Two Years
By 
Today marks two years since Donald Trump’s inauguration as president. Sometimes, it’s still hard to believe I am typing statements like this. It’s been a journey, to say the least, one that has had many, many, many lows and a few moments of victory and relief to cut the misery. Overall, it has been terrible, as bad as expected. Between the stolen Supreme Court seat, the graft and grift, the embrace of white supremacy, the move toward fascism, the promotion of previously obscure racists to position of real power, etc., things really suck. The government being shutdown for the last month over Trump’s demands for a white supremacist border wall that will accomplish nothing is emblematic of the whole thing–Republican indifference to people who suffer, Trump’s childlike brain, the utter incompetence and horror and racism. Where this ends is completely unknown. Moreover, how the nation recovers from this–given that 40 percent of the country wholeheartedly supports the whole shebang and that there will be post-Trumps just as bad or worse except more competent and intelligence–is unclear to me.
Of course, there have been some less than terrible things. First, all credit goes to the millions of people who changed the national conversation about Trump in the weeks after election, first the women’s march and then especially the people who mobbed the airports when Trump announced the Muslim ban. Both of these actions created a culture of resistance to Trump and the Republicans, giving a lot of people who have never participated in activist politics before the courage to show up and realize they could make a difference. The continued growth of the left and the new ideas transforming the Democratic Party means that the future for Democrats will be a lot different than that of the recent past, even if there are expected growing pains and internal party tension and a lot of extremely online people taking advantage to promote their own divisiveness and personal branding. The rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and the other new women of color in Congress that are owning Republicans on a daily basis is heartening. The entirety of the 2018 elections was pretty great, outside of in Florida and Ohio. And then there’s been a few moments of luck, such as McCain unexpectedly sticking the knife in Trump by refusing to repeal the ACA.
But look, things are awful and terrible. The nation is an international embarrassment. Racist violence is back and in fashion. Agencies of the government are openly promoting ethnic cleansing. Climate change is inevitable and the nation isn’t going to do a damn thing about it. I could go on.
What we have is each other and the knowledge that despite all of this, more people believe in what we believe in than what they believe in. That doesn’t mean they won’t seize power through some soft coup, which is really what the Supreme Court is heading toward. But we have stood together remarkably well and we can continue to do so. We must against the hell that we face.