Tag Archives: Trump

Brett Kavanaugh

Grassley = Voldemort

And other stream-of-consciousness reactions to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. (A brief sampling, because I’ve only made it through four hours so far.)

• Grassley: American hero for scheduling a hearing.

• Grassley = Voldemort

• Grassley: “Dick Durbin is my friend so that negates all the horrible things I’m about to say blaming a victim of sexual assault.”

• Whitehouse for president, just because I was born in Rhode Island.

• Olivia Benson would not stand for Rachel Mitchell’s whole deal AT ALL.

• Good job trying to stump a psychologist with a question about her factors for anxiety.

• Who cares if she has other factors that contribute to her anxiety? How does that prove or disprove the veracity of her sexual assault?

• Cory Booker is so cute.

• Booker has a new campaign slogan: Christine Blasey Ford’s courage.

• I am shocked—shocked—that no one has read this carefully worded, so eloquent statement yet.

• Will my face get that bloated if I keep drinking into my 50s?

• Your words have meaning, too, and personally, I would try to ensure that at least 1/10 of them are the truth.

• Oh nice! Rhode Island gets a shoutout.

• Is that Alyssa Milano? I loved Charmed back in the day.

• Who is that pissed-off looking woman sitting behind Kavanaugh? (It’s his wife, apparently.) Doesn’t look like she believes a word of this bullshit.

• Of COURSE you’re an only child.

• You’re tearing up about the lies you tell your ten year old. So excited that you’re a father.

• I wouldn’t brag too hard about your service to Bush. You know what people think of him, right? I know he’s off painting in a meadow, but people are still dying in the wars he started.

• Brett crying about his dad keeping diaries made me think his dad was dead, which still isn’t an excuse for him raping someone. Turns out he’s not. I’m so confused. Why is he crying about his dad’s diaries?

• Brett took the SATs, therefore he’s not a rapist.

• “Going to church was like brushing my teeth.”

• Guess lawn-cutting wasn’t like brushing your teeth?

• “I had lots of female friends, and they all have white-girl names.”

• “I am lying so hard about this yearbook reference and not in a very sensical way.”

• Centralmaine.com: journalistic integrity since white people were alive.

• Look at all the privileged-person experiences I have had. I went to Madison Square Garden.”

• His wife looks like a super pissed Maura Tierney.

• “So sad, I will never be a little league parent ever again. This ruins my WASP dreams.”

• “Just so ya know, Senator Feinstein, I know you’re a woman so I’ll yell at you.”

• “Sorry to interrupt, but you’re a Democrat so I don’t care at all.”

• I kept diaries in high school too. Are they evidence that I did or didn’t rape someone?

• Crazy coincidence: We took BAC charts to parties at my school, too.

• Did he keep the BAC chart in his diary?

• Leahy = MVP

• Lindsey Graham: “I would never do to Kagan and Sotomayor what you’re doing because we had a minority then. See asterisk: Merrick Garland.”

• Kavanaugh is defending himself worse than I did when I hid Flinstone vitamins under my dresser when I was six.

The Bachelorette

Can Trump wait until The Bachelorette is over to make his life-ruining announcements?

Blake was opening up to Becca just as Trump announced that he was selecting Ken Starr’s second in command as his choice to prevent women from making their own medical choices.

The Bachelorette was already ruined for me when I learned about the frontrunner’s racist, transphobic, and school shooting survivor-mocking social media history. (It’s, like, really bad.) Note that I intentionally used the passive voice because I’m not blaming any one person. There’s a collective responsibility on the part of ABC, Chris Harrison, and each contest to make sure that I can forget about the direction of this country for two hours a week. I watch this show to get away from this stuff, okay? So do better.

Now, Donald Trump has chosen to interrupt my supposed reprieve not once, but twice within a single month. First, he decided to meet with Kim Jong-Un just as Becca was composing a first-date love ballad with loose-cannon Chris and Richard Marx. #KimDon

This Monday, Trump ruined my life and my viewing experience by announcing his pick to wage war on my reproductive rights. (Sobering thought: All of our liberal dreams are now in the hands of Justice Roberts.) Here’s a link to donate to NARAL.

My one request is this: Mr. President, I know you’re out to get me personally, but can you just do so outside of the hours of 8:00-10:00 pm EST Mondays?

the Future is Female

#MeToo and My Trump-Related Panic Attack

the Future is Female
My boyfriend got me this shirt on Etsy.

I just finished Hillary Clinton’s memoir, What Happened, and I would equate reading it to having a long panic attack. Do you ever have those moments where you suddenly remember that Donald Trump is president and want to kill yourself? That’s what this book is, wrapped up in a 500-page package. I’m not saying you shouldn’t read it. You should. I’m just saying, in the words of Scar (from The Lion King, duh, do you really need to ask?), “Be prepared.”

I do wonder how much different this book might have been if it were published a few months later in light of the #MeToo movement. For instance, would Clinton’s takedown of Matt Lauer be made stronger by the confirmation that he is a uniquely terrible predator, as opposed to merely a bad journalist? Might she have addressed her collaborations with Harvey Weinstein? (Probably not.)

I also wonder whether this movement would have had as much traction—or exist at all—if Hillary Clinton were our president today. Certainly the country’s overall tenor, and the fact that our commander in chief is also a high-profile predator, contributed to the rise of this movement. Am I saying that I prefer a Trump administration to a Clinton one? God, no. That’s like saying I haven’t awoken internally screaming every morning since November 9, 2016.

Still, I think about the time a college student from my neighborhood had his entire family die in an accident, and a former classmate posted on the obituary, “At least one good thing came from this: You know how much everyone cares about you.” I remember thinking what a weird and tone-deaf thing that was for someone to say. But let me try to follow suit by finding the positive in a sea of despair: At least Trump’s presidency has taught some of us (those italics are directed at you, Mitch “child rapists are better than Democrats, I guess” McConnell and Paul “this is what a jellyfish looks like and all the tax cuts” Ryan) how strong and resilient we can be in the face of true horror.

And Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women and then won the presidency three weeks later, so I doubt having an affair with a stripper or asking the FBI director for whom he voted are going to sway you, but to those who still support him, do better and also why?

Lyft Strangers

Lyft, Uber, Trump, and how they all conspired to ruin my boots

“Why aren’t you smiling?” my Lyft driver asked me.

“Because you’re ugly,” I said.

No, I didn’t really say that. That’s what my friend suggested I respond, though.

Really, I wasn’t smiling because he had made me walk two blocks in the rain, after I had input my exact address into the app. I was wearing new boots. Then he made me listen to Bollywood music and asked if I liked it.

I wish I could still use Uber. It wasn’t better, exactly, but the drivers were a little less chatty IMO. I like my space. (If you don’t know why I’m boycotting Uber, read this.)

My trip to the West Coast yielded some really fruitful encounters with Lyft drivers, including a Hispanic (relevant to the story) man who began the ride by denouncing Trump. I was on board, duh, until he suggested that Hispanic people don’t deserve what our fearless leader is doling out, but maybe Muslim people do. That’s where he lost me. By the time he was saying he couldn’t wait for Trump’s impeachment so we could have Pence, I was all the way on the other side of the map.

Yeah, I can’t wait for the giant party that will be Mike Pence’s reign.

Also, how about Bill O’Reilly? Just while we’re loosely connected to the topic of sexual harassment. My real question is why are we surprised? I was under the impression we knew he had been doing this for years. Maybe I was just confusing him with Rush Limbaugh. All these Republican propagandists are the same to me.

2017: new year, new president

I have some bad news for you. There will be some celebrity deaths this year.

2016 was a bad year. The United States elected an orange reality star who is packing his cabinet with a new flavor of bigot each week as its president. (I know. I’m still in denial, too.) I’m sure you’ve been through some things this year, too. I know Hillary Clinton (#stillwithher), that treasure of a fine woman (in the words of my drunk brother on election night, “my queen”), has probably had it the roughest. (Putin, on the other hand, seems to have had a grand year.) Personally, I’ve been through some things, too. My grandfather, who was not a celebrity, died, and my best work friend, who is also not a celebrity, moved across the country. I’m ready for a new year.

So let’s ignore the fact that we’re kicking off 2017 by actually making this monster our president (also, fun fact: January 20th is my terrible ex boyfriend’s birthday) and instead think about the good things that will happen this year. Like The Bachelor! It premieres tomorrow, and the contestant list is packed with dolphin-lovers and Little Mermaid fans. The latter makes sense (Ariel is the best Disney princess. Don’t even talk to me if you disagree.), while the former is a bit perplexing–did I miss the dolphin memo? This is like bubble dresses all over again.

Also, I’ve set up some brand-new resolutions.

  1. Send daily thoughts of love and support to Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
  2. Be more tolerant of people who don’t watch The Bachelor and maybe don’t want to to hear my play-by-play recaps; they know not what their lives are lacking.
  3. Commit to regular meals, instead grazing out of containers throughout the day (last year’s resolution broke down a bit)
  4. Limit my crying about how this is the last full year of my 20s (yeah, I discovered that harsh reality) to one 20-minute session once a month

Happy 2017! It will only be the age of Trump if we let it.

Trump adds anti-semite to his merry band of bigots

I was trying not to be fatalistic. Okay, I wasn’t trying super hard. But by Friday I had calmed down a touch and was trying to channel my fear and grief into productivity. I watched Hillary Clinton accept what happened and encourage us to do the same. I watched Barack Obama remind us to stay strong and give our new president-elect a chance. As usual, his words hugged me like a warm sweater, and I, too, was almost ready to give him a chance. (I recognize that the fact that I am unable to type his name here detracts from my claim of full acceptance a touch.) With newfound hope (okay, not exactly hope, more like resignation) I posted this heartwarming message on Facebook:

After watching Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama handle themselves with the grace and dignity we’ve come to expect from them, I’m feeling at least a modicum of the hope that led me to support them in the first place. Neither of them will be our president come January 20, but we can still count on them to lead us by example. And for that I’m grateful.

Then I set up recurring donations to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

So I was pretty proud of how maturely I was handling all this. So my candidate didn’t win. So we’d have, at the very best, a loose canon with no political experience in office for the next four years. Four years will fly by! Actually, no, it won’t, because that takes me to 32.

Then Trump decided to drive a giant tractor through my newfound peace.

This week, charming anti-semite/wife-beater Stephen Bannon entered our lives. Doesn’t he sound mild, like yogurt? His name rhymes with Dannon; that’s why I thought of that. He will be Trump’s chief strategist and senior adviser, while Reince “This is my name and I’m sticking to it” Priebus will be his chief of staff. I’m going to set aside my dislike of Priebus and his name for a second, because compared to Lord Bannon, he is like a precious downy baby duckling.

During his reign at Breitbart, which is basically a website full of Trump adoration porn (check it out–you’ll see what I mean), the “news” site spewed some truly memorable quotes:

“Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew”

“Political Correctness Protects Muslim Rape Culture”

“Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy”

There are some that are far more hateful, but I just can’t retype them.

There is also a picture of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger doctored with a Hitler mustache. Wow, those guys at Breitbart really know their way around Photoshop.

So yeah. He seems like a stand-up fellow. By the way, Bannon is a father. He has daughters.

Additionally, Bannon’s ex-wife accused him of physical abuse, including grabbing her by the neck and pulling her into a car. I say “accused” because the case was dismissed, but I’m ready to take sides in this one.

I can’t wait to see whom Trump selects next for his really stellar administration. I’m seeing David Duke as Secretary of State. Just as long as he stores his email properly. Apparently that’s the number one priority in that position.

Let’s blame the liberal bubble

Yesterday, I stood in line at my polling place filling out my ballot. I didn’t wait for a private booth. I didn’t care who saw it. I live in Brooklyn. As I walked to work, I actually thought that maybe someday I would have a daughter, and I would tell her how I voted for the first female president.

Today, there was silence on the subway. One woman grasped a poll, a single tear running down her cheek. My office was half-empty, shrouded in an eery stillness.

I keep saying, “I can’t believe it.” And people keep telling me, “We live in a bubble. That’s why this happened.”

I don’t accept that. No, I don’t live in racistland. But the people who live there apparently weren’t willing to admit they voted for Trump either. I haven’t lived in New York for my whole life. I’ve lived in some very blue states, true. And now I live in a city that Trump calls home, too.

More than half of this country did not vote for a reality television star with no political experience. Does more than half the country live in a bubble?

I don’t just associate with people who agree with every word I have to say. I respect other opinions. But I’m very, very scared. I can’t respect opinions that value hatred of other cultures, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientation, and so on. I don’t respect people who have been endorsed by the KKK and the NRA. I can’t.

So did Trump win because I was caught up in the bubble? Were the pollsters and forecasters caught up in the bubble, too? Is that why they predicted this wrong for the first time since Truman?

It’s not the bubble’s fault. The bubble did this right.