Words have power. Names have power. Calling him "President" gives him a legitimacy and authority he doesn't deserve. Use his own words against him, every day.
Not My President. Won’t call him that. Ever.
WARNING THIS POST IS CRASS BUT TRUTHFUL AND MAY TRIGGER SOME UNPLEASANT EMOTIONS FOR SOME PEOPLE
For more than 8 recent years, we stood back and listened to the most vile and vicious of names, words, and images be used against President Obama and his family, esp First Lady Michelle. Even though they have always been and always will be gentle people in the face of adversity, what was thrown at them was putrid. The common racist epithets: Jigaboo, nigger, oreo. The insidious, personal ones: Kenyan (to discredit his eligibility and authority), Communist/Socialist/Nazi (for the completely inaccurate alt-right historian who has no idea what these even mean). He was an Islamofascist, a secret Muslim, a tool of ISIS, ushering in a caliphate. He was secretly gay, murdered his gay lover. Michelle was a transgendered man that should live with gorillas.
All of course, which were false. Absolutely false in every way. But the ugly words and the perjorative names and the disgusting attitudes stuck.
So then we get to Donald Trump. Everyone on the planet knew he was a selfish, philandering, failing-upwards prick. But in one moment of stunning truthiness, it was discovered that Donald Trump admitted on audio tape to sexually molesting women as his “opening move”. For whatever reason (/facepalm), this didn’t immediately disqualify him from consideration as an electable candidate. Such a revelation should have immediately disqualified him as a decent human being… but whatever. Combined with the public mocking of a disabled reporter, I can only shake my head at the depths to which some will sink to ignore the worst of humanity.
If the last 3-6 months has taught me anything, is that we can’t go back into the past and fix stupid and ignorant.
We can only move forward.
A favorite writer of mine, Neil Gaiman, wrote an award winning graphic novel series in 1990s called Sandman. In it, via a wonderful mystical/magical storyline, he often touches on the theme that names have power. When you know someone or something’s true name, you have power over it, since that is the essence of itself. This has deep roots in Judeo-Christian theology, when God named the Earth and the birds and the beasts and ultimately Man and Woman him- and herself, to give them life. The power of the concept of the Tetragrammaton, the name of God that should not be spoken, is humbling.
So again, to today. We have a man, a turd of a human being, that just took an Oath to the highest executive office in the United States of America. His life is a long arc of conniving, stealing, lying, cheating, denigrating, bullying, assaulting, and raping his way to riches, to the top. Congratulations, Donald Trump. You got what you wanted.
But that doesn’t mean I — or anyone else — has to give you the name you want. The power you crave. I hold that power, we all do. I will not call you Mr. President, not today, not ever. Even if I didn’t remotely agree with what they did or the policies they enforced during their administrations, we have had (excepting Nixon, who was also a shitbag to the core) a litany of gracious, intelligent, former Presidents that were at the core, decent human beings. Not so with Mr. Trump.
To me, from this moment on, he is only the PussyGrabber in Chief. The obergruppenführer. A Cheeto-faced shitgibbon. Trumpelthinskin.
He may think he is one thing, but I and millions of Americans who did and continue to vehemently disagree with his very existence, can refuse to give it to him. I propose we use the power of words, the power of names, to resist, to deny and to de-legitimize the obscene and sad state of affairs we find our country and people in today and over the next 4 years.
Peace.
