Rallying at the first Women's March with my aunt, a cardboard Hillary Clinton, and my posterAs I made plans to
participate in my third Women’s March in January, there had been one big
change in my life this time around: I was no longer living with my
husband.
Last fall, after 24 years of marriage and almost two years of
dealing with the aftermath of the devastating 2016 election, I decided I
could not live with this person anymore. Why?
Because, while the
results of the election were devastating for me, they were not for my
husband. He voted for Donald Trump, and he has continued to support him.
So as a staunch liberal and a frequent Trump protester, I had to do
something.
Over a couple of months, I began to look for a full-time job to
support myself. I toured apartment complexes in our area, I ordered new
furniture on my credit card, and I began the process of moving my life
to a new place—without him. I moved out of our house of 20 years during
the last weekend in October and into an apartment. And I have not
regretted it.
* * *
Eric (a pseudonym) and I met in the early 1990's, when we were
both in our late 20's. We didn’t talk much about politics, but I
volunteered for Greenpeace and Amnesty International and was just
beginning to identify as a liberal. From what I gathered, he was pretty
apolitical and middle-of-the-road in his views. We seemed to get along
great.
We enjoyed going to parties with mutual friends, listening to
live music at local clubs, going on hikes in the area, traveling, and
laughing together. Looking back at it, that’s probably all we had in
common. At the time, it seemed like a lot.
We got married in May 1994, adopted a dog, and had our first
child in October 1996. He was followed by another son, and then a
daughter. I guess our compatibility started to fray a little after we
started a family. We had differences of opinion about raising our kids,
but who doesn’t? He came from a more traditional, Catholic family who
expected me to quit my full-time newspaper job when I had my first baby.
That bugged me. I did resign, but that was because I had a
tiny premature baby at home and couldn’t bear to leave him in day care
and be gone all day working. So I started a freelance editing business
and worked from home, which I continued to do over the years while I
raised three kids.
Along the way, I realized that Eric and I were canceling each
other out at the voting booth. He voted Republican or, later,
Libertarian, and I never voted for anyone but Democrats. We joked about
it, but it wasn’t a major deal.
Until it was.
Our differences—and the strain they caused—began to pile up
over the years. I am the daughter of a women’s libber who was an
activist in the 1960's and 70's, and I was influenced by her. Eric seemed
to disparage feminism. He made several sexist comments to me during our
marriage, such as the fact that he thought he
should be the head of our household. He once told me that he didn’t need
me as a friend, because he had enough friends. It felt like he was
relegating me to a more sexual, subservient role.
Our problems as a couple gradually increased. I became a gun
safety activist, and toted my oldest son with me when I went to the
Million Mom March on Mother’s Day 2000.
Other marches followed, and
eventually I joined Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, after the massacre
at Sandy Hook. Being a parent definitely brought that whole issue to
the forefront for me. But as a father, Eric never felt strongly about
the kids being killed in schools in our country. I had passionate views
about this topic, and he just laughed at me and my emotions. He didn’t
argue about gun safety with me, but my activism seemed to be a joke to
him.
Exactly when Eric started to move more to the right of center,
I’m not certain. But as I suffered through the George Bush years, it
definitely bugged me that Eric voted for him in both elections. Around
this time, he also started to get more religious and explore new
churches. I was not a churchgoer, and we didn’t get married in a church.
But I started to suspect that he was sliding over to the religious
right. I had participated in an abortion rights march before we got
married, and now here Eric was reciting pro-life (and anti-choice)
propaganda.
Then Barack Obama came along. I volunteered for his campaign,
and was overjoyed when he won. My middle child was geared up to
volunteer too, at just age 9. He went with me to the first Obama
inauguration, and I was so happy that he wanted to be there. We bundled
up in layers of winter gear that cold January morning and took a VRE
train in from Virginia to Union Station. Walking out of the station onto
the streets spilling over with such energy and excitement, I was
thrilled to be part of this historic moment, and to be sharing it with
my son. We both donned Obama knit hats that I bought from a street
vendor.
But later, I went home to the person I had taken my marriage
vows with. Of course Eric didn’t like Obama. He grumbled about him and
his policies, and he continued to complain about him for the next eight
years. It was another reminder to me that we just were not simpatico.
I brought up the idea of marriage counseling, but we never went forward
with it. I found it was easier just not to talk politics with him.
But all of that pales in comparison to what was to come next:
Donald Trump. I truly think the 2016 presidential campaign and election
heralded the beginning of the end of our marriage.
When I heard that Trump was running, I really didn’t think
anybody would actually support him, especially in my circles. I said
jokingly to Eric, “You better not vote for Trump in the primary,” never
considering that he actually might. His synopsis of Donald Trump was
simple: “He cracks me up.” I tried talking to him about all my
objections: the racism, the misogyny, the blatant egoism, the
corruption, the idiocy, the mocking of the disabled! But he didn’t care.
He thought that Trump’s actions and words were funny and didn’t believe
what the media were reporting. He hated Hillary Clinton and what she
stood for. And to add insult to injury, he told my daughter he didn’t
like Hillary because “she doesn’t wear dresses or skirts.” When I heard
that, I was fuming.
And soon I was canvassing for Hillary. I joined Pantsuit
Nation, and I got involved however I could. I was horrified when Trump
picked off all his Republican rivals and eventually became the GOP
choice for president. But like so many of us, I really didn’t think he
would win against Hillary.
And then he did, and my worst nightmare came true. Waking up
the morning after the election to confirmation that Trump was going to
be president was surreal. I was too upset to talk about it with Eric—I
was sure he would gloat about the Trump victory. I felt really distanced
from him the week after the election. He knew I was distraught, but we
had nothing to say to each other.
I had to find comfort with like-minded people; I wasn’t going
to find it in my marriage. So I texted my Democrat friends and invited
them out for drinks at a local restaurant, to commiserate. After hugs
and symbolic safety pins were passed out among us, we made plans to go
to the resistance march in January 2017 that we were just starting to
hear about. A friend offered to charter a van to get us into Washington
for the march. And with our plans taking off that night, my heavy heart
was lightened a bit.
But there was one thing I couldn’t say to my friends as we
discussed going to the Women’s March and protesting the new
administration: “My husband supports Trump.” I could not admit that. I
was too embarrassed and ashamed, so I hid it.
But my mood got better as word spread to family and friends
about our transportation for the march, and that one van ended up
becoming four chartered buses from Vienna, Virginia, to the National
Mall. My mom flew out from Chicago to join us, along with my aunt from
Maine, and my 14 year old daughter planned to go as well.
The night before the march, the four of us carefully took
colorful markers to poster board, creating our heartfelt protest
posters—even while Eric was spouting off ridiculous pro-Trumpisms to my
mom and aunt. I tried to shush him, and I’m sure my annoyance was
palpable. But he just didn’t seem to get it, and I felt myself
disconnecting a little more from him with each moment.
Before the election, I had asked Eric not to show his support
for Trump in front of my family or friends. At one point, I almost
stormed away from the table when we were out to dinner with a couple in
Annapolis who also were staunch Democrats, because he was defending
Trump. I asked him to stop or I would have to walk away. He just didn’t
seem to get the scope of my deep disdain for Trump, and my utter
annoyance with him for supporting the man.
The day of the first Women’s March was amazing, such a
momentous time to be out there with thousands of other protesters in
pink hats. I was proud to be part of this moment with my mom and my
daughter, and gratified about the numbers of people from all over the
country and world taking part in this and the sister marches. But the
fact that my husband was home disagreeing with what we were so
passionately doing on the streets of the nation’s capital just gnawed
away at me.
I had no idea that day that the Women’s March would be the
first of many such protests of the Trump administration that I would
come to take part in. There was so much to object to, I just couldn’t
stay home, especially living as close to Washington as I do. I was an
occasional activist before Trump became president. After that day,
resistance became my life’s norm. I continued to march, to go to rallies
and protests, as every week there was something else to be alarmed
about. All the while, Eric made light of my activism, embarrassed me in
front of people with his comments, and usually managed to express the
opposite of what I believed in.
So I started to seriously think about getting out. I realized the truth: Eric was not my soulmate, and he probably never was.
After a too-long beach vacation with my relatives in August
2018, I was feeling more resigned about ending our marriage. We didn’t
get along well during that trip, and I was always worried that Eric
would open up his mouth and spout out words supporting Trump, or that
sounded vaguely homophobic, or that expressed his inane belief that
climate change was a myth. And I noticed he had become so rigid about
everything, like an old man I didn’t know. How did I end up here with
this person? I couldn’t even look at him anymore, and the long car ride
home seemed endless.
I came back home determined to find my way out. I knew he would
never leave our house, and if I wanted to separate, I would have to be
the one to move out. I wasn’t working full-time then, but I started to
apply for jobs and also went to secretly tour apartment complexes in our
area. It wasn’t the first time I had explored the idea of moving out,
but this time I felt more sure and actually went to see possible new
homes. I told no one of my plans.
Eric could tell that I was troubled about our relationship and
that I was distant with him.
He tried, however halfheartedly, to make it
better. I went back and forth on what to do. I felt if I was going to
do this, I had to leave soon. But how was I going to explain to anybody
that after 24 years of marriage, it would be our difference in politics
that would end up tearing us apart?
I delayed my decision for a little while and tried to see the
positive side of staying with him and the life we had built together.
But then came the last straw.
Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. I
couldn’t bear this and knew I had to go resist, again. I found out about
a big protest being planned. The night before, I brought it up to Eric,
hoping that he would finally agree that this all was a travesty, but
no—he angrily stated that Kavanaugh was innocent and the “Democrats have
waged a smear campaign on a great federal judge.” I lost it. I couldn’t
believe that he was defending a sexual predator like Kavanaugh,
especially when we have a teenage daughter.
The next day, I called the apartment complex next to my
daughter’s school and told them I wanted to sign a lease. I was prepared
to call it quits. I knew I couldn’t live with a Trump supporter
anymore. I told Eric I was getting a full-time job and moving to an
apartment. I felt terrible, but it was hard for me to talk about it with
him without getting very emotional, so I kept it brief. However, I knew
it was the right thing to do.
Soon I moved out of the house we shared for 20 years, and it
was a relief. Eric and I later talked about the reasons why I left. He
replied that he didn’t think politics was something to split up over,
that it didn’t matter that much to him. I said that it does to me. And that was the heart of the issue, right there: It matters a lot to me.
* * *
Now that I’m in the new apartment, although it is much smaller
than the house we shared and I don’t see my kids quite as much, I have
felt my anger, annoyance, and shame dissipate. And that’s better for
everybody. I am happier now that I no longer share a bed and a life with
someone whose beliefs are so contrary to mine.
So as I recently prepared to march again in Washington, I
reflected on how this was my first political protest since moving out of
the house and marriage. This time I was in a much different place, both
figuratively and literally, as I headed out to the third Women’s March.
When I stepped into the streets with my sign and started chanting, I
knew that I could live with myself a little bit better. Because now when
I continue the resistance, I’m no longer going home to the opposition.
And that feels great.
Jennifer Merrill is a freelance writer, former newspaper copy
editor, and current editor at a science education trade association. She is the author ofChasing the Gender Dreamon Amazon. You can follow her on Twitter @Hey_Jen_Merrill.
This government shutdown is weighing on all of us. I'm sick of it, I'm
sick of cable networks streaming Trump being a jerk, I'm sick of all
the lies, and I'm heartbroken by all the horrible stories of what's
happening to the people who work for the government.
I am not alone, apparently. Senator Michael Bennet went off on Ted
Cruz, the shutdown, and his frustrations with the shutdown. Hard.
“I seldom rise on this floor to contradict somebody on the
other side,” Bennet began. “I have worked very hard over the years to
work in a bipartisan way with the presiding officer with my Republican
colleagues, but these crocodile tears that the senator from Texas is
crying for first responders are too hard for me to take.”
“When the senator from Texas shut this government down in 2013, my
state was flooded. It was under water. People were killed. People's
houses were destroyed. Their small businesses were ruined forever. And
because of the senator from Texas, this government was shut down for
politics,” Bennet shouted, voice rising. He was referring to the 2013 Colorado floods, which devastated the state and killed 8 people.
He was just warming up. Watch the abridged version above, or the full version below.
The Internet lit up on Monday evening as photos of Donald Trump’s buffet
for the Clemson Tigers’ celebratory dinner made the rounds on social
media.
Trump greeted the National Champions with food from McDonald’s,
Wendy’s, and Burger King, with some pizza for good measure.
The dipping
sauce packets were placed in beautiful silver bowls, and golden candles
lined the table of this hillbilly buffet. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins
discusses this.
Resident Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to
conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir
Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes
of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what
had transpired with other administration officials, current and former
U.S. officials said.
Trump did so after a
meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by
then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s
actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department
official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared
by Tillerson.
The constraints that Trump
imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his
communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even
high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what
he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.
Jesse talks about the latest reporting from the New York Times and the
Washington Post which reveals that not only has Donald Trump gone to
great lengths to keep secret (even from the United States Intelligence
community) the content of his private conversations with Vladimir Putin,
but that in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey, the FBI opened a
counter intelligence probe into Donald Trump to determine whether or
not he was a witting/unwitting Russian intel asset.
It certainly sounds like an urban legend — an episode of a 1950's
western TV series featured a snake oil salesman named Trump who claimed
that only he could save a community from destruction by building a wall.
But the debunking site Snopes says the show, part of the "Trackdown" series starring Oakland native Robert Culp, did in fact air on CBS in 1958.
A clip from the episode was uploaded to YouTube, captioned "Predicted Donald Trump," in November 2016.
The "End of the World" show features actor Lawrence Dobkin as Walter
Trump, a con man who predicts a firestorm would rain down on the Texas
town of Talpa unless he intervenes to save it. Culp, playing Texas
Ranger Hoby Gilman, calls Trump's bluff and eventually arrests him for
"stealing."
Trump sold the townspeople force-field umbrellas to deflect meteors.
Interestingly, the character's speech is so
similar to the resident, it almost seems as if Donald Trump
borrowed some catchphrases from Walter Trump. A portion of the dialog
follows:
Narrator: Hoby had
checked the town. The people were ready to believe. Like sheep they ran
to the slaughterhouse. And waiting for them was the high priest of
fraud.
Trump: I am the only one. Trust me. I can build a wall around your homes that nothing can penetrate.
Townperson: What do we do? How can we save ourselves?
Trump: You ask how do you build that wall. You ask, and I'm here to tell you.
During the presidential campaign, Donald
Trump declared, "Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They
have given you nothing. I will give you everything. I will give you what
you've been looking for for 50 years. I'm the only one."
On June 16, 2015, Trump said, "I would build a
great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and
I'll build them very inexpensively,"
WASHINGTON — In the days after resident Trump fired James B. Comey
as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by
the resident’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had
been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according
to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the
investigation.
The inquiry carried
explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to
consider whether the resident’s own actions constituted a possible
threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr.
Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under
Moscow’s influence.
The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.
Agents
and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to
Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an
investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were
uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and
magnitude. But the resident’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s
firing in May 2017, particularly twoinstances
in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia
investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the
inquiry, the people said.
The incoming Democratic Congress looks like it's going to use its
majority to stand up for the American people and hold Donald Trump
accountable, starting with requesting his tax returns (as allowed by
U.S. Code › Title 26 › Subtitle F › Chapter 61 › Subchapter B › § 6103)
from the Secretary of the Treasury.
. Rep. Walter Jones is calling on resident Trump
to put his money where his mouth is – at least where the wall is
concerned. The North Carolina Republican says it's "morally
irresponsible" to build the wall by increasing the debt, and wants Trump
to pay for at least part of it.
"As a wealthy man, the resident might consider pledging some of his own funds," Congressman Jones said in a statement on his government website, as Roll Call first reported. "Whatever it takes, just so long as we don’t add to the debt that is bankrupting our great country."
Jones
says a "fiscally responsible plan to pay for" improved security on the
southern border, and insists any compromise "should be paid for without
adding to the deficit or the debt."
“America’s national debt is nearly $22 trillion. Next year our
annual deficit is projected to top $1 trillion. We can’t afford to keep
financing the provision of government services by borrowing more and
more money. It’s morally irresponsible and it’s got to stop,” Jones
added.
“If Mexico isn’t going to be made to pay for a wall, that means
funds must be found internally.
Options could include cutting other
wasteful federal spending. Foreign aid and the war in Afghanistan would
be good places to start."
A DoubleTree hotel in Portland, Ore., has fired two employees
involved in an incident in which a black guest had police called on him
while he was talking on the phone in the hotel lobby.
A message
posted on the DoubleTree Portland's Twitter account Saturday said the
treatment of Jermaine Massey, who was staying at the hotel while
visiting the area from Washington state, was "inconsistent" with the
hotel chain's "standards & values."
"We have terminated the
employment of the two men involved in the mistreatment of Mr. Massey.
Their actions were inconsistent with our standards & values. We
reiterate our sincere apology for what he endured & will work with
diversity experts to ensure this never happens again," read the message.
Resident Trump is politically more vulnerable than he ever has been, despite the enthusiastic support he enjoys from his (shrinking) base of white, evangelical voters.
His state-by-state job approval numbers
suggest that if the 2020 election were held today and he won every
state where he has a net positive or tied approval rating (25 states),
he would garner 242 electoral votes, 28 votes short of the 270 needed to win the White House. Further, a multitude of criminal investigations surround nearly every aspect of Trump and the organizations he ran with his family.
To
make matters worse, on Jan. 3, Democrats will become the majority in
the House of Representatives and, aside from continuing to fight against
Trump’s (largely unpopular) $5 billion demand to pay for the construction of a southern border wall, they plan to wield their oversight authority aggressively. The Trump administration is poorly prepared for the volume of congressional requests that soon will arrive to the White House.
Given
these facts, it’s hard to imagine that Republican leaders are sanguine
about Trump’s pursuit of a second presidential term. Whether the
candidate is outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich, outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, or Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, rumblings about serious nomination challenges are emanating from many Republican quarters.
Still, as Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson
recently noted, “Toppling a sitting president of your own party is a
maneuver with the highest degree of difficulty.” While Gerson is right
in describing the challenge, he goes on to argue that the “most relevant
historical model is probably Eugene McCarthy’s race against President
Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.” But this isn’t quite true.
From the modern era, the better analogy is 1980,
and the fight that was waged by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) against
President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination. Like Trump, Carter in 1976 had
surprised his party and many of the presidential “favorites” then
serving in the Senate by winning the nomination as an “outsider.” Also,
like Trump, when Carter won the White House, he had a difficult time
working with those in his party who held the majority in Congress. Many
of his fellow partisans disagreed with his fiscally conservative approach,
which they saw as contributing to the faltering economy. In November
1979, shortly after the Iranian hostage crisis began, Kennedy officially
jumped into the Democratic nomination race, touting the need for “new leadership.”
Though Kennedy made several missteps, including a rambling television interview where he failed to explain why he was running, he managed to win pledged delegates across the country and to lead a ferocious effort to upset the nomination balloting at the Democratic National Convention. But Carter had been prepared for the challenge from Kennedy — and from California Gov. Jerry Brown. For months, Carter’s team had worked to burnish his policy accomplishments, elevate his position as the incumbent, and lay down the tracks for a state-by-state primary campaign, which included raising millions of dollars and hiring field staff.
This
historical precedent reminds us of two things that are not true today
when we consider Trump and the Republicans who may mount a nomination
campaign against him. First, Carter’s primary opponents were viewed more
as “show horses” than “work horses.” Brown and Kennedy both were
perceived as shallow and overly confident media hounds. Many of the
names being floated as potential challengers to Trump are the opposite.
They are more substantive, experienced and discerning — all-around more
morally-grounded men than Trump. Second, Carter could be both a savvy
and disciplined candidate when it was required. Trump can’t seem to stop
either his bombast or his lying.
Whether
Trump would lose his party’s nomination remains unclear because today’s
political polarization has fostered such a blind devotion to the
leaders of one’s party. Still, with Trump’s latest approval rating again
below 40 percent, his weakness seems to be increasing, rather than abating, and a nomination challenge seems in the offing.
As former Rep. Mo Udall (D-Ariz.) cogently explained in relation to the possibility with Carter:
“There
are only two conditions when a party challenges its own incumbent
president. One is where major elements of the party feel so intensely
and so bitterly about one issue that they oppose him no matter what the
consequences. They don't care if it costs the presidency. That’s what
happened to Lyndon Johnson in 1966 over Vietnam. The other time is when
their own president looks so weak, runs so persistently and
significantly behind opposition candidates in the polls, that others in
the party begin fearing he’s a loser and they’ll lose, too — if they
stick with him.”
The ball hasn’t yet dropped in Times Square, but already 2019 is shaping up to look like 1979.
Happy New Year, Mr. Trump. Lara
M. Brown, Ph.D., is an associate professor and director of the Graduate
School of Political Management at the George Washington University, and
formerly was an assistant professor of political science at Villanova
University. She frequently appears on TV and radio programs as an expert
on American political history, party development and national
elections. Follow her on Twitter@LaraMBrownPhD.
Jesse Dollemore talks about how after over SEVEN HUNDRED DAYS in office Donald
Trump decided to FINALLY visit troops who are serving in the thick of
it.
In the process of desperately trying to make everything about him
and his Twitter feed, he exposed the identities and location of members
of Navy SEAL Team 5 as well as told insane lies in a speech to the
troops about the paychecks!
