Sometimes it’s hard to breathe. Like when I focus on the intense destruction that Trump and his sycophantic minions are foisting on the country, and the world. A hopelessness can wash through and around everything else that is a part of my life. But before being subsumed by the evil that is Donald J Trump, I stop myself. We cannot afford the luxury of getting lost in his craven view of the world and what he has wrought because of it.
We owe this country more than that.
The decision to break with the motherland and become an independent state had to have torn people apart at their very cores. And the realities of war are never easy to abide. You live life forward. They had no way to know if their efforts would be in vain, or triumph.
And what must it have felt like when year two of our Civil War flowed into year three, and year three dragged on into year four? The reality of brother against brother, families torn asunder by different views of basic understandings regarding their ways of life, and of humanity itself, must have been hell to live through. But despite that hell, the country survived.
Now it is our turn. We cannot let all that they gave—their security, their treasure, their very lives, be for naught. This fantastic experiment in human governance cannot die on our watch. We owe the past, and the future, more than what a vainglorious, orange-headed dictator is trying desperately to turn this great nation into.
And so…I will not let his evil determine my willingness and ability to fight for what is right. Together we can, and must, stop this scourge and right our ship so that future generations can have the chance at beautiful lives that so many of us have had.
We can protest, register Democrats and democrats, run for office, talk to friends and family, donate money and time, and whatever else we can think of to change the course of history from the frightening path we are currently on. The reality is that there are more people who want to keep our democracy than want to give it up. Together, we can, and we must, do this. So let’s go!
Affirming Democracy, Gathering Resistance 
You’re right, Barb. And by the way — Trump’s egomania has no limits, and is symbolically wrecking so much that makes the United States a special place, for all our imperfections. I’m thinking of the vandalism to the White House, the presumptuous renaming and soon-to-be closure of the Kennedy Center, and the grandiose thought of erecting the largest arch in the world to loom over the almost sacred Lincoln Monument. I personally will never, ever use a “Trump coin”, and I’m so enormously disgusted at the recent decision to mint a commemorative gold coin with Trump’s image. Are we in the late Roman Empire, compelled to give obeisance to the Emperor? This is a sick and shameful symptom of the degeneracy of trumpism. I choose Abraham Lincoln over Caligula!