Before I ran for Terrace school board trustee 35 years ago a seasoned local politician warned me, “You can try your best to improve things, but the minute you leave office someone will be waiting in the weeds to undo everything you accomplished.” So true.
Reversing Obama’s work is all Trump has been doing since his inauguration.
Trump lacks the focus and attention span to formulate solutions of his own to the nation’s problems. Signing an executive order repealing an Obama position convinces Trump he is doing great innovative things. But all that takes is a flourishing signature before a T.V. camera.
I’ve watched far too many hours of inauguration activities, including the cramped scene in the Oval Office. Trump was surrounded by extended family from a 10-month-old babe-in-arms and three older grandchildren barely tall enough to rest their elbows on the huge desk, move beads on an abacus or twiddle with a dozen pens in a grooved tray. He opened up the first folder to sign the enclosed document (half a typewritten page) and, taken aback by the demanding task, said, “What a lot to read!” Or words to that effect.
Journalists and Trump’s biographers who have observed his behaviour, have all noted his fleeting attention span and avoidance of reading anything wordier than a mattress label.
His antipathy to books may account for his limited vocabulary. To compensate, he habitually repeats phrases, sometimes three times. A few of his favourite words as we’ve come to know them from the campaign are ‘beautiful’, ‘yuge’, ‘disgraceful’, and ‘sad’. Now his chief spokesperson, Kellyanne Conway, has introduced us to “alternative facts”, put forth in the face of incontrovertible proof. For example, insisting that a far bigger crowd attended his inauguration than attended Obama’s, despite photos and videos demonstrating otherwise.
Trump promised to increase jobs in America; he had in mind manufacturing cars and producing steel. Following the women’s march January 21 when more than a million women marched in cities and even in little towns across the world, it appears many jobs might result from citizens, men as well as women, protesting Trump’s policies.
The tiny town of Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia with a resident population of 65, mustered 16 participants including two men, who marched for an hour in a drizzle from the 22-student school to the fire hall on their only paved road. A video of their march uploaded on Facebook by 7:40 a.m. January 24 had been shared 178,108 times and collected some 3,000 comments.
I predict a booming business in marching signs, inventing and printing slogans for placards and tee shirts, bumper stickers, bobble head dolls, and more. CBC reports museums around the world are collecting signs from the women’s march.
Here from the first march are 11 creative placard slogans:
– You can’t comb over racism.
– Will Trade 5 Trumps for 500,000 refugees.
– You’re so vain you probably think this march is about you. (Putin in uniform proudly holding aloft a grinning Baby Trump clutching flowers.)
– The elephant in the womb. (Showing a red and blue Republican elephant).
– Fake Sign! Sad!
– On a sign showing Tweety Bird: Your tweets are for the birds.
– Tinkle Tinkle little Tzar, Putin put you where you are.
– Yuge mistake!
You know things are messed up when librarians start marching. And from Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia: Chin up, Fangs out.
If you missed this march you’ll have plenty more chances.