April 3, 2025 ~ Thursday afternoon (cold/overcast/snowy – typical spring in CO. It’s to be 82° next week!)
It’s been a month … and I mean that in so many ways. It’s been a month since I last posted. It’s been a(nother) month of this faltering administration. I feel like I’ve been strapped to a chair and forced to watch a disaster movie 24 hours a day for the past/last 72 days. I am watching the crumbling of our democracy and the crumbling of what we all know to be true and dear and what we have come to know as normal.
Nothing is normal. We are no longer normal. I keep replaying a scene from some movie or art depiction in some history book where bison are being chased over cliffs to their deaths. I’m feeling more bison-like every day. (And not just from stress-eating cookies every day!)
This week I took my very crude (I do not excel in poster board art!) hand-made demonstration sign (“Hey Elon – Try Being a Decent Human” – on one side and “F-ELON” on the other side) and stood on the corner outside of a local Tesla dealership. It was a small gathering but impressive in who was there. I was the youngest on my side – by far. I was on the west side of the street with about 10-12 others and across the street there were about 30 waving their own crude (and sometimes great) signs. One guy near me had a sign he got off of Amazon (as much as he didn’t want to BUY from Amazon, he did). Oh, the dichotomy of it all! His was the best sign … which read:
Know Your Parasites! Below those words were three images … the first was a tick labeled “deer tick”. The second was another tick labeled “dog tick”. And the third was of Trump labeled “LUNATIC”. Ha ha. I loved that sign. I came home hell-bent on buying myself one but it cost over $30 and I figured I’d best save my moolah, as much as I did want to buy that thing.
Dichotomy – a contrast between two things that are in opposition or entirely different. Perhaps examples could be – science and voodoo, black and white, lawfulness and criminality.
Or in the case of that gentleman with the sign – wanting the ease of buying online but not wanting to support who owns that company. Or, as I keep thinking … the gentleman who was next to me on that sidewalk. He is a Vietnam vet, just had a knee replacement (two weeks ago and in pain), and there because he was worried to pieces about losing his services and income. Nice guy. Coming off surgery, he climbed a hill to get to where we were standing – all with his signs, his cane, his chair, and his discomfort. We talked for the hour we were there/waving our signs/waving to cars/cheering the ones who honked in our favor/laughing at those who gave us the middle finger salute. I admired his tenacity. I admired his service. I admired that in the face of adversity, he was still willing to come out and express his right to free speech and a peaceful assembly.
He spoke slowly, thoughtfully. He said that he didn’t understand why people were so supportive of the President. But, he respected their choice/their beliefs – even when they were vastly opposite of his own. Admirable. He said he fought for our freedoms and the right to be on that sidewalk, as did so many of his fellow soldiers, but he didn’t understand how anyone (let alone some of his fellow vets) could be so blind/so ignorant/so stupid/so unfettered in their loyalty to this man who is destroying everything that they fought to preserve. He sat there and shook his head. I did, as well.
Blind loyalty. The black and whiteness of all of the (so-called) followers of Trump. There seem to be no gray areas when fealty is the name of the game. Either you go along with what is the Kool-Aid flavor of the day or you don’t. And if you do – it’s seems to be an all-or-nothing deal. There is no questioning, no if/ands/or buts, no clauses stating some slight uneasiness about anything.
This country is split as I’ve never (in my lifetime) seen it (or been old enough/or aware enough to notice). It’s astounding to me that some people think this is all okay. How much more will we all have to endure before those that still/now think we are on a good path – wake up and realize that we’re in big trouble? I just don’t know if that’ll happen.
The woman on the other side of me, that evening on the sidewalk, was 80 years old – if she was a day. She looked like she’d been ridden hard and hung out to dry – like her life had been anything but easy. She was disabled, had a walker, a cane, two signs, and a folding chair. How she got up that hill to the sidewalk, I have no idea, either. (BTW – I carried both of these people’s chairs back down the hill to their cars for them – the least I could do lest they roll down that hill back to the parking lot!) She was scared to death that her Medicare and Medicaid would be discontinued. How would she continue on? I felt heartsick for them both.
I felt the chasm of financial security between us that night. I might gripe about the price of groceries and the loss of services (for others) but when all is said and done – at this moment – I am and probably won’t be TOO affected by whatever Trump, his minions, and The Heritage Foundation decide to do. (I might come to eat those words.) But these people who were out waving signs on Tuesday night? You bet they’ll be affected. It was not only an eye-opener for me but also broke my heart a bit. Reality slapped me in the face but good. These lovely humans – going about their own lives/business – and having their income, protection, services, aid, and whatever else snatched away from them. All because this evil dictator-wanna-be thought it would be something he could do … and so he is doing it.
Kind of like imposing 41% tariffs on the seals and penguins of the uninhabited island in the deep South Pacific Ocean. That makes ZERO sense. But, I guess if he gets his jollies from signing another Executive Order – whether it makes sense or not – it’s what he will do. Insanity at its finest.
I’m tired. We are all tired. The news is hard to watch but we need to keep our heads in the game – because maybe something we see or hear will call us to action. Without action there is complacency. And complacency is the enemy and opposite of progress.
Dichotomy indeed.