I didn't want to write about Donald Trump again, but he made me do it

I didn't want to do it. I really didn't want to do it! He made me do it—again!

The first time I wrote about Donald Trump was in March of 2016. He was getting ready to come to Chicago for a rally at The University of Illinois-Chicago. Like so many other normal and sane people, I thought his candidacy for President was a farce, so I wrote some funny and satirical about it.

On the day of the rally, I wrote another piece about him—again funny and satirical. After he pretended to be scared and blew off coming to the event, I wrote another piece about him—again keeping it light. At the time I thought that might be it—three and out.

I never imagined he would be the Republican candidate for President. I never imagined he would ever be elected President. Over the next four years, I wrote about him two hundred times. It breaks down to about once every week of his presidency. If there was anyone who had Trump Derangement Syndrome, it was me.

We—and by we I mean me—had a four-year break between 2021 and ten days ago. Yeah, he was still around, but it wasn't every day. Yeah, he still did and said a lot of bizarre shit, but it wasn't every day. But, I still must have had a major case of TDS because I wrote about him another one hundred times. The math says it was the once-every-other week.

So, let me take you back to the olden days of April 2024. That was when I announced I was going to close up shop here. I said I was getting burned out on doing this, which was true then but not now. What I didn't say was I was burned out on writing about Trump, which was true then and is still true now.

I didn't want to admit it then, but I had a feeling we might be where we are today. When the Justice Department moved slower than the turtle in the race against the hare, we should have known we were in trouble. Let’s add in the incompetence of the Supreme Court, Fani Willis and the Trump judge in Florida. All of that equals why a dude who should be spending years in prison is now the President of the United States. Sigh.

So, the election is over and like so many of us on the left, I’m majorly bummed out. Yeah, I’m making jokes about moving to Canada (I’ve always wanted to live in Canada, but not in the winter), but that’s all they were—just jokes. After the shock wore off, I took a self-imposed sabbatical from the news. No MSNBC. No CNN. Not even local news. Sound familiar?

Next comes the countdown to the inauguration. It’s January 1, 2025. Twenty days to the inauguration. Happy Fucking New Year, America!!

Fast forward to the twentieth. No way in Hell am I watching a guy, who should be in prison, get inaugurated. Nope. Never. NO F’ING WAY!! We even left the house to make sure. And then the place we went had his speech on their tv. It was even turned up loud enough for people in another room to hear it. Damn, them!!

I should have taken this as a sign!! And it didn’t take long.

I did make it through his opening week without putting my fingers on the keyboard. I ignored the hearings of his inept and unqualified cabinet nominees. I ignored his nonsense about wanting concessions from California before releasing more aid money to people who have lost everything. I even ignored the ICE raids. Yeah, I admit I had my head in the sand but it was self-care.

And then came Tuesday.

With the stroke of a pen, he issued an executive order that took away funding from millions of people. I’m going to admit that I’m more than a little self-centered and selfish about this. But, I have Medicaid as secondary insurance to Medicare. It’s a huge reason why the co-pays for my meds are unbelievably low—and when you have nine pills that you take each day, it adds up. So yeah, I have a reason to be more than a little selfish about it. But, it’s not only me. Did you know that one out of every five Americans is on some form of Medicaid? Doing the math, it breaks down to seventy-nine million people. That’s a huge number of people he didn’t give a shit about—and a lot of those are the ones who voted for him. It’s not like we didn’t have a clue this was going to happen. Remember when he tried it once before when he wanted to repeal Obamacare?

Self-preservation is way ahead of self-care. Dammit!!!

And then came Wednesday night.

While I was working on this piece, a plane and a helicopter crashed into each other near Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C. Everyone on board both vehicles is dead. Sixty-seven lives are lost. It’s the first accident of its kind in sixteen years. Everyone watching the coverage is in shock because this just doesn’t happen here. I’m always saying planes don’t crash—but this time one did.

When accidents like this occur, you need someone involved with a calm and soothing voice. Someone who can comfort you through the tragedy. A person who will show some leadership. And then you get this:

“ We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas. A group within the FAA determined that the workforce was too white, then they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately. This was in the Obama administration.”

And of course, he had to find someone to blame because that is what he does:

“Elevating competence over everything else, instead of the DEI policies that were pursued by the Biden administration,” Trump said. “And Obama, yes. But Biden, much worse.”

And, naturally, he tried to take all of this back later, but it was too late because his words were already out there. And, WORDS MATTER—especially when they come from the President of the United States.

The thing is, I don’t know why I or anyone else is surprised or stunned by any of this. It’s not like we haven’t seen it before. We saw it during his first term. We saw it during the four years he was out of office. It only took a week, but we’re seeing it again. He never takes any responsibility. The blame always belongs to someone else. And, if you voted for him because you were pissed about the price of eggs, but you’re aghast at all this other stuff—go F yourself because you knew this was coming but you didn’t care. Btw, how are those egg prices going for you now?

Yeah, so I'm back. It only took eleven days. The Hell with self-care. I only hope I’m not doing this another two to three hundred times, but I’m not making any promises. I’m sure you'll be reading something like this again—sooner than later. Column number 301, here we come. It’ll probably be next week SIGH! See you then. SIGH!!!

I didn't want to do it. I really didn't want to do it! He made me do it—again!