I read Queen Isabella insisted Christopher Columbus transport pigs on his 1492 journey to the New World. The Canary Island herd introduced virulent infectious diseases - including trichinosis – to the natives. With no immunity, the natives died in droves.
Fast forward to 2016, when I was a native of a civilized land, led for eight years by a civilized president, Barack H. Obama. Foreign to me and infecting the culture: virulent racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, science denial, white supremacy and distain for all but rich white men.
Power brokers in the Electoral College insisted on selecting Donald Trump, a boorish president, one so alien to the halls of government, he trashes them daily with mud and rubbish.
Donald Trump, Jr. is like his father, when shown holding a large cookie bearing a poor resemblance to the face of Obama. Junior is grinning as if he is Donald the Conqueror, as if holding a cookie proves anything. He holds a cookie lamely, like the Great White Hunter holding a tail cut off an African elephant. Cookie? Elephant tail? Junior might just as well be rutting for truffles. His nose is pointed to a place and down it goes … for fungus.
A current herd of pigs is leading us into treacherous territory. Lawmakers in consort with Trump behaved, as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out, like “pigs to the trough” as they passed a tax cut for the rich that will leave America vulnerable to catastrophes. Will there be a bridge collapse? A cyberattack? Republicans are blasé. Any required funds will be stolen – because fiscal conservatives must steal - from Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
Timothy Egan of The New York Times wrote, ‘“Liar,” as applied to Trump, is something that can be quantifiably proven. A mere 4 percent of the president’s public statements — 4 in 100! — have been rated true by PolitiFact.”
And what can be said about the grinning senior Trump, winning the "War on Christmas"? America's 45th president says acknowledging non-Christian celebrations with "Happy Holidays!" should be reviled as politically correct.
Such antics are hard to stomach, especially in light of Obama’s manners, grace and intelligence, his compassionate ways, his savvy wife and well-bred daughters.
In the shadow of Trump's climate-change denial, assault on healthcare, theft of women’s reproductive rights, callousness toward Dreamers and the acceptance by half the country of Trump’s disgusting sexual-assault boasts, the sick thinking defies logic. Once again, we see what lies down the road. Natives sacrificed in droves.
Like so much of history, it will cause pain to millions. So, it appeared in the United Nations, when 128 countries resisted Trump’s Jerusalem edict, one likely to spark a crisis in the Middle East. His representative at the U.N., Nikki Haley, whom I had judged to be merely his typically contemptuous and ill-suited agent, emerged as quite the boor, vowing retribution for the resolution against Mr. Money Bags. They are taking names. They will “remember” who stood against him.
Sickening words to those who do not view the United States as brutish and bullying.
My goal as 2017 ends and a new year begins is to not let any pig viruses slay me. It will take some doing to overcome the assaults on the body politic. How about daily doses of intelligent human contact and minimal exposure to ignorance and hate. Focus on what is noble, uplifting, peace-making and rational in the world. On advances in science and in thwarting the damage from global warming. On sparks of judicial sanity in the face of partisan wrongheadedness. On defense of facts from reliable sources. On voting.
For now, all I can say, people, is, “I feel a march coming on.”
See the Resistance Calendar for January 20, 2018
Quakers Organize 2017 Event on Gulf