Year One

Notes from the field:
Happily, the wi-fi is still working, and I am able to warm myself by the glow from the screen of my laptop. Presently, the federal government has been shuttered for fifteen hours. There are ominous signs, mostly being carried by angry women and men who had planned to march in the streets a year after the inauguration of this "President." The shutdown was kind of a bonus agitation tossed in on top of three hundred sixty-five days of fear, racism and futility. Like a great big advent calendar where behind each door was something obnoxious and vile. What will happens when night falls?
In Mar-a-Lago, they're stacking the chairs that were supposed to be filled with the fat bottoms of well-heeled investors in the campaign to elect the spokesperson for Trump Steaks. Some have begun looking for flights out. Others have begun to eat their young. It's obvious now that this crowd wasn't in it for the long haul. They expected the tax cuts to be all they needed to control the country from remote control for the next dozen years.
Now it doesn't appear as likely. A forgotten component in this equation has shown up to make things more difficult for the oligarchy: The people. It turns out that the American people, many of whom were fooled into believing that this amber reptile was going to lead us out of lethargy but has instead found a way to continue to line his own pockets while ignoring the sounds of those crying in the streets.
That's us. From the journalists who continue to report the bizarre goings-on because it is really happening to the factory workers who are losing their jobs even though their "President" promised to save them, the fight goes on. And on. There will still be a party overlooking the golf course in south Florida, but the guest of honor is stuck at work. At a job for which he is uniquely unqualified to do. At a time when the world could really use some competent leadership, we have an aging, Diet Coke swilling geriatric playboy who seems most interested in making America into some dystopian wasteland that he calls "Great." As the planet teeters on the brink of chaos in so many forms, the true art of making a deal seems lost on this casino owner. He is playing with house money: ours. And he doesn't have the cards. What should he do?
Fold.
For this story to have a happy ending, we need to remember that this is just one man. A man who found a way into the Oval Office by losing the popular vote. If there were another election today, those results would be much different, and he would be back behind the desk of his real estate company, dealing with the mess that he left. That day will come. Soon. Hopefully there will still be an earth we can reclaim. It will take all of us. The people.