Welcome to Times of Resistance,
My name is Ryan Grossner. I am the editor of this blog, covering a wide range of academic topics.
I’m writing to you because I don’t know what will happen now that Trump is president? Has this ever happened before? Now, I’m not so concerned about my own life. I’m concerned about the U.S. I’m concerned about other countries and their people. I’m subsequently concerned about anything anyone is concerned about.
I need to write about Trump because, when there’s no way to get him out of office, I think some people, myself included, start to rationalize, accept, go through the five stages of grief, etc, and they slowly start to look on the bright side. THAT CAN’T HAPPEN. We need to remember the bad things that Trump is doing. I need to know what’s going on. Otherwise, in four years (a long time from now), we’ll be looking for anyone better than Trump. That’s anyone, literally ANYONE. Looking around my room, I see, well, actually I see some guy on a stamp on an envelope someone sent me, and I think that guy could be better than Trump. What else do I see? A pair of jeans, a Disney Monopoly game, a tote bag, a sock, a Victoria’s Secret bag….I could go on, but all these people or things would be a better president than Trump. Yet, much like the rationalization that South Koreans go through in their minds when living so close to North Korean nukesnukes that could reach them in 30 seconds and thus they have to stop fearing because it’s psychologically impossible to have that fear and continue living there day in and day out, I will probably rationalize that life will be okay with Trump in office. AGHHHHHH!
And it’s already starting. I looked at the Carrier deal. It’s okay, not the best, it’s this, it’s that. I’m okay with part of it, etc. I don’t know all the details, and I’m not sure, in this era, if we’ll ever get all the details, but the most important part is that I saw something that might be at least a little good and I was like “eh, alright, well, ya know, that’s good, I suppose,” reluctantly thinking that maybe Trump’s okay. NO! Honestly, the call with Taiwan is good. However, that’s the problem. I’ll see things like that and ignore other things. I mean, what happens in a few years if I think, well, we’re all screwed, but I’m a white male born in America so, eh.
EH?! Is that really how I’ll respond? I hope not! But that’s rationalization. That’s how we cope with so much in life. Dismissing something as not a big deal because I think I can’t fix it. I mean, I’ve grown up with so much adversity that I end up with a lot of “eh,” and I deserve better than that. WE deserve better than that. We shouldn’t have to cope with a President. We should be aiming to elect someone who makes us say “AWESOME!” I’ve gotten better in life, but what happens here if Trump does something that I can’t change and my outrage turns to exhaustion, then despondence, then depression and then the need to be happy about something so I dismiss what Trump does as “eh?” Whether that’s the plan or not, it could happen, and maybe that can happen to a lot of people over time.
We can’t let that happen, and by writing it all down, we can track what Trump does and have a roadmap back to the way things used to be. I don’t want to think that some of our most basic freedoms before 2016 are too unrealistic to strive for in 2020. By chronicling it all, we have a chance to remember that what we’re asking for is NOT too much. It is NOT too good to be true.
If you feel yourself giving up because it’s too painful to have a constant reminder of what we can’t have, write it down. If it’s too hard to keep fighting, don’t say “Oh forget about it. That can’t happen. The good times are over,” then write it down and send yourself an e-mail with the subject “Open in 2020.” You can even schedule an e-mail that you won’t receive in 2020. That way, you can survive these next four years but also be reminded of what we truly can have if we don’t think it’s too crazy to ask for it in 2020.
I’ll try to treat this as a pros and cons list of sorts. In that, I mean that there will be something good about Trump. The Taiwan call. But I want to see if some cons today look an awful lot like pros a few years from now. If that’s the case, I’ve forgotten how good things could be if he weren’t around. If that pumpkin squash lookalike would have just stayed away, things would be going down a better path these days, and I need to remember that. Rather than decide that the country is gone. If I have to write to do that, I guess that’s it. So, I just wanna keep myself in check. There’ll be different things you can click on and possibly a signal that shows whether something is a pro or con. Certainly, there will be mention of whether a particular instance is a pro or con in the content of a diary entry, but there may even be a graphic or something. I don’t know.
I guess I write a lot, but I just want to make sure that the cons of today aren’t the pros of tomorrow simply because Hillary is no longer and option, the election is over, and we all stop being so sad and start accepting Trump and thinking ‘well, maybe he’s okay’ and ‘that EPA bullshit wasn’t the worst’ and ‘Aleppo? He destroyed it and killed countless lives from multiple countries, but wasn’t there a candidate that didn’t even know what Aleppo was? I guess it could be worse.’ I don’t want to think that way, but if I’m so sad about Trump, I might because I just don’t want to live an unhappy life. It’s no way to live, and it’s certainly not beneficial to other parts of my life.
We all need to keep ourselves in check, remember what could have been, making sure that the cons of today don’t become the pros of tomorrow.