Writers Resisting Trump

I can’t let this weekend go by without writing. First of all, today marks one week until the unthinkable happens and an arrogant, greedy, pu**y-grabbing, power-obsessed man-child marches up Pennsylvania Avenue and then gets his DNA all over The People’s House.

Which means of course that we are also saying goodbye to Barack and Michele and Joe and Jill and oh, I can’t bear the thought.

From class to crass.

Also next week the Congress continues its three-ring circus to decide how and when to gut my health insurance (along with twenty million other people’s) and replace it with . . . what? Nobody seems to have a clue. A bunch of tweets telling me what a loser I am? A premiere Russian healthcare plan? Something Ben Carson dreams up — oh wait, he’s a housing expert now, I forgot.

The Resistance

In addition to all the fun in D.C., this Sunday is Writers Resist day. While I sometimes have trouble thinking of myself as a real writer, I have no trouble at all calling myself a member of “the Resistance.”

To resist means to withstand the action or effect of something, in this case a Putin-approved, race-baiting, Muslim-hating, fear-mongering, planet-threatening, money-worshipping . . .

I guess if I’m playing a writer today I should limit my adjectives, or so the experts tell me.

But you get the idea. You know who the guy is. Bottom of the barrel. Even his supporters know who he is. They just don’t seem to care. I can’t imagine that the Russian black-mailers have anything on the man-child that could possibly surprise any of us. Kellyanne Conway says that if we want to know the real Trump, we should look into his heart and not at his words or actions.

No thank you, Kellyanne. What a horrifying prospect!

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Luke 6:45

#WriteOurDemocracy

Writers Resist is a national network of writers concerned about the “growing public cynicism and an alarming disdain for truthfulness” that is eroding our democracy. The group understands that writers “have tremendous power to bypass empty political discourse and focus public attention on the ideals of a free, just, and compassionate society.” 

This Sunday, writers all around the nation are gathering on Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday to share their words of resistance. If you’re a writer, visit this website and join others at an event on Sunday. Or invite your friends for coffee or wine and host your own event!

Word By Word

Throughout our history, writers have used their craft to resist illegal, immoral, unethical, unthinkable situations. The British taxation of tea, women’s suffrage, slavery, child labor, civil rights, poison-peddling tobacco lobbyists, fake reasons for going to war, black lives not mattering, climate denial.

Letter from a Birmingham jail.

Word by word, we write our democracy.

And we resist.

I can imagine some small hairy Neolithic guy carving himself a sharp chisel and then finding the perfect smooth rock and gouging out, “Hell, no!” before throwing it an alpha male’s head.

Just Write No

No, we’re not registering people by their religion or ethnic background. And no, we’re not paying millions of tax dollars to build a wall around our country, pretending that Mexico is going to pay us back. And no, we’re not going to reject science and common sense and abandon the progress we’ve made slowing climate change. And no, we’re not going to “punish” women who make the heart wrenching decision to end their pregnancy.

No, no, no, and no.

Hell, no.

{Author’s note: I recognize that I am not yet in a place to expound on the ideals of freedom, justice, compassion and the like. I am still astounded and angry and terrified. But I’ll come around and share something edifying at some point. I trust that God will not let me live in anger and fear for four years.}

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