From the time of his election, the sitting president has received a lot of opposition, and protests started up immediately all around the nation. The attached picture is of student protestors taken from a New York Times article in November of 2016, just after the election, but even before his swearing in.
I was (and still am) in no way happy that he won the electoral vote and thus the election, but I was uncomfortable adopting that “not my president” mindset. To paraphrase his own recent words, “it was what it was.” My hope was that the balance of power embodied in the U.S. Constitution would offset his excesses and that more experienced hands would guide him through the time-honored and constitutional workings of government.
Alas, it was not to be. The self-proclaimed expert on everything (how many times have his proclamations begun with “I know far more than . . .”?) has ignored or fought anything with which he disagreed, or worse, assessed as a personal affront. (He has been quoted as saying, “I like to take everything personally because you do better that way.”) Piling on were many Republicans, led by the shameless Mitch McConnell, who have given him carte blanche to rip apart the workings of government, all the while getting all their own personal interests and causes “taken care of.”
During his campaign the chant would erupt to, “Build the Wall,” and while the continued progress on that southern border wall he claims is pretty debatable, in the 1,099 days of his administration, he HAS built up quite a wall around himself and those cronies. In fact, there is now a rather imposing physical wall around the perimeter of the White House, and more alarming, a seemingly impenetrable wall between the sitting president and reality.
Despite his oath of office, it is Trump who has chosen not to be a president for all the people, but only for those who follow his own narrowing view of the United States.
In her wonderful daily digest, Heather Cox Richardson, American historian and Boston College Professor of History, included this observation:
“Yesterday, Trump raised eyebrows when he retweeted an account that said: ‘Leave Democrat cities. Let them rot…. [Walk Away] from the radical left. And do it quickly.’ His retweet sparked outrage, with British journalist Mehdi Hasan noting, ‘If Obama had retweeted someone saying – leave Republican states. Let them rot – it would have been a multi-week, multi-month political scandal requiring clarifications and apologies from every top Dem. With Trump, it won’t even register in *today’s* headlines.’ ”
I proudly live in one of those Democratic cities (and states), and I believe in and vote for Democratic candidates. Because he chose to exclude me, personally, from his purview, I can only return the favor —
Donald J. Trump, by his own admission, is not the president for all the people and as such, he is NOT my president.