted for weeks. I suspect some still haven’t grasped the outcome, even all these years later. But it had happened; there is no doubt about that.
And here we are. A mere days after the inauguration we’ve already seen the devastation ahead of us.
…all that was left in the former USA were the takers, the ones who avoided taxes, scammed their employees, and skimmed off gillions as they ran up debts before strategically bankrupting the country in the hope no one would notice.
Eerily, I had written (again, prior to the election):
After the bankruptcy the Trumpians ran amok, demanding the government feed them. But under the new Putin-puppet all social programs were immediately eliminated. All investment in infrastructure and jobs and education was cut out completely.
The piece presumed it would be years before the devastation would reach the level of the separation of states and formation of a Free State of America. But perhaps the pace of destruction will be more rapid than we imagine. Perhaps it will happen too fast for us to adapt. Perhaps the Orwellian world of Newspeak/alternative-facts, Doublethink, and Thoughtcrime will become accepted as the new surreality of life.
Or perhaps, just perhaps, the pink hats will save us all.
David J. Kent is a science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!
Photo: By Amandalynn Jones – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55226644
Hot White Snow 
I won’t say I’m not scared (and still feel gut-punched that this country preferred this selfish monstrosity to a capable intelligent diligent woman, yes, because she was a a woman – if you’re worried about corruption, and you voted for Trump, let’s not pretend gender wasn’t an issue given his UNMISTAKABLE corruption vs. repeated disproven assertions of the same against Clinton), but I will do what I can to stand against it. And many others will, too, as we saw.
Will it be enough? I don’t know. Hitler was a monster, but he wasn’t even technically elected and one could make the case that the Germans didn’t know what they were getting with him and he didn’t have nukes. None of that applies here so it’s hard to make the case we can stand against Trump better.
But, I won’t give up. I won’t be part of the silent apathetic crowd. And I will believe in something better (I rewrote a novel the first week of January set some 30 years in the future and referred to Trump and unTrumped the world – it was cathartic).
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is scary that we haven’t learned the lesson of history, or even learned any history at all. This past weekend’s march was a beginning, but it has to be just that – a beginning. We need to sustain the momentum (and by we, I mean us men as well as women). The only way to end this travesty is to continue to fight this travesty.
LikeLike
“Newspeak/alternative-facts, Doublethink, and Thoughtcrime…” indeed.
I have to admit, however, that I might not be the most qualified to understand why people cast their votes for Trump. I listened to his inaugural address as an American who has simply chosen to climb out of the well and experience the bigger picture. Consequently, the feeling I had was something like listening to reports of rain, lightning and tornadoes while standing in the sun. Sure… good propaganda always contains some aspect of truth. Still, I have to ask myself, who benefits from the promotion of this version of things, a version pretty clearly alluding to some truly frightening history? I think the answer is obvious — but there are apparently a lot of people who have chosen, for whatever reason, to hold onto a bumper-sticker version of that reality.
I came here after reading through a couple of recent posts by Professor Matt Strassler (profmattstrassler dot com), someone who like you is a promoter of science as something that should be accessible by everyone. Professor Strassler also doesn’t shirk from the idea of an objective reality, regardless of politics, rhetoric, acknowledgement, or what one chooses to believe. And nothing truly worth knowing – or promising – can be fit onto a bumper-sticker.
What comes to mind is something Philip K. Dick said, ironically during a speech called, “How to Build a Universe that Doesn’t Fall Apart in Two Days.” He said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
Darned reality!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unfortunately, the Republican party has been pushing alternative reality for a long time; they just got beaten out by a guy who has been gaslighting the world for a lifetime. Now the Republican party is racing to extract as much damage to society as they can (and profits for them) before Trump’s ego crashes him out of the White House. In short, let the stupid play until he becomes a liability, then give him an out to get rid of him and put the equally extreme but less overtly psychopathic Pence take over. I’m thoroughly disgusted by the anti-Americanism they represent.
I read the first post by Matt Strassler and it looks interesting. I’ll check out his other posts. One point about his statement that he “can’t understand why a press secretary would blow his credibility so quickly on something of so little importance” (inauguration crowd size): that’s how psychopaths work – they lie and lie and repeat the lie until people start questioning their own reality. It’s become trite to compare opposing politicians to the Nazis, but this is – literally – Joseph Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
It’s also what gaslighting (from the movie by that name) is all about. And to counter Strassler’s wondering why the press secretary did this, it’s because this has been what Trump has done his entire life. Lie, Lie Big, Never Admit it’s a Lie. He did it constantly during the campaign, and here he is, the last person standing of nearly 20 people who ran against him.
And this is why I’m so worried about humanity. We allowed this to happen. And did so in Brexit and likely soon in Germany and France. We, the supposed more advanced nations, have become willfully ignorant morons playing Russian roulette with all six chambers loaded.Unfortunately, the evasion of reality is now reality.
And it scares the hell out of me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s long been my contention that if women (aka pink hats) ran the world, there’d be no wars and a lot more mutual understanding, assistance and cooperation. Call it gender bias, if you will, but I’d sure like to see this approach tried somewhere, perhaps even in an alt-universe.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There have been women running countries that went to war, but I’m all for experimenting with a women president in the US. Can you imagine the world being aghast right now if Hillary Clinton was our president? Of course not.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Introducing: The American Constitution | The Linda Life
Pingback: I’ve Been Thinking – International Women’s Day | Hot White Snow
Pingback: I’ve Been Thinking – International Women’s Day | Science Traveler
It’s a good thing that Trump saved us from these loony pink hat people. Thank god that Hillary didn’t get elected.
LikeLike