The day of the coronation of Trump, an overproduced and under-attended event, I was deep in my covers watching reruns of the Golden Girls on Youtube. Perhaps I wanted to hearken back to a simpler time, or maybe I was trying to convince myself that not all old white people are evil.
I did the same thing on the night of the election (which I am convinced will be the title of a bestselling tell-all CIA dossier years from now). Rather than go out and sit in an election party somewhere in NY, I stayed in watching Stranger Things on Netflix, a choice that was as fulfilling as it was redeeming.
Now I have seen pictures and videos (they were sprawled all over my social media) documenting the Women’s March that has erupted in cities across America. Movie stars, artists, activists, moms, aunts, grannies, all came out waving placards with enthusiasm and rigor. I respect any feminist movement, mainly because it’s just common sense to root for women who fight a patriarchy, but also because the rights that women have didn’t just miraculously appear one day in recent history. Generations of women have fought hard and fought long for the world to get here. And they did it primarily by the same kind of protest as the Women’s March. Indeed, while watching them I found myself silently lip-synching the words to Sister Suffragette from Mary Poppins, a women’s power anthem if ever there was one.
The slogan on your placard is, I think, the best part of any protest. By now you have probably seen several articles on the best ones from the Women’s March, and many of them are rather clever. There were a few pictures that stuck with me, though. One of them was the picture of a black woman sucking rather desolately on a lollipop as she held up a sign urging people not to forget that most white women ended up voting for Trump. Behind her, three young white girls are taking a selfie of themselves against the backdrop of the Congress Building in D.C. It was an arresting image because it was so true. Most white women had in fact moved for Trump, compared to only 8% of African Americans. To be fair, those three girls were probably there for the march, since they themselves had been holding signs and it follows that they probably didn’t vote for Trump. But it did bring up the one discomforting thing about this whole March. Where, I wondered, were these protestors before the election? Why march on DC now? Signs of “He is not my president” are sweet and well-intentioned but ultimately quite useless because, well, he *is* your president. Trump is the leader of the free world. To say that you have some kind of power to undo that ipso facto is false and futile. But I get it - people are angry and want to show it. Part of me thinks it would have been more useful to march on neighbourhoods that have been Trump majority electors and show them the placards, but then one remembers that most of the country turned red before the election (as opposed to most liberals who turned red afterwards).
The first few days of the Trumpastrophe went off pretty much as expected. In a flurry of executive orders, he reinstated the Bush-era doctrine banning any organisation which gets US aid money from performing abortions. This proclamation on the right of a woman to choose what to do with her body was signed in a room without a single woman in it. He also made a conciliatory speech at the CIA but ended up offending all of them again. Now I am not a statesman (well, neither is Trump), but the CIA is probably the one government agency that you don’t want to piss off immediately.
Things will probably get a whole lot worse. For Middle America yes, but also for funding in the arts, for visas and immigration, for the global economy, for the planet. To vent their frustrations, some people have focused on the Trump family. They are easy targets after all. One SNL writer was recently suspended from work because she picked on Baron Trump, Melania’s ten-year-old son, in a tweet. It was unfair, especially because a ten-year-old doesn’t have any kind of power to fight back. But it’s open season on all the other family members too. The sons who look like serial killers, the daughter who in a reverse, Oedipal twist of fate is now the real first lady of the United States and the other daughter who just liked being in the limelight. If they decide to become part of his campaign, or his presidency, then the media thinks they are also up for scrutiny.
In all of this I feel the most sorry for Melania Trump, the simple girl from Slovakia who just wanted to marry well and now has to pick out china for the Roosevelt room. Almost universally considered to be unsuitable for the position, she has opted to stay in NY with her son. If you see her at the inauguration, you’ll see a visibly depressed woman feigning happiness. In truth, she looks like a captive and I feel bad for her. It’s no coincidence that the most popular signs at the Women’s March were the ones that said #freeMelania. It’s become a sort of Internet phenomenon. Here is a woman who is incapable of making an original speech, yes, but is also married to the man who is world famous for cheating and misogyny. One feels for her in a way that one doesn’t for the adult Trump children. No one knows what’s happening in her poor mind right now, the sheer terror that she must be feeling. I’m tempted to go to Washington myself and hold up a sign that says “Melania, if you need to be rescued blink twice” because I am a kind person, but mainly because I haven’t seen her blink yet.
Pray for the world that is ruled by Trump. And remember poor Melania in your prayers.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com
I did the same thing on the night of the election (which I am convinced will be the title of a bestselling tell-all CIA dossier years from now). Rather than go out and sit in an election party somewhere in NY, I stayed in watching Stranger Things on Netflix, a choice that was as fulfilling as it was redeeming.
Now I have seen pictures and videos (they were sprawled all over my social media) documenting the Women’s March that has erupted in cities across America. Movie stars, artists, activists, moms, aunts, grannies, all came out waving placards with enthusiasm and rigor. I respect any feminist movement, mainly because it’s just common sense to root for women who fight a patriarchy, but also because the rights that women have didn’t just miraculously appear one day in recent history. Generations of women have fought hard and fought long for the world to get here. And they did it primarily by the same kind of protest as the Women’s March. Indeed, while watching them I found myself silently lip-synching the words to Sister Suffragette from Mary Poppins, a women’s power anthem if ever there was one.
The slogan on your placard is, I think, the best part of any protest. By now you have probably seen several articles on the best ones from the Women’s March, and many of them are rather clever. There were a few pictures that stuck with me, though. One of them was the picture of a black woman sucking rather desolately on a lollipop as she held up a sign urging people not to forget that most white women ended up voting for Trump. Behind her, three young white girls are taking a selfie of themselves against the backdrop of the Congress Building in D.C. It was an arresting image because it was so true. Most white women had in fact moved for Trump, compared to only 8% of African Americans. To be fair, those three girls were probably there for the march, since they themselves had been holding signs and it follows that they probably didn’t vote for Trump. But it did bring up the one discomforting thing about this whole March. Where, I wondered, were these protestors before the election? Why march on DC now? Signs of “He is not my president” are sweet and well-intentioned but ultimately quite useless because, well, he *is* your president. Trump is the leader of the free world. To say that you have some kind of power to undo that ipso facto is false and futile. But I get it - people are angry and want to show it. Part of me thinks it would have been more useful to march on neighbourhoods that have been Trump majority electors and show them the placards, but then one remembers that most of the country turned red before the election (as opposed to most liberals who turned red afterwards).
The most popular signs at the Women's March were the ones that said #freeMelania
The first few days of the Trumpastrophe went off pretty much as expected. In a flurry of executive orders, he reinstated the Bush-era doctrine banning any organisation which gets US aid money from performing abortions. This proclamation on the right of a woman to choose what to do with her body was signed in a room without a single woman in it. He also made a conciliatory speech at the CIA but ended up offending all of them again. Now I am not a statesman (well, neither is Trump), but the CIA is probably the one government agency that you don’t want to piss off immediately.
Things will probably get a whole lot worse. For Middle America yes, but also for funding in the arts, for visas and immigration, for the global economy, for the planet. To vent their frustrations, some people have focused on the Trump family. They are easy targets after all. One SNL writer was recently suspended from work because she picked on Baron Trump, Melania’s ten-year-old son, in a tweet. It was unfair, especially because a ten-year-old doesn’t have any kind of power to fight back. But it’s open season on all the other family members too. The sons who look like serial killers, the daughter who in a reverse, Oedipal twist of fate is now the real first lady of the United States and the other daughter who just liked being in the limelight. If they decide to become part of his campaign, or his presidency, then the media thinks they are also up for scrutiny.
In all of this I feel the most sorry for Melania Trump, the simple girl from Slovakia who just wanted to marry well and now has to pick out china for the Roosevelt room. Almost universally considered to be unsuitable for the position, she has opted to stay in NY with her son. If you see her at the inauguration, you’ll see a visibly depressed woman feigning happiness. In truth, she looks like a captive and I feel bad for her. It’s no coincidence that the most popular signs at the Women’s March were the ones that said #freeMelania. It’s become a sort of Internet phenomenon. Here is a woman who is incapable of making an original speech, yes, but is also married to the man who is world famous for cheating and misogyny. One feels for her in a way that one doesn’t for the adult Trump children. No one knows what’s happening in her poor mind right now, the sheer terror that she must be feeling. I’m tempted to go to Washington myself and hold up a sign that says “Melania, if you need to be rescued blink twice” because I am a kind person, but mainly because I haven’t seen her blink yet.
Pray for the world that is ruled by Trump. And remember poor Melania in your prayers.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com