How DJT Made Me a Better Me

47 Ways Forward - Strategies for Navigating the Next Four Years

Last night I posted about how Donald Trump was going to make me a better human being.

This morning I woke up afraid I may have overreached.

By lunchtime it became crystal clear I had not.

Let me go back a bit to around 10:30 AM. I had turned on the television to watch one of my favorite American pastimes – the peaceful transfer of power. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved the careful choreography of this great ritual of ours. The fact that this happens every four or eight years no matter what has long brought me comfort. No one can serve a third term. Sometimes my candidate wins, sometimes he or she (two-times-too-many) loses. But what can we count on? In four years, we’ll go through it all again.

Here’s hoping.

The behind-the-scenes drama earlier today must have been quite something. The once and future President and his glamorous third wife sipping tea, making nice with the outgoing octogenarian and Dr. Jill. This didn’t happen four years ago when the losing candidate - for the first time in my lifetime - couldn’t accept defeat with the requisite patriotic grace. Hats off to the Bidens for giving the Trumps an experience that they themselves had been denied. OK, but what was going on behind the scenes? And what did all they talk about – those presidents & VPs and first and second wives/spouses – all of those opposites in their shared limousine rides from the White House to the Capitol building?

Not actually knowing makes it possible to believe - for a brief few hours, at least - that civility still exists and (the appearance of) normalcy prevails.

This year, in an effort to multi-task in a healthful way and optimize the inaugural watch-from-home TV experience, I plopped myself on my stationary bike, pedaled in place for over an hour, working up a welcome sweat, only pausing when 45/47 started to speak. My plan was to stay as open and willing to hear whatever our new-old President had to say. Maybe, just maybe, he would seek to unify – which is the job, after all - especially at this divisive time when only 31% of the eligible voters picked him, 30% chose his opponent, and over 36% didn’t vote at all.

Here was a chance to bring us all together.

From that first moment when his most-serious-seeming-self said, “The Golden Age of America begins right now …” I thought uh-oh. After a few more sentences, it was all too clear where Trump was headed, so I exercised my constitutional right by hitting the “mute” button.

As I watched his mouth continue to move, the sudden silence felt heaven sent.

Hmmm, I thought. What do I do now?

And this was when Donald Trump made me a better human being today.

Because his speech had that same “American carnage” energy from 2016, I decided to use my phone to search the web for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”

While I knew parts of the letter, I soon realized I had never read every word of it - and certainly not out loud - until today, in my living room, with the TV volume turned down.

The whole experience proved exhilarating and profound.

As for Trump’s speech which I will watch tomorrow? You tell me. What did you think?

And as for me, I’m choosing to end my second Substack post with a return to Dr. King. It seems fitting - that on his day – that he should have the last word. Below, then, a few excerpts from his April 16, 1963 “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

* * *

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

* * *

“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

* * *

“Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”