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Getting Over It & Getting On With It
On citizenship, discipleship, & refusing to be gaslit.
Jan. 18, 2017
Directed most of his public commentary not to the issues facing his administration, but to belittling those who criticized, or even dared to question virtually anything he's ever said, thought, or done, and even threatened to "go after" those who did, including many in his own party...
After rising to power on promises to "drain the swamp" of undue corporate lobbyists and special interests, formed the richest and most corporate executive-heavy cabinet in the history of the United States of America...
and whether he endorsed any of it or not, let's not forget the post-election fallout his victory precipitated either...
As soon as the polls closed a nationwide epidemic of hate crimes broke out against blacks, Muslims, and women. Within 72 hours more than 200 had occurred, the large majority of which were committed by people chanting "Trump...! Trump...!" At college campuses women were being accosted by men claiming that "it [was] now legal to grab them by the p***y..." (ADL, 2016; SPLC, 2016). By Dec. 12 that figure had risen to 1094 (SPLC, 2016b)--a rate nearly double that of the previous year (FBI, 2016), and unprecedented in recent U.S. history. Many of my Latino and Muslim friends hid in their homes terrified and in tears, afraid to go out in public or speak to anyone when they had to for groceries or work. All of which our president-elect responded to with nothing more than a few perfunctory damage-control comments disavowing support for it...
Etc. etc. etc...
Presumably all of this and more, falls within the realm of things the rest of us should "just get over." If so, it seems fair to ask what you think would not... Unrestrained religious persecution...? Internment camps...? Rape...? A nuclear hair-trigger with the rest of the world...? Even, God forbid... improprieties with public email servers...?
At what point would you be willing to acknowledge that a line had been crossed beyond which it was no longer reasonable, nor moral to expect his victims, and the rest of the world to "just get over it?"
If I honestly thought any of you were bigots or misogynists I wouldn't find this so baffling. But for months now I've watched antics like these accumulate on a daily basis only to be met with nothing but this increasingly strident "get over it" mantra. I can literally count on one hand the Trump supporters I've encountered who responded to any of the above with even a raised eyebrow, much less evidence of concern for anything other than whether they were being accused of something. I'm starting to wonder where the end of this road is... or much I don't want to believe it, whether there even is one. How can so many non-racists and non-misogynists be so nonplussed by these things? Last year during his campaign Trump said,
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters... It’s like, incredible...!" - (Troyan, 2016; Fox News, 2016)
Surely he isn't right... is he? So whence this deafening, interstellar silence from the winning team...?
When times change for better or worse language often evolves to reflect it. I recently came across a term I'd not heard before: Gaslighting. According to Wikipedia, gaslighting is,
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