Dear Mr. Trump: You Work for Us Now!

Dear Mr. Trump: You Work for Us Now 

Dear Mr. Trump:

Congratulations on being elected president. You work for us now!  We, the people, are your boss now.

You are entering your presidency with the lowest approval rating of any president since polling began. Only 32% approve of you. Since 46% of Americans voted for you, that means that a good chuck of your voters are having buyer’s remorse.

Even GWB, who will now be remembered as the second worst president in history, left office with a 33% approval rating. And that was in the midst of two failed wars that he lied us into and an economy on the brink of another Great Depression.

Do you want to continue living in Trump Tower?

Fuhgeddaboudit! You work for us now. And, we, the people, want you to live in the White House because that is where our presidents live.

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You need to be close to the situation room in case there is an emergency. Plus it is unfair to ask the taxpayers to pay for your protection while living in New York City and for thr people of New York to have to put up with the disruption caused by having a president in residence full-time.  So you will just have to get used to living with a little less gold gilt.

Stop going to your Mar-A-Lago resort every weekend. The taxpayers have to pay for those trips and for secret service to protect Trump Tower, Mar-A-Lago. We don't like it. Pay for your own protection. 

By the way, you do realize that being president is not the kind of job that you can just phone it in, don’t you?

  

Do you want to have your daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared in the White house to advise you?

Fuhgeddaboudit! You work for us now. And we, the people, do not like nepotism.

Do you want to have your sons run your business empire while you are president?

Fuhgeddaboudit! You work for us now. And, we, the people, do not like conflicts of interest. It will be impossible for you to act in the national interest if you have one eye on your business interests (or your family’s business interests).i. You must divest now! Your  assets must be placed in a blind trust. The income from the trust will be more than enough to assure your whole family of a comfortable living.

During the campaign, you said that you did not care about your business anymore. Making America great again was more important. Now it is put up or shut up time.

P.S. It is time to release your tax returns so that we, the people, can see exactly where you conflicts of interests are.

  

Do you want to continue to blame others for your mistakes?

Fuhgeddaboudit! You work for us now. And, we, the people, will hold you accountable, even when you are not technically to blame. From now on, everything anyone in your administration does that doesn’t turn out well, you will get the blame. Even if things go wrong that you have absolutely no control over, you will get the blame. And, if there is a terrorist attack in the United States or abroad, you will get the blame.

You were all too happy to place the blame for everything onto President Obama. Now you are the president, and you will get the blame.  

Do you want to pack your cabinet and staff with billionaires and Wall Street insiders?

Fuhgeddaboudit! You work for us now. And, we, the people, will hold you to your promise to “drain the swamp.”  And so far, you appear to be stuffing the swamp to the brim

We, the people, do not want appointments with dodgy ethical backgrounds. During the campaign you kept talking about how corrupt President Obama and Hillary Clinton were. Well you are president now, and it is time to put up or shut up.

Do you still think it is smart not to pay taxes?

Fuhgeddaboudit! You work for us now. And, we, the people want government services to continue. It is easy to rail about government spending when you have no responsibility. But just wait and see what happens when the social security checks are late. (And don’t even think about cutting back. The hounds of hell will seem like toy dogs compared to the hell that will rain down on you.)

You made a lot of promises. Build a wall, beef up the military, infrastructure improvements, jobs for everyone. Those things cost money. How will you pay for them if people don’t pay taxes? Wait, you promised to deliver all the goodies while lowering taxes. This I want to see.  

Do you still want to repeal and replace the ACA (Obamacare)?

 For the first time in American history, fewer than 10% of Americans are uninsured. Obamacare is deeply entrenched now. People like the benefits, no pre-existing conditions, no annual of lifetime caps, kids staying on their parent’s insurance until they are 26, subsidies for people who can’t afford insurance, mean and women treated equally, and a lot more.

So if you repeal the ACA, you had better be SURE that the replacement is ready and it offers the same benefits at lower cost. It is put up or shut up time.  

Do you want to continue attacking people for their race, gender, sexuality, etc?

Fuhgeddaboudit! You work for us now. And, we, the people, do not like hate speech. And we dislike hate actions even more. (Most of us, anyway.)

It is time to zip up your mouth (and your Twitter account) and remember that you are president of ALL Americans now.

If there are hate crimes in this country, the blame will fall on you.  

Do you want to play golf?

Fuhgeddaboudit! You work for us now. And, we, the people, do not like our presidents to be slackers. You were always complaining that President Obama played too much golf. Now you are president and you can start living up to the expectations you placed upon the former president. 

You are playing golf way more than Obama did. Cut it out. We are not paying you to play golf. And stop using meetings supposedly set up to discuss economic policy to boast about your golf prowess. We don't care. 

In short, you are no longer the boss; you are a public servant.

You work for us now. Everything you have done and everything you do now as president will be carefully examined.

You may not accept money from anyone privately; you may not accept gifts; and you may not accept favors that benefit you personally. You may not grope women, (with or without their consent). You must treat everyone fairly regardless of how persona

feelings. Yu must not expect privacy.

You must stop whining.  Although I fear that may be asking too much from you.

We are your boss now. And we will never let you forget it.

Sincerely,

The American People

January 20, 2017 

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The Word-of- the-Year is “Surreal” In Donald Trump’s America

The word-of-the-year for 2016 is "surreal."

Every year the folks who do the dictionaries choose a “Word of the Year.” For 2017, Merriam-Webster has chosen “surreal” and Oxford Dictionary has chosen “post-truth” It is easy to see that Donald Trump is the reason for those choices.

The dictionary definition of surreal is “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream.” The word is used to express a reaction to something shocking or surprising; something we don’t want to believe, something that is beyond reality. Merriam-Webster chooses this word because of the high frequency of people looking up the definition of this word.

The Oxford Dictionary looks for a new word that adds significantly to the English language. It looks like they feel we are in a post-truth era. They define “post-truth.” as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

  

Here are my suggestions for some other words of the year.

Normalize: It is a verb meaning “to make normal.” I don’t think I have ever heard the word used in everyday speech before. Now it is most commonly being used in connection with Donald Trump. He constantly does such outrageous things—you could describe them as both surreal and post-truth—things that are so far out of the bounds of what we consider normal behavior in politics and governance that we need to be careful not to normalize them, that is, to consider them as normal behavior.

Fake-News: It is noun used to represent a news story that looks like a truthful news story and appears to be from a legitimate news organization, but is actually totally untrue, a completely fabricated piece of political propaganda. This also is a term I have never heard before. During the presidential campaign of 2016, fake news was a potent weapon used primarily against Hillary Clinton and liberal causes. Fake-news has become a money-making industry. It is click-bait to conservatives who share it on social media making the creators of these lies very rich when their articles go viral.

The latest twist on fake news is that Republicans are calling real news “fake news.” For instance, data from the Congressional Budget Office was recently called fake news. It is Bizzaro World.

Trump-proof: This term can be used as either a verb or an adjective. It refers to actions taken to preserve the Obama legacy. President Obama is using executive action to create regulations that will be very difficult for Republicans to undo.

Egocentric/Narcissist: These are not new words, but I have rarely heard them used to describe a presidential candidate as often as they were used this year to describe Donald Trump. I believe if Trump was examined by a psychiatrist he would be diagnosed with “personality disorder,” and possible “sociopathic.”

Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear: These are the code names for the hackers Putin used to disrupt the election by hacking the emails of the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. All the intelligence agencies I the U.S. are positive that the hacking was done at the behest of Putin. Only Donald Trump denies it which leads me to the last word for 2016—useful idiot.

Useful Idiot: The Russians were interfering with the presidential election because Putin evident wanted a “useful idiot as president. Among spies, a useful idiot is a person who betrays his country without even knowing it because he is too stupid to know it.

Now my nomination for the word of the year for 2018: Trumpism. This word is a noun used to describe governmental policies that are reckless and based on ignorance. It will be important not to normalize these surreal and post-truth polices and the fake-news that will be promoting them.

I’ve written this in a light-hearted way, but I am really really scared. People are going to die because we will have a fool for a president. I don't want to live in a surreal world. 

© Catherine Giordano 2017

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