Yes, of course, size matters to Donald. It matters more than anything. That’s why he’s always showing us just how truly small he is.
Here’s the truth: No one wanted to go to Trump’s inauguration. He couldn’t even give the tickets away. He’s not an inspiring figure unless you mean inspiring outrage. He’s insulted just about everyone in the country save Nazis and white nationalists (the distinction is bullshit by the way, spare me the euphemisms for people who cheer for genocide.) He’s insulted just about everyone in the world save Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin. Trump squeaked into the presidency by a perfect storm of voter suppression, Kremlin propaganda and a nothing burger FBI investigation announcement days before the election.
Trump isn’t a public servant; he’s a conman savant. He’s a caricature of an outer borough child of privilege who’s never earned anything but claims he’s built something amazing; a guy who sees every relationship as transactional and takes pleasure in humiliating others; a man who openly brags about getting away with sexually assaulting women to a REPORTER while miked. A man so repugnant his third wife when given the option to live in the most exclusive address in the world opted to stay in her apartment in Midtown.
As my South African cab driver, a black man who survived apartheid, said, “You’ve elected the worst person in the world!”
He survived apartheid.
And we elected a septuagenarian who can’t laugh and can’t stop pouting.
During the election optimists and the romantics tapped into their keyboards words like “pivot” which never became reality. Trump acts like a white guy doing an impersonation of an African dictator””and since he’s the gin blossomed face of the birther movement claiming Obama was secretly African””the irony is rich. Our first African-American president followed by our first African-impersonator president.
Trump never pivoted. He never read a bio on any other president. He just added more bananas to his banana republic routine. And since election day every horrible, unpatriotic, anti-Bill of Rights, corrupt, unconstitutional, stupid, ignorant, ghastly, callous, racist, sexist, cruel, greedy, illegal, ignorant (worth listing twice) xenophobic thing he’s ever done or said has been justified by one simple phrase: He won.
Americans, we’ve been told, are apparently comfortable enough with white nationalism and widespread consumer fraud to elect Trump. So we, polite society, need to understand the people who voted for Trump. Thus allowing the healing to begin.
Here’s what I understand: Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million. Oh and his approval rating at his inauguration was the lowest in the history of quantifying tiny things. So to the first man in American history to brag about the size of his junk on stage at a presidential debate, having your inadequacies on public display must hurt.
Poor old President Shrinkage.
Only 250,000 supporters, well-wishers and folks whose job made them go were at the Capitol last Friday. Hotels were at half capacity. SAD! I was at both of Obama’s inaugurations. The crowds gleefully packed themselves in all the way past the Lincoln memorial. It was estimated to be 1.8 million people””a sea of American flags flickering enthusiastically for hope.
Trump told the CIA he saw what he thinks was at least 1.5 million at his inauguration and claimed it went all the way to the Washington Monument. Even Trump’s lies are less than Obama’s reality. The Washington Monument is a good mile before the Lincoln Memorial which bookends the mall.
Saturday morning I arrived at 47th and 2nd with my husband, friend and mentee who wanted to march against Trump for her 12th birthday. We met colleagues and their families at a coffee shop. Our group represented three generations of Americans and every subset of American experiences attached to race and economic status all donning those ridiculous knitted pussy hats. Our group, it turns out, was a decent representative sample of the march.
As more and more people gathered our phones suddenly couldn’t get a signal. We were told they were staggering the marchers and our time would be soon. We all assumed this considerable crowd filling up an entire long block was it: This was the women’s march and it was delayed for some reason. We had no access to information. The crowd was happy, affable and jovial.
“This wasn’t organized very well,” remarked a woman standing next to me with her wife.
“Yeah,” I said. “The next time we accidentally elect a despot, we’ll do better!”
They chuckled and the chanting started up again. “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go!”
We stood for four hours, hopping around to keep warm, eventually deciding that if we didn’t march soon, we should just leave and call it a day. Then I received a text from a local reporter saying New York had five times the amount of people they’d expected and DC was so well attended they couldn’t actually march to the White House. I was in disbelief. Slowly the swarm I was in inched forward. When we finally got to 2nd Avenue I heard screams and wails from demonstrators. And then I saw it: hand-knitted pink dots and homemade signs carpeted 2nd Avenue as far as the eye could see in both directions!
Massive.
I gasped, “Oh my god, what the hell is this?!”
There were so many Americans in this protest it moved at a glacial pace (how very apt for social change). I’ve never seen Grand Central Terminal because I walk like a 5-minute-late-New Yorker everywhere. I’ve never see Manhattan at a half mile per hour. It’s a much different city.
With every tiny step forward the thought kept on sinking in, “I’m not alone.” I’m disgusted, scared and appalled. I see no good in Trump and he’s not a legitimate American president until he says something critical of Putin. I fear the American experiment is over unless we oust this unfit autocrat from the Oval Office. I fear decent people who get power are corruptible and corrupt people who get power are cataclysmic. I keep thinking I must sound alarmist but I’m probably calmer than I should be. And then there’s the other fear: If I speak out will I be targeted? Will I be put into a camp like my Twitter trolls have promised me? Am I now in danger? Then I nuzzled into a mass of 600,000 New Yorkers””the biggest demonstration in the city since the No Nukes protest in Central Park in 1982””and my skepticism evaporated and my fears lessened. We can do this.
New York is Trump’s hometown and we showed him history’s biggest middle finger.
In other cities around the country (and the world) people poured into the streets with their witticisms presented in glitter, feathers and yarn. There are estimates combining every demonstration reporting around 4.5 million Americans protested Trump the day after he took office. Others say it was 1 out of every 100 Americans. Either way it was, to use a term, YUUGE and unpresidented.
This prompted President Shrinkage to whine to the CIA about the media reporting on the tiny size of his pathetic crowd the day before. If we’re going to talk about historic, this should also be a marker; he’s the first president to rage in front of an audience of the freaking CIA because the media was accurately reporting government data.
Today, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tried to claim the Women’s March was about positive things not just against Trump.
WRONG! The Women’s March was completely, totally and absolutely against Trump mainly because Trump is against humanity. These weren’t ladies out in the streets to flatter Trump with messages of positivity. This was a protest: A rejection. A repudiation. Period.
It was millions””on every continent””saying to Trump: You are a very small man.
The good news? Small men are easily defeated.
Don’t stop. Don’t pause. Don’t stop.
We’re coming for you, Mr. Shrinkage.