My Four-Year Resistance

Fuck, America. We really did it. We really let this happen. We really let him become President.

Today I will not be watching Trump’s inauguration. I will not dignify our great democracy’s history by celebrating a man with such blatant disrespect for women, people of color, immigrants, the disabled, LGBTQ people and so many he deems “others.” I cannot watch because it hurts, in ways I never even knew it could hurt, to see this happen to my country. And, yes, I am scared. It’s OK to be scared. We can be scared together. I am scared of such a thin-skinned narcissist with no intellectual curiosity and a proven history of vengeance being handed nearly unlimited power with a majority party behind him happy to overlook countless conflicts already. To put it short, we’re fucked. We’re so fucked.

Yet while it might seem nice (so fucking nice) to be put into a cryogenic sleep for the next four years to avoid the coming Armageddon and retain some semblance of our sanity, the future demands our full attention. We must be awake and ready to fight like never before. We must resist all attempts to undermine our core values as a nation and turn back the hands of progress. It will be on us, all of us, to reach into the deepest wells of our resolve to make it through this administration. We will grow weary, we will lose at times. But the fight is now entirely in our hands. Keep our hard-earned civil rights, preserve our precious Earth, save more than 20 million people from losing healthcare, and on and on.

Find joy where you can, for this fight will seem endless. So today, instead of watching that bloviating, bigoted Hate Pumpkin, I will rewatch President Barack Obama’s first inaugural address. Remember why it all matters. Remember what it felt like to have so much hope. Resist this illegitimate president and everything he stands for. We the people, we are all we have. And, yes, we can do this. Happy weekend all; fight on, America.