INAUGURATE THIS
Strategies for Life During & After Donald Trump 2.0 | january20.2025
By Douglas John Imbrogno | theSTORYistheTHING.substack.com | january20.2025
Of course I am depressed by this calendar date of Jan. 20, 2025. How could you not be, if you voted for one of the most competent, uplifting presidential candidates in recent history — only to watch in forlorn horror as the most incompetent (amoral, immature, comically imperious) candidate in American history is given back the car keys to a country he already once crashed into a ditch. It’s easy to belittle cackling Trump cultists, chittering with glee as their man stalks back onto the world stage, rolling out cabinet appointments more worthy of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” With ‘policies‘ like boomerang tariffs and immigration sweeps destined to tank the economy, how soon will true believers wake up to the implosion of their own families and communities, while first whooping on the way down like Major ‘King’ Kong in “Dr. Strangelove”?
THE NERD REICH
When my vexation slips its leash to run wild through the neighborhood, it is the 90,000 Americans who couldn’t be bothered to vote whose ankles I wish to nip at while barking around them in mad circles. They were, in essence, Trump voters. So, too, were those folks who voted Third Party to make some virtue-signaling point about the State of American Politics, busting a move specifically destined to sink American Politics. So, thanks a lot, guys, if this whole American Experiment is now headed down the tubes and Donald and his scary band of tech-billionaire lords and lads achieve their combo coronation and ‘Nerd Reich.’ To that point, check out ‘Peter Thiel’s Apocalypse Dreams‘ by Gil Duran, a harrowing profile of the guy who shipped JD Vance to the nation’s porch. Here is a taste of the High Church of Thiel, who like fellow oligarch-prophet Elon Musk is now perched at the (Far) Right Hand of The Donald, influence-wise: ‘Instead of divine authority flowing from God through patriarchal figures, authority flows from technology through its billionaire interpreters, who see themselves as humanity’s saviors …”
CRANKY SPEECH
At my post-election crankiest, I fired up my Oxford English Dictionary app (out in the Field of Memes, never mess with someone who has one) and crafed the graphic above. It is intemperate, rude, and surely violates the part of the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path which specifically addresses Right Speech. Plus, if the Nerd Reich comes to be, The Emperor or one of his Gauleiters May Not Be Amused. So, do come visit me in the Trump Retribution & Re-education Camp®. And bring a couple of GT Alive brand pu-erh tea with root beer spices and adaptogenic mushroom infusion (reishi, chaga, and turkey tail) because I’m sure the food and drink is going to be crappy. Also, don’t be a Gauleiter …
HEED THE SPOUSE
When I moan in this politicized way, my head metaphorically and sometimes literally in my hands, my sensible spouse will have none of it. “Don’t let that man control your lives and your thoughts. Stop reading so much news! Do what you can do in the here and now, in your own life. You could also go shovel the snow off the driveway …” This is good advice. I will do the driveway in a bit, my dear, a task that we job-share. (Husband-wise, I am a slow learner, but have learned after long experience not to shirk my ‘Honey-Do‘ list once I hear her dulcet tones requesting a chore.) Yet her stolid wisdom leads me to ponder something: How can we sanely and positively navigate the next four years of foolishness, criminality, and cruelty? After some consideration and graphic tinkering, I hereby pass along shareable memes and links suitable for this sad occasion. Because what comes after this day depends on us, not just him. So, let’s talk resistance, self-care, inspiration, and perspective.
THE HARD PART
If you’re anything like me, you dared to believe that on Nov. 5, 2024, we were finally coming to the end of the exhausting tsunami of outrage, lies, and chaos that is Donald Trump’s modus operandi (a Latin phrase that revealingly means ‘way of operating.’) I don’t know exactly how one girds one’s loins, but gird we must for four more years. Lawyer, commentator, and self-proclaimed ‘fighter for democracy’ Tristan Snell delivers the tough-love locker room oration in the BlueSky post above for the grueling task ahead. Daunting, yes. Doable? If we don’t walk off the field, if we organize, if we band together — then, yes, also. We must ever consider Margaret Meade’s dictum when our spirit flags: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
THE SELF-CARE PART
Let us also heed the advice from Graffito and Stencil Master Banksy. We are all weary already of the clown cars pulling into Washington, D.C, one after the other, ejecting clown after Trumpublican clown. (With my apologies to good-hearted, non-scary, respectable working clowns). Wouldn’t it be easier to retreat into a four-year Netflix binge? To obey in advance? To duck, cover, and quit the Trump Stadium playing field, dammit?!? Let’s keep Banksy’s advice close to heart. Beware of too many continuous hours and overheated, always-on screens full of frantic stories that generate despair. Build regular rest and renewal into regular resistance. The one is as important as the other.
THE PERSPECTIVE PART
It may be small comfort to take the long view, given that the short view looks so dreadful for anyone with the stomach to watch Episode 2025 of Inaugural TV. (Myself, I’ll be watching the second season of ‘Severance’ and cute cat videos.) Yet we all might take to heart a recent post by Emily Amick, who has a beguiling Substack bio: ‘I’m a democracy stan, cancer survivor and mother of dragons (dog Poppy and cat Weasel). I buy my own lumber and build my own cabinets while trying to save democracy.‘ As summarized in the graphic below, her long view may be the right one: seeing Trump’s inauguration not as a definitive moment in American history, but as one of many dramas the country has weathered. The rest of her post gets into the weeds with some wide-ranging, detailed advice: ‘10 PRACTICAL THINGS TO DO TO PREPARE FOR THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY.‘
I have paired Amick’s words with one of my favorite long-view quotations from one of history’s most succinct wise-guys: 17th century Japanese poet/haiku master, Basho. His ‘Summer grasses’ haiku is an all-purpose, ancient algorithm for perspective on the endless aggressive ambitions and delusions of conquerors, dictators, and — in this age — tech-bro fantasists and wannabe orange-haired autocrats. Try it out: ‘Summer grasses:/ all that remains of Donald’s/ imperial dreams.’ (A sister poem might be Shelley’s immortal “Ozymandias,” which also tracks the future fate of Donald, Elmo, Peter (Thiel) the Great, and every other lickspittle, plonker, galoot, and boofhead in Trump’s inner circle. (See OED ‘Idiot Option’ graphic above for more descriptors …)
THE LONG VIEW, PART II
I don’t mean to suggest that the terrible return of a terrible man with a cultish cadre of millions of robotic believers can be dealt with through quotes and memes. Much as we might like to console ourselves that ‘Trump and Co.’ are clueless fools, out of their league in real politics or in getting anything substantive done, he possesses a feral shrewdness for knocking good people off their game. He is really kinda’ great at fomenting havoc and upheaval to control the narrative. As Trump and his fans relish their dark triumph this day, let’s take the longest of views. Enter Samwise Gamgee, the true hero of “Lord of the Rings,” lifting the spirits of his master, Frodo Baggins, at their lowest point.
P.S.
And as the Bad Guys throw a kegger for themselves today in the seat of power of the United States of America, let us highlight one last thing. Today is the national holiday of one of the good guys. So, let’s give the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the final good word.
Thanks to Jeff Seager for his editing mojo and writing advice in this piece.
