The Trumpsters and The Snowflakes

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent the last days in shock watching every incompetent cabinet pick after another be suggested to run our country. If you’re not like me, you’re thrilled and want to see Washington crumble like the broken empire it already is. Either way, it certainly is quite the spectacle to watch and I, for one, will be making sure all of my and my kids’ vaccines are up to date prior to Robert Kennedy’s ascendancy to the throne of Health Secretary. “Load ‘em up before RFK Jr gets in there” I said to my trusted pediatrician who, albeit conservative, makes all his decisions based on science he learned at Johns Hopkins University, a little known school for quacks and the like.

I remember the first time I dealt with conflicting beliefs was when I moved to Kaua’i and was invited to a women’s luncheon at the home of my landlady who had looked after me since I had arrived. “Oh my kids can actually smell the chemicals in non-organic chocolate.” this guest told me. “Another crunchy Mom” I thought, sipping my mimosa. “Will your kids be going to school here?” she asked me. When I told her yes, at the public school, she filled my ears with warning after warning about indoctrination and how the schools teach things like gay marriage and relationships are ok. I was throughly confused. Last I checked, the crunchy Moms are so down with gay people that many of them are, themselves, one full moon away from being lesbians. She went on to slam liberal democrats, I knew I was no longer in Kansas but I wasn’t sure where. Down up, up down.

I spoke to Sunny, my neighbor in the duplex we lived in, about my confusion after this conversation and how uncomfortable I felt trying to counter that woman’s views. “Oh, honey, you just got to ignore all that. I was once a gay man in a previous life.” Sunny, a retired court stenographer from Texas who talked to orchids, bought large crystals for over $300, and drove around in her maroon Solara with the top down believed that Trump was all part of the world shake up that was destined to happen. She wasn’t worried and believed it would all be worked out in this life or the next. I, still grounded in reality despite being on a tiny drop of earth in the middle of the Pacific, wasn’t so sure. Kaua’i was confusing to me. I had moved there thinking that it would be a liberal outpost and found that it was more an island of misfit political ideals mixed with distrust of mainlanders and uptight Yankees like myself. I was an outsider and I had no idea how to play the game there, my mouth was too big and my moral compass too strong. “I don’t care what you do to get us a donation.” my boss told me when I worked in development. The information between those lines was loud and clear and I was not ok with that. My “mouthiness” soon got me in trouble and there was nothing I could do correctly. I moved back to the mainland, neck still aching from the whiplash of the 2016 election and the way that Kaua’i rolled with that punch. “We really should’ve built that wall sooner” a patron said to my Salvadoran ex-husband. My son was made fun of for being named Jorge. Here too.

Here’s the thing. I don’t know what is going to happen over the next couple of months. Over the last ten years, I have lived in the stem to stern of this country and understand it no better. Through that living, I have worked very hard to stay sane. Prior to all that working, I lived through a tiny coup d’etat in Caracas, one that the U.S. may have had an involvement. I’ve seen some stuff, baddish stuff, and I’m feeling like we’re heading in that direction. That’s a premonitory feeling that can’t be ignored. I think the only thing I can say now is that the Trumpies and the Snowflakes better sit down at the table, try to find common ground as best as they are able. Otherwise, we’re screwed.