Do you know what I discovered this morning? It’s been three days since the election, and I woke up in my bed (very hung over), looked out the window, and discovered I had not moved to Canada as I swore I would if Donald Trump got elected. I thought about it—I really did. My realtor even offered me a third more than what we had paid for our new retirement home last year, but . . .
Cartoon used by permission: Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com
After seeing the light of day, I thought, “I can’t move to Canada—I hate snow, hockey, and bears! Besides, this is my home—this is my country too, goddamnit!” The United States of America is where my family has lived since one half of my ancestors were owned by the Wimbish slaveholders in Hayfield, Virginia (the slave owner’s house is still there and intact), and the other half of my ancestors were forced to march as Cherokee Indians on the “Trail of Tears” from their homes in Georgia to reservations in Oklahoma killing one out of every four of them. “IT IS TIME TO PUT ON YOUR BIG BOY PANTS AND KICK SOME ASS,” I said to myself. “Why should I move because half of my country pulled a fast one on me? Oh hell to the no! I ain’t ‘fraid of no Trump. I’ve survived poverty, rape, mayhem, injustice, attempted murder, and mental illness. I will definitely survive President-Elect Trump!” (Although, I have to admit, I’m not as young as I used to be, and I had planned on playing Mahjong and sipping wine coolers all the rest of my days, but it looks as if God has other plans.)
Cartoon used by permission: Osmani Simanca, A Tarde, Brazil
WTF, I never thought it would be easier to elect a Black man to be President than it would be to elect an over-qualified White woman vs. an incompetent, self-proclaimed pussy grabber in our country. I thought we were far enough into the grownup spectrum, that despite her obvious flaws, we were mature enough not to make false equivalencies (Although, here’s a tip Hillary: Always humbly tell on yourself first before others steal your narrative and put their own shitty spin on it). But I think I’m beginning to see that misogyny trumps racism, and we’re not as sophisticated and modern as we think we are.
Cartoon used by permission: John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri
But the dude won fair and square, along with a little help from Putin, WikiLeaks, the KKK, and some dicks (Weiner’s dick pics, Bill Clinton’s reoccurring dick stories, and a dick of an FBI Director). Donald Trump is now my president, and I will heed the example of the classy, magnanimous, high road of President Obama to “do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.” As part of my plan to help President-Elect Trump to succeed, I have written an open letter to him and some of the peeps who put him into office on behalf of the innocents who will be most affected by Trumps presidency if it goes off the rails.
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP
Dear President-Elect Trump:
Congratulations on your historical win of the White House. As much as you fought long and hard against Hillary, I fought long and hard against you. But I’m writing to let you know that now that you’ve grabbed hold of the pussy, I mean the brass ring (sorry, old habit), I am here to do for you what I did for President Obama. I am a prayer warrior. I believe in the power of prayer (don’t let my language fool you, Baby, God hears my prayers—oh yes, he does!). I, along with thousands of others, prayed morning, noon, and night for the success of our current President in spite of all his haters. I daily prayed for grace, wisdom, courage, humility, perspective, and the ability to dodge the assassin’s bullet. You notice he’s still alive in spite of an unprecedented 30 death threats a day, and I saw on your face a momentary look of unabashed humility and wonderment when you were confronted with Barack Hussein Obama’s humility, grace, and magnanimity in your meeting with him in the Oval Office. (Could you, Mr. President-Elect, have done what Obama did for you if you were handing over the keys to the kingdom to a man who viscerally hated you and had tried to delegitimize your presidency by being the face of the Birther Movement? That, Sir, is the power of prayer.)
Cartoon used by permission: Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star Tribune
I suspect you thought you’d be back on one of your golf courses at this point and getting ready to start a TV news channel—richer than ever. I don’t think you ever thought you’d end up in the White House. You couldn’t have or you wouldn’t have done what you did: awakened the dark side of our country’s nature (the sewer rats of racism, misogyny, xenophobia)—resurrecting racial politics we once thought were dead. But you have a chance to rise above your carnival barker antics of the campaign trail and do the right thing for all of the people groups in our nation whose lives you have so negatively affected by your rhetoric. I’m going to pray that you will keep your promise to be the “president to all Americans,” and that you start by speaking to the fears of Muslim-Americans, women, African-Americans, Latinos, and the LGBT community who have been randomly and outrageously attacked in your name since the election. You can start by shunning the KKK who will be holding a rally in your honor because, as the White nationalist former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke tweeted on the night of your election: “One of the most exciting nights of my life. Make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump.” (You see why one half of the nation is peeing their pants and calling the suicide hotlines?) I am going to pray that you shock the hell out of all the nefarious people you’ve surrounded yourself with who are betting you won’t have the attention span to run our country properly so that they will be able to ram through their agendas which will push our nation backwards by a hundred years. I am hoping you will do a little Apprentice, “You’re Fired!” on a couple of their hateful asses once you truly realize what’s going down.
Finally, I am going to pray that you sprain your Twitter fingers, and that they stay sprained until the end of your reign. But most of all, I am going to pray that God will give you a heart of love for ALL of the people in our great nation, and that God’s will be done while you are President. God bless you Mr. President-Elect, and may God bless these United States of America.
Cartoon used by permission: Pat Bagley Salt Lake Tribune
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OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T VOTE, ANGRY WHITE MEN, CHRISTIANS FOR TRUMP
Dear 47.9% Americans Who Didn’t Vote:
You are dead to me! And I better not hear you complain or protest about one goddamn thing that you don’t like coming out of Trump’s presidency. (I’m talking to you NFL “star” Colin Kaepernick!) I read today that you just announced that you didn’t vote. Fuck me! So you think you’re all that and a bag of chips because you’re making a statement that “Black Lives Matter” by sitting out our National Anthem, but then our lives don’t matter enough for you to get off of your bougie ass to vote? Oh, hell to the no! I leave you and all the rest of your 47.9% lowlifes with a Martin Luther King quote that will remind you of the blood that was spilled to give African-Americans the right to vote, along with every other disenfranchised group in America, and I hope it breaks your heart (oh, and get off your bended knee, child, because your goddamn protest doesn’t mean shit):
“So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others.”
Dear Angry White Men:
I am angry too! I am angry that you think you’ve found a savior who will give you back everything you’ve lost, think you deserve, and wish you had, even though he seems to have no moral center. I don’t want your lives to be decimated any more than I want the lives of nonwhites to be destroyed, and I am pissed that the Democrats (and Hillary) ignored your legitimate pain. I understand that Trump spoke to your pain. I know you voted for Trump because he told you he’d shake things up in Washington and that he’d make your lives great again. But I can’t imagine the anger you’re going to feel when you discover that the messiah you elected doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the working man or your joblessness, your shuttered towns, or the heroin epidemic that is consuming your children (he goes to work in a helicopter or a limo, his kids all went and go to private schools, and he upgrades the model of his wives when their tits droop). Here’s the thing: Mexicans didn’t steal your jobs—corporate greed and technology stole your jobs. Turn your anger on the candidate you just elected—not on people who don’t look like you. Trump promised to bring jobs back to your towns again, therefore, it is your responsibility to hold him to it. Tell him that he can start by bringing the factories for his businesses back from China, Bangladesh, Honduras and Vietnam, India, South Korea, Mexico, and Slovenia* and put them into your towns and areas that lost factories. Then I would join hands with all the other people (regardless of their race, creed, or color) who are suffering as you are to hold President Trump’s feet to the fire by forcing him to make other companies bring a percentage of their manufacturing jobs back to America.
Finally, put down the guns—this is not the 1800s. What if all the nonwhites in America took up arms in response to the fear you generate with your guns? If we marry our anger with our lust for power and control to the bridegroom of guns, every day will be a shoot-out at the O.K. Coral, and we’re all going to destroy each other.
Cartoon used by permission: Pat Bagley Salt Lake Tribune
Dear Right-Wing Christians and The World that is watching you:
Oy! Oy! Oy! What have you wrought, my brothers and sisters in Christ? I hear you crowing in ecstasy on social media at the win of Trump as if Jesus, Himself, had returned (“Take that, you liberal jerks—Trump is anointed by God, and he will save Christianity from you Babylonian whores!”). And I know you don’t and won’t hear the warnings I’m sending you in this note. But Christians for Trump, you just screwed the pooch! You are not only on the wrong side of history, but you are on the wrong side of God’s love. And you know what? I think that this is not the victory you think it is—this is a test as it has been on so many other historical occasions when Christians were supposed to rise up to meet the challenge of love, respect, and grace but sank into the gutter by prostituting themselves to power and greed. Well, I’m praying for the Christian church like crazy, because when you realize what you have unleashed upon the world, and that you’ve been played “in the name of Jesus,” the cost to your souls will be incalculable. Have you heard about the 200+ hate crimes that have happened across the nation since the election of Trump? Are you hearing the cries of the Muslim, Latino, LGBT, and African-American children who are afraid to go to school because they are being tormented because their tormentors feel they have a champion in the White House for their bigotry? I’m praying that these stories break your heart, and if you’re really pro-life—if you really love Jesus—you’ll mobilize with the rest of us to protect the lives of all those peeps whom Jesus loves, and you will confront your man in the White House to use his power to protect their lives and wellbeing.
Cartoon used by permission: Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star Tribune
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I am discovering that this is the scariest place America has been in since the 60s. I thought we were so much better than this. I believed we were exceptional because of our diversity and our ability to be united. I am demoralized by what I’ve seen come out of the election of Trump, and the only thing that helps me face this new, dark era is my trust in God. I meant what I wrote to President-Elect Trump: I will be praying for him like crazy that he will do the right thing. But I will also figure out how I can use my sphere of influence, my finances, and my time to mobilize others to push back the darkness the Trump campaign and election have unleashed. I hope all those who have a heart will do the same.
May God have mercy on these United States of America.
Cartoon used by permission: Bill Day Cagle Cartoons
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VISIONARY QUOTES ABOUT THE “COMMON GOOD” FOR THE TOUGH ROAD AHEAD
(COMMON GOOD: Actions taken within a family, a group, a society, or a country for the benefit of all its inhabitants.)
“Patriotism is love of country. But you can’t love your country without loving your countrymen and countrywomen. We don’t always have to agree, but we must empower each other, we must find the common ground, we must build bridges across our differences to pursue the common good.”—Cory Booker
“I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans [emphasis=blogger], and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people, I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.”—President-Elect, Donald Trump Victory Speech
“Here’s some guidance right off the bat, Mr. President-elect: Those sentiments will have more force if you immediately and unequivocally repudiate the outpouring of racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic insults, threats and attacks being associated with your name. Do this in a personal plea to people who supported your candidacy [emphasis=blogger]. Tell them this is not what you stand for, nor is it what your new administration will tolerate.”—NYTimes Editorial/”Denounce the Hate, Mr. Trump
Cartoon used by permission: Rick McKee The Augusta Chronicle
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REFERENCES
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/american-minorities-donald-trump_us_582344d6e4b0e80b02ce3f57
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/11/colin-kaepernick-didn-t-vote-don-t-complain.html
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