As Trump Disrespects the Office of the President, America's Citizens Should Show Him No Respect.
Thank you for not legitimizing his inaugural. Thank you for avoiding 'sir' or 'Mr. President'. Thank you for never looking away when he lies, cheats, blames, or threatens.
Come January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will once again become President of the United States. His inauguration will come a full four years and 14 days after the infamous insurrection he and he alone caused, where crowds descended on our Capitol building and trashed it, where guardians of that venerable building were brutalized, where legitimate officeholders were terrorized, where a mock gallows hung as a reminder to our then-vice president that he had better do the president’s bidding and illegally disavow the legitimate transition of power from this president to Joe Biden, the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Donald Trump, the newly-’elected’ president, is a convicted felon, the first in our history, a president twice-impeached, and, because we have more proof than we need that he led an insurrection, the first constitutionally illegitimate president—put into office against the edicts of our constitution, the document that sets the laws of the land, and given free reign by his chosen Supreme Court members who have since decided this particular president—as opposed to any other—will be immune from any punishment for any actions his twisted mind may move us toward while he holds what used to be the most revered office in the land.
Come January 20, Trump will once again be president in name only, which is the way he wants it. We know without a doubt, because he’s made it clear, both in his previous years in the White House and his run-up now, that he has no desire to be the president he’ll promise to be when he puts his hand on a bible and takes the oath of office:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
He’ll repeat those words as he does any script at hand: not with any kind of thought or promise, but simply as the necessary last step to get what he wants. Once he has repeated them he’ll move on, working toward his only goal: putting the fate of our country in his unstable hands, ready to implement any edict or provision that will give him more power than anyone who has ever held office in the United States has ever had before him.
This man who now enters the office of the presidency for a second time—to the horror of millions of us who couldn’t imagine he would be walking free, let alone be given the chance to sully the office of the president once again—has a powerful army of servants and sycophants who have every intention of following his foolish, dangerous, cockamamie lead, no matter where it takes us.
We’ve known this is how it would be from the moment Trump announced his plan to regain the presidency. We fought hard against him in what we thought was a good fight. A necessary fight. A righteous fight. And it looked for all intents as if we might just win.
There is no question that we should have won. We thought, at the very least, the fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, should have disqualified a traitorous convicted felon from any more chances to run for public office.
In normal times, it would have.
We didn’t win, for whatever reasons, legitimate or otherwise. We lost—in so many ways we’ve lost count or can’t yet comprehend. Donald Trump will be sworn in as president on January 20, 2025, and millions of us who wouldn’t have voted for him under any circumstance will be enraged or in mourning or will be strapping on our battle gear, ready for a new fight.
Millions of us. That’s no small number. More than half the country will be against anything Donald Trump attempts to throw at us. Millions of us will never accept him as a legitimate American president. We will never accept the propaganda, the attempts at normalizing bad political behavior, the need for the Trump regime to bully and strongarm and send us into dizzying, destructive chaos.
For many of us this is nothing new. We’ve always been against the Trump regime, and we’ve been vocal about it. But there are still millions of Americans who don’t understand or choose not to believe our warnings against the worst regime to operate inside the White House in the history of this country.
It’s going to be up to us to convince them. And soon. We’re going to need them on our side in the coming years. We’ll get nowhere without them. So the first step is to promise amongst ourselves never to legitimize or accept any of Trump’s phony invocations or admonitions.
He wants the courts to work for him and against us? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants Congress to take his side, even when his side goes against the laws and ethics of the land? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants to build camps to house what he calls ‘illegal aliens’? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants to give Ukraine to the Russians? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants to take away Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants to place fake ‘experts’ in government offices where their only goal is to diminish that office or let it die? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants to hobble any righteous and reasonable causes that go against his own fevered nonsense? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants to make the rich richer? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants to end journalistic truth and ethics in favor of his own in-house PR sheets? Don’t let him without a fight.
He wants to be the most powerful leader in the entire world? Good god, don’t let him without a fight.
He is not a president and never will be. Say it. Out loud.
He is and always will be the wrong leader for America. Say it. Out loud.
He is the incorrigible personification of evil. Say it. Out loud.
And keep saying it. We can’t give him an inch. He’ll take a mile.
We can be that force for good, but only if we get our words out, only if our deeds prove it. The people who matter need to see us and hear us. We can’t be silent. We can’t equivocate. Our words and our actions need to have clout.
It’ll happen only if we don’t back down. Trump is and always will be bad for the country. His station doesn’t matter. He is who he is. He will never change. So we must.
We must get better at being the opposition. There must be no doubt about where we stand, about how we see the other side, about what exactly they’re doing that puts us at odds. We can’t hide anything or hope it gets better on its own.
We have to make our concerns known, both inside and outside the government. That means we’ll have to hold our own politicians’ feet to the fire. They’re there to fight for us. Make them fight. Hard.
We’ll need to stop grabbing onto every stupid thing Trump throws out there. He throws out stupid things to hide his real agenda, and the one big perk for him is that the indoctrinated MAGA crowd tends to want to believe every daffy word.
If there’s a choice between right and wrong, Trump will choose ‘wrong’. Every time. He’s built that way. We’ve seen it too many times to think it’s not who he is. He admires strong-men dictators. He lusts for the power he inexplicably holds. He’ll never let go of it on his own, and his own sense of omnipotence grows with every successful takeover.
It’s a pattern we have to stop.
It’s important that we recognize and support the resources we have and are building. As we complain about the complicity of the mainstream media, we’ll need to hype our own powerhouses. They’re many and they’re growing:
There is the Meidas Touch Network, which is giving Fox ‘News’ a run for its money online, and now The Contrarian, a brand new pro-democracy network started by Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen and already picking up the most amazing writers who will make us think and build courage and act. It includes a sorely needed civics education project called The Democracy Index.
There are dozens of remarkable, trustworthy writers here and elsewhere who are taking up the call. (Please list those you admire in the comments in order to get the word out.) Follow them. Encourage them. Pay them if you can. We’re going to need them in the days ahead. They’ll need to be able to work for us in ways that free them up.
The office of the presidency, as lofty as it appears, is only as effective as the person holding that office. If that person disrespects the position of power he holds, then he is unworthy of that position, no matter how he acquires it. Our constitution expects and requires loyalty to the oath of office.
We, as citizens of the country we’ve built and call our own, must demand it.
"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble." - John Lewis.
Further reading:
Joyce Vance, Judd Legum, Heather Cox Richardson, Aaron Ruper, Dan Rather, Jesse Piper, Jessica Craven, Scott Dworkin for starters.
Thank you, Ramona, for girding our loins for the fight. Someone to read for sure is Dr. Timothy Snyder who has begged us not to obey in advance. He has a great idea about establishing a "People's Cabinet" comprised of former officials who can get out the opposition message of what the administration should be doing. He also has a great name for the incoming administration: the Mump Regime. It's a portmanteau of Musk and Trump and it's perfect.
Since I just moved across the country this summer, I'm not sure yet where my fellow liberal fighters are. I have to find them and soon.
I was thrilled that Michelle Obama has refused to attend the Inauguration. I wish more of them would follow her example.