Saturday, January 28, 2017

I had this really awful dream about America...

So, I had this totally wacky dream... I dreamed that my country, through a variety of unbelievable events that could only really be true in the movies, including Russian election tampering and sketchy behavior by the head of the FBI, somehow elected a classic "bully" as president! I know, so weird, right? Not only that, but the guy they elected, got elected in spite of a campaign rife with lying and denial and manipulation and posturing and name-calling, combined with attacks on women, minorities, people with disabilities, women again, anyone of the Muslim faith, environmentalists and scientists, and more...In this crazy dream of mine, this guy actually got elected president, even though he was enthusiastically endorsed by the KKK for his views on minorities, caught on tape saying that it was perfectly fine to sexually assault women as long as you are rich and famous, said that climate change is a hoax started by China, espoused family and Christian values while simultaneously disparaging women, parading around his third (trophy?) wife, and promising to ban all Muslims from our country, refused to release his tax returns, and was repeatedly caught on video and tape and twitter making inflammatory, racist, sexist, ignorant comments he later denied or blamed on lies and unfair treatment by the "liberal media elite" even when his own words and behavior were right there for all to see and hear! I even dreamed that family members and friends around the world have been torn apart, because of the deeply personal and profound divisions that were revealed through the ugly process of electing this hate-spewing, thin-skinned, petty, bullying, racist, sexist, billionaire narcissist into office. Insane dream, right? What a nightmare!

But wait, there's more... So, my nutty dream continued with this guy getting elected and doing all kinds of ridiculous or dangerous things, such as throwing an infantile temper tantrum about the size of the crowd at his inauguration and, through his spokeswoman, espousing "alternative facts" (which, I think intelligent people everywhere just call "lies" don't we?), appointing billionaires and far-far-far-right religious conservatives, at least one white-supremacist, his own son-in-law (nepotism, anyone?) and sycophants into key positions of power in government, "divesting" himself from his business holdings by turning them over to his own children (fooling only those people who choose to remain blissfully ignorant into thinking that his actions are even close to ethical or that he's somehow not using his new position to increase his personal and familial wealth), restarting oil pipeline projects while simultaneously freezing or removing regulations that would help to protect our environment, signing an executive order barring U.S. support to any pro-choice country, using twitter to mock and chide thousands of americans who exercised their constitutional right to peacefully protest by taking part in the Women's March for equal rights, but following that up by heaping praise upon those anti-abortion advocates who rallied against a woman's right to choose, closing America's doors to all refugees, and banning all immigrants from Muslim nations (except, apparently, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey -- Muslim countries in which he has business holdings. Hmmm....), spouting isolationist rhetoric and telling the rest of the world that we will only be thinking of ourselves from this point forward, prioritizing business interests and military might ahead of morality, unity, education, human rights, and the environment...and my dream just went on and on and on.

I don't know what I must have been drinking to have such an inconceivable and alarming nightmare. I'm so glad it was just a crazy dream. Whew!

Beth