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treehugginglibrarian · 6 years

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Bob & Sally Are Not Friends

There have been a lot of calls on social media lately, in the form of blogs, memes, videos, and status updates, demanding that Trump supporters and not-Trump supporters put aside our pitch forks and learn to get along. Given the current political climate, and the fact that the more liberal sections of society are the ones doing the loudest protesting, it’s safe to say that most of these memes et al are probably not aimed at those supporting the President. Since many make references to “snowflakes” or encourage one side to “grow up,” two insults pretty routinely flung at minority factions who are busy stomping the streets attempting to ensure we don’t start losing rights we’ve worked literally decades to attain, it’s safe to assume that most of these memes are aimed at making the anti-Trump team get over their anger.

Here’s the thing, your memes aren’t working. You can shove stick figure Bob and Sally up your ass. If you voted for our current President, I may well tolerate you, but I’ll never accept you- a stance many Trump supporters should be quite comfortable with, since they’ve been applying it to minority populations their entire lives. I don’t forgive you. I probably never will. And for those of us who are suffering, or stand to suffer, under the current administration’s practices, your memes are doing nothing more than illustrating the same privilege that let you vote for him in the first place.

It’s super easy to look at a hostile political climate and scream “can’t everyone just get alone” when you stand to lose absolutely nothing. If you are a white, straight, cisgender, Christian human, this administration is going to take almost nothing from you. If you are male, on top of that, they are going to literally take nothing from you (except your healthcare, some of your finances, and possibly your job. Sucker). If you are not these things, there is a good chance that at some point during the duration of this administration, you are going to lose a right that has already been given to you, or you are going to find yourself staring down an extra decade without a right that you felt you were pretty close to securing.

Since I’m queer, I will use my queerness as an example to illustrate the overwhelming frustration that minority populations feel when Trump voters, or generally privileged populations, whine loudly that we need to just all get along.

All things considered, I’m a pretty privileged queer person. I live in a city that has anti-discrimination ordinances on the books. I work in a city with the same. Our capital is the second largest gay mecca in the country. My employer has incredibly stringent anti-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation and gender presentation, and everyone at my place of employment is either very accepting or completely silent regarding their homophobia. My neighbors don’t harass my wife and I for being queer. I am, in general, pretty safe. I know how lucky I am, because I know how unfriendly spaces can be to queer people. Some of those spaces exist in my state which, despite locally granted protections, does not have a single state-wide protection granted to LGBTQ persons.

In my state, the state Constitution stipulated that marriage was for only a man and a woman up until three years ago, when the Supreme Court rule that this wasn’t okay. Because of that ruling, queers in my state are entitled to get married and are entitled to all the rights that come with that marriage, but they are entitled to absolutely nothing else. We can be fired for being queer. We can be denied housing, denied promotions, or asked to leave a business or public space, because we are queer. We can be told which bathrooms we are allowed to use, we can be denied the right to adopt just because we’re gay and, at times, we can even be denied medical treatment or other basic services. Since there are also absolutely no protections for sexual orientation built into federal law, excepting the right to marry, we have no recourse if we do not live in a space that has incorporated these rights and protections into their local laws or ordinances.

Thankfully, my state is one where cities and towns have been allowed to create their own local protections for queer people, since not all states are quite so… “kind.” North Carolina, for instance, all but went to war with itself when individual cities attempted to rebel against the hatred often espoused at the state level. The end result was a statewide “bathroom bill” that isn’t really abided by in a lot of more liberal spaces, but does a great job of making homophobes and transphobes feel like their views are valid and worthwhile. Indiana has had similar issues with Mike Pence’s religious freedom bill.

Telling a queer or trans person to suck it up and get along with a Trump supporter is, effectively, telling them to suck it up and get along with someone who is comfortable stripping them of their rights or allowing them to continue living in an environment where they have fewer rights than those who are straight or cisgender. Admittedly, not all Trump supporters voted for him because they hate gay people or because they want to see gay people oppressed or treated like shit. A vote for him, however, is an admittance that they don’t really care if gay people are oppressed or treated like shit, though. Trump told us exactly how he felt about the LGBTQ community when he selected Pence, possibly the most anti-LGBTQ politician in the country right now, as his Vice President. He told us how he felt about us when he acknowledged that, though he would be unlikely to work to overturn the Supreme Court decision allowing us to marry, he would have no trouble signing a national religious freedom bill, ensuring that those with a moral opposition to who I am as a human, never have to actually treat me like a human.

Bills like that are more than just “cake” and “flowers,” as anyone who is actually queer can tell you. A bill of that nature would guarantee that full rights under the law, for LBGTQ individuals, would never exist. All anyone who didn’t like us would ever have to do to legally discriminate against us, is claim that serving us is a violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs. Don’t want to serve gay people at your coffee shop? Claim we violate your religious beliefs. Don’t want us to go clothes shopping there? Claim our shopping method violates your religious beliefs. Don’t want to have to treat us in the emergency room? Claim that doing so violates your religious beliefs and, just like that, you’ve contributed to the death of yet another queer or trans person in America. Fuck the cake. Fuck the flowers. I want to know that if my house is on fire, the local fire department isn’t going to let it burn down because, “Ew, lesbians are yucky,” and actually get away with that response.

If you voted for Trump, you might not personally light my house on fire, or kick me out of a coffee shop, or refuse to treat me if I’m sick, but you’re admitting that you don’t really care that much if these things happen to me. Because it was stated, clearly and repeatedly, that things like this were a possibility if he won, which meant you voted for him knowing that his election to office would probably hurt me and others like me. You don’t get to passively allow injury to another party out of some espoused indifference to their well-being, only to then get angry when the party in question decides that maybe you’re not actually their friend after all.

Now take this is and multiply it by every minority group in this country that is being negatively effected by this administration’s quest to do precisely what they said they would do while they were campaigning. Racism is rampant, with crosses being burned in yards and white supremacist rallies taking place all over the nation. There are literal Nazis in the streets, as evidenced by the fact that they are carrying Nazi flags and sporting Nazi regalia. Our nation is locking small immigrant children into detention centers and, even after swearing that they will get them back together with their parents, routinely failing to make that happen. Women may well lose the right to abortion and certain types of birth control with the inevitable appointment of another far-right, anti-Roe v. Wade, justice to the Supreme Court.

If you voted for Trump, you helped make this happen.

I’m not going to be mean to you about it. I’m not going to taunt you about the fact that you might not have healthcare anymore and, if you work in manufacturing or agriculture, there’s a real chance he’s going to kill your job instead of make you more money. I’m not going to point at you in public spaces and taunt “look everyone! A Trump supporter! Look upon the face of stupidity and evil!” But I’m also not going to make myself be friends with you and I’m not going to forgive you. It won’t matter how many times you call me childish. It won’t matter how many stupid fucking memes you make about Bob and Sally and their stick figure friendship.

At the end of the day, my well-being was not a factor in your overall decision making when you went to the polls. To that end, your well-being, specifically your desire to feel liked and appreciated, is of absolutely no concern to me. If you wanted me to like you, perhaps you should have cast a vote that implied that you like me. I deserve better from my friends. So do the black people in this country. So do the immigrants in this country. So do the young children this country is keeping in cages. I can’t make you realize that you need to care about other people, but until you figure out how I think you need to stop bitching that the very people you don’t care about, don’t really care about you, either.

So, no. Bob and Sally aren’t friends. And Bob’s just gonna have to get over it. It’s a concept he should be familiar with, since he probably spent the first six months after the election telling Sally precisely that. It sort of sucks when people you thought were your friends make it apparent that they don’t really like you, doesn’t it?

Now imagine that “sort of sucks” coming with a side of “no more civil rights.”

Fuck you, Bob.

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newagesispage · 4 years

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MAY 2020

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Check out the We are One Global film fest on youtube from May 29-June 7. We will be able to experience movies from Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca and Venice for free!! Yahoo!!

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May 10 will bring us The Feeding America comedy Fest. So far the stars on board are Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Tiffany Haddish, Chris Rock, Louie Anderson, JB Smoove, Brad Garrett, Jon Lovitz, Tim Meadows, Keegan-Michael Key, George Lopez and Sarah Silverman, just to mention a few.

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Jim Carrey will release his Memoirs and Misinformation on May 5.

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If you need honest medical info, take a look at Quackwatch: A guide to quackery, health fraud and intelligent decisions.

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Current times are a magnification of a problem that has been brewing for quite some time. The kiss ass, the indifferent, the greedy who don’t miss a trick are todays fortunate sons.** If half of this country didn’t want the other half to have a fighting chance we wouldn’t be in this situation right now. The Federal government should have all of our best interests at heart. I will never understand why so many of the’ have not’ voters love supporting the’ haves ‘that love to fuck over the little guy.

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SAVE THE USPS!!

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I guess we know how this country would be prepared to react to bioterrorism.

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SNL is working from home like so many but with Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt, Fred Armisen, Paul Rudd, Miley and Sandler.

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George Gray, announcer for the Price is Right is recovering after a week of 3 heart attacks.

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Marijuana use is at an all -time high. Alcohol use is up 40%.

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What is up with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp who seemed so surprised at the virus months after everybody else seemed to know the facts? This is what happens if we only listen to Trump and Fox news.** He is so ready to open up the state early. ** A Georgia citizen said it best: Kemp mandates restaurants open, whether I reopen dining rooms or not. I file for business interruption insurance, it does not go through since I am “allowed” to operate full capacity. My landlord can demand all their money since I am allowed to fully operate. Furloughed staff that is collecting unemployment insurance have to come back to work or I have to let them go. Their unemployment insurance then goes on my tab. If things blow up again they are still on my tab, not on the state since they are no longer employed. This is about screwing the working class.** A dog has now been diagnosed with the virus as well as some cats.

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UFO footage has been declassified by the pentagon. Wow, anything to distract! ** This whole Scary Clown 45 mess often seems like a big government experiment. Just how much will we put up with? How stupid or complacent are we??

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The President’s council on reopening America has a message for our country: Die you fucking slaves. Die Die Die. We’re rich and you’re not and we’ll be even richer after the mass burials are over. Sucks to be you.

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The Federal government does not have absolute power. Why do “big government” haters suddenly want the Feds to run their lives??** Some checks were delayed because Trump wanted his name on them?** The Huffington Post has reported that $180,000 a year of Trump campaign money is given to his son’s significant others.

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The Carter’s have asked donors to the Carter Center to instead give those donations to local organizations in need.** A great charity is RIP medical debt which puts $100 to every dollar you donate to wipe out medical debt.

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Need some nature sounds in your life? Visit NPS.gov/sounds

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It looks like Macgruber may become an 8 episode series according to Will Forte.

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It is sort of reassuring to see that the late night hosts who mostly hover around my age, are no better at technology than I am.** BTW, Billy Eichner is such a great guest from home.. more please!** I see that one of the 8G band on Late Night has a big pic of Mick’s face behind him at home. I also see that same pic everyday above my desk. A kindred spirit.

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Linda McMahon, wife of WWE chair, announced the18.5 million Trump super PAC in Florida. Governor DeSantis now calls WWE essential. Many of the wrestlers were fired so the bottom line looks good.

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Being willfully stupid is not part of the Christian tradition.- John Meecham

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Some fast food workers went on strike. This is a good time to do it. Risking your lives for minimum wage is hardly worth it.

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Threadgill’s, the Austin bar that helped launch Janis Joplin is closing down.

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Is this true? 150 members of the Saudi royal family tested positive for covid-19.** Did Trump play down the virus because he owes millions to China’s state owned banks or was it to try to get dirt on Biden?

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I am not sure what has happened to the American workplace. So many strides were made in the mid 20th century but a lot of that seems to have fallen away. I see so many employers leaving it to employees to provide supplies before they even get the job. Teachers sometimes buy things for the classrooms. Some employees must buy their own cell phones for video conferences or even punching in and out. Some nursing home employees bring in their own cough drops or snacks for residents. How much $ do the people at the top need?? No sick pay? Work or starve!

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Everyone staying at home proves how badly we need a better high speed internet system in the U.S.

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Porn hub has been giving free porn.** The My Pillow guy is praising Trump as he donates 50,000 masks.

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All these Trump worshipping MAGA shills, they’re willing to die for the dumbest, flounciest fancy lad in history. –Patton Oswalt.

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So we don’t want to give Government help to immigrants who pay taxes, we do want to help cruise lines who avoid taxes by registering as foreign companies. Got it! ???

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The Neo confederate hate group, ‘league of the south’ is moving ahead with its annual conference in June.** Trump is getting ready to open the country with a coalition of his republican Governors and companies (some of whom seemed surprised). ** How did we get here? If our Pres is incapable of reading simple memos, he is incompetent. ** Scary Clown is trying to speed up the Wall as we are dropping like flies.

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This can’t be true. Federal agents are confiscating masks and supplies in hospitals, presumably for ICE agents??** Was Scary Clown 45 trying to force congress out of session so that he could skate some recess appointments by?** Rules have been weakened as to the release of mercury and various toxins from oil and coal power plants.** Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil do not seem to concerned about the virus.** Trump circled back around to the heat and light thing as a cure because he could not get over the shit he got for telling us that spring’s warm weather would take care of everything, right?

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Chicago businessman Gene Staples has purchased Indiana Beach amusement park and will open in July if he is able.

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Nascar will be back this month with new races but without the live audience.

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Catch Ashes to Ash: The disappearance of Robert Bee on Youtube.

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As everyone is sick with respiratory problems and the pollution has ebbed a bit, scary clown 45 has to roll back some of our rules that protect clean air. Auto emissions are rolled back to 1.5%. He has to be loving the fact that we can’t all gather and protest. Hmmm?? Perhaps it is a conspiracy.. but his.** Oh but the disbelievers did gather in Michigan with dolls in nooses and confederate flags. Why do they think that the medical experts are telling them this for partisan reasons or just for their own kicks? They have our safety in mind. Use your fucking heads. How can this country get stupider as time goes on? ** Why can’t they just cover Covid treatment? Medical debt is gonna skyrocket.** I don’t like big government either but in times of crises and health care, we need it to work properly. ** But when the powers that be tell us that animals can’t get it and then a tiger gets it or that masks don’t protect you and then they suddenly do, it makes us all skeptical. Way to confuse us fuckers!! Even with the ignorant and the panicked, just tell us the truth and the average person will be with ya!!** It was snowing in April? Where was this warmer weather that was going to kill the virus?

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You just knew that Trump and his cronies had money on the line when it came to hydroxychloroquine. ** Scary Clown 45 has removed the very man who was set to oversee the $ 2 trillion stimulus. The good ol boys can’t wait to get their hands on that money while people are dying. ** Trump delayed checks that are not direct deposit because he wants his name on them.** People had trouble getting thru when applying for unemployment. Canada gave out the benefits and then checked the details.** States and companies are very confused. Jared claims he is in charge, Pence is supposed to be in charge and FEMA claims they are the final word. Trump seems to thrive on chaos. The states bidding, stocks up and down and Doctors disagreeing are right up his alley. He probably does hate being stuck at the WH.

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People will forgive you for not being the leader you should be, they will never forgive you for not being the leader you claim to be.

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Why should it be surprising that poor communities are being hit so hard? The poor, the minorities do so much of the cleaning, the cooking and delivering that still has to be done. When people are not sheltering in place because they are needed or they need that paycheck, of course they are getting infected since they are still out there. Add to that, little or no health care and poor diets from food deserts etc. and there you go.

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White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham is out after 9 months. Kayleigh Mcenany is in.** Vaccine chief Rick Bright is reassigned. He recently wanted to put hydroxychloroquine to some rigorous tests. He has been vocal about the administration.

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Lights Out is leaving Comedy Central and looking for another place to air.

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Can’t wait to see Mrs. America about the women who shaped our past.

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I rarely pay attention to advertising but I love that Chantix turkey. I hate the fact that he had a smoking problem, though.

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Every prisoner in every prison, especially the non -violent and the elderly should be reviewed. There needs to be more room made for white collar crimes that hurt so many more of us.

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Word is that Kim Jung un is brain dead.

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Rumble media has released Planet of the Humans from Jeff Gibbs on Youtube . The film will run free for 30 days and sort of explodes the myth of our ‘green’ heroes.

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Common, Woody Harrelson and Shinola watch co. have created a cannabis leak motif watch and the proceeds will go to criminal justice reform.

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Navy Captain Crozier was fired for telling the truth and looking after his crew. ** The U.S.S. Comfort isn’t taking Covid patients??

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Good bye Schitt’s Creek. We sure will miss ya!!

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Franklin Graham was asking volunteers for his field hospital in NY to sign a ‘statement of faith.’ It stated that they, “believe in God’s plan for human sexuality within the context of marriage between a man and a woman and that those that stray from those beliefs face eternal damnation and eternal judgement in Hell.”**

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Jon Cryer has a new book out: So that happened.

We can see now what would happen if all the humans were dead. The mountain goats have come down the hill and taken over a town in Wales. The Pandas are finally mating in Hong Kong now that they have some privacy.

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Bernie is out after 4 long conversations with Obama and tells us that he will concentrate on the pandemic. Looks like we are stuck with Biden. At least Biden is talking about lowering Medicare to 60. It’s not enough but at least it’s a start.** Who will the female VP pick be, Klobuchar, Witmer, Abrams??

*****

Netflix along with Steve Carell and Greg Daniel will bring us Space Force on May 29 with Lisa Kudrow and John Malkovich.

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In Sweden, all land is for public use. Imagine!!

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ICP cancelled their Juggalo fest.

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Perhaps home schooling will become more popular. Perhaps with the pollution dropping, humans will get the message that we have really fucked ourselves in this world. Less cars people!!** The Twitter CEO donated a billion. That made the other top $ people look like schmucks.

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Kleenex Cottonelle is donating a million rolls and a million bucks. Share A Square!!

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Fight Island??

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Tiger King.. who cares.. Crip Camp is the one to watch. A Secret Love is also great. This is the world that we should build from the ashes of Covid-19.** Stop trying to get me to watch Tiger King. –Bill Maher

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We are in a recession.** I don’t understand when I see so many “devout” people show no respect for religions other than their own.

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Tom Pelphrey on Ozark this season just blew me away!! He has to be the one to watch at the Emmy’s.

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On a personal note: Hey Aunt Ritski, I will never forget that you saved a couple of people from drowning when you were a lifeguard. I will never forget one of your favorite tales, that you wanted to be Miss Kitty when you were 5 years old and got a little drunk trying. I will never forget the times that you drove thru the ditches, your Cooter Brown stories or the way that you often left all the change on the bar when we were out. How could anyone forget the weddings, the bullet you had to live with the rest of your life and the love you had for your siblings. We will miss you forever because all of the lives you touched would have been a whole lot different without you in it. What the fuck would we have talked about if not for the saga of you? I can think of nobody who would disagree with that. Your family loves you baby. Go in Peace and serenity.

R.I.P. Adam Schlesinger, Ellis Marsalis Jr., Mort Drucker, Lorena Boreja, Janet Alexander, Patricia Bosworth, Bucky Pizzarelli, Logan Wiliams, Maeve Williams, Wallace Roney, Joe Diffie, Andrew Jack, Alan Merrill, John Prine, Thomas L. Miller, tornado victims, Charlotte Figi, David Driscoll, Hal Willner, Patricia Bosworth, Ann Sullivan, Brooke Taylor, the Canadian shooting victims, Matt Seligman, Barney Ales, Bootsy Barnes, Bruce Meyers,Roger Beatty, the tornado victims, Tim Brooke- Taylor, Jorge Camara, Andrew J. Fenady, Brian Dennehy, Don Reed Herring, Henry Graff, Allen Daviou, Tom Lester, Bill Withers and Rita Hale.

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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A morning with ‘adorable deplorables’: why Trump supporters are optimistic

On a bus bound for the inauguration in Washington, backers of the new president explain their views: He isnt putting people down

On the bus, in the morning darkness, Steph and Brandi put on their makeup, using a phone as a mirror.

Stephanie Friess and Brandi Tillman have been friends since high school, and now they were on their way from Wilmington, Delaware, to Washington to celebrate the man who had given them a brand new country.

On election night, Steph stayed up past 3am to see Trumps victory being announced. The next morning, remembering the night before while driving her car, the 24-year-old felt jubilant to be living in Trumps America.

The two women made matching Trump caps blue and black decorated with sequins and the slogan Adorable Deplorable in honor of the inauguration. Hillary Clinton had tried to attack Trump for lifting up the most deplorable among his followers: the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic you name it. Trumps followers had proudly reclaimed the term, and now Brandi and Steph bedazzled it.

Two friends on an early bus to Trumps inauguration apply their makeup. Photograph: Lois Beckett for the Guardian

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women will be marching in Washington in protest of Trumps presidency in a demonstration called the Womens March.

While large majorities of black and Latina women voted against Trump and for Hillary Clinton, white women didnt. Brandi and Steph are part of the majority: early exit polls showed that 53% of white women voted for Trump, including 45% of women with college degrees.

The two women, both college students, were not entirely convinced by Donald Trump at first. But, Steph said, he definitely grows on you. Both friends say they appreciate Trumps bluntness, his toughness, his lack of greed, and what seems like a genuine love for America.

He wants everyone to be successful, Stephanie said. He isnt putting people down.

Brandi liked Mitt Romney, but he wasnt strong enough, the 25-year-old said. He wasnt empowering us enough. He plays that innocent politician role that all politicians play. Trump doesnt do that.

A cake cant be racist

On the bus to Washington, many of the womens fellow white Trump supporters expressed frustration at constantly being labeled racist. It was a term, some argued, that liberals just threw around whenever they were losing an argument.

A local bakery in Pennsylvania had just produced tiny hat-shaped Make America Great Again cakes in honor of the inauguration, and a short post about the themed cakes on Facebook had sparked a long debate, with some commenters labelling the bakery racist, or saying they would not longer patronize it. Why not a grab em by the p*ssy cake? one commenter asked. Or a deport all immigrants cake?

Laura Ann bought two Make America Great Again cakes. Photograph: Lois Beckett for the Guardian

The bus supporters were indignant. They had won. It was supposed to be a day to celebrate. And yet the news was full of protests and threatened disruption, and even a bakery making an inauguration dessert had somehow become divisive.

A cake cant be racist, Dave DeFries, a longtime Trump supporter from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, said in exasperation.

In the seat behind Brandi and Steph, Laura Ann, 34, who asked that her last name not be used, had bought two of them. She sliced them and handed them out. The cake was moist, the frosting tasting faintly of marshmallow.

Laura Ann had voted for Obama twice. She worked in healthcare, and had wanted the president to fix the health insurance system. He had failed. She was still kicking herself for voting for him. As a gun owner with several AR-15 rifles she found them light and easy to handle as a female shooter she had also been frustrated by the constant attacks on the so-called assault rifle.

Id really like to see [Trump] help the inner cities more, she said. She thought Ben Carson, who grew up in Detroit and went on to become a surgeon, would be a great force in helping urban America.

Eileen, at 46, had cast her first ballot ever for Trump. I want the jobs to come back to America, she said. Her brother, a systems analyst, had lost his job to workers in India and had been forced to personally train the Indian worker who was taking his place, under threat of losing his pension.

Eileen also felt Obama had failed to bring insurance companies in line to bring healthcare costs down. Worried that her high school friends who voted for Clinton would attack her, she asked not to publish her last name.

Many of the supporters said they had never been politically involved before Trump ran for president. Several had voted for Obama at least once. Some of the new activists said they were amazed by the energy of Trumps movement. It doesnt seem like a political environment, Dave Ennis said. It seems like were going to a football game.

Some said that their friends or family were worried that something might happen on inauguration day, that the protests might make DC dangerous. One man mentioned that he had seen a video produced by the conservative provocateur James OKeefe about activists discussing a plan to throw acid on Trump supporters.

Its like, I get it, I get it, slavery was bad. I didnt do it

At the back of the bus, Dave sat opposite his wife and 16 year-old son, Brian, who he called a liberal snowflake. The two of them argued constantly, the father said, especially about Black Lives Matter.

Brian said he believed that the Black Lives Matter protesters and the Boston Tea Party rebels were identical except for their race. Protesters had to be loud to make themselves noticed. His father was more skeptical that black Americans were being unfairly victimized. His own interactions with the police when he was younger had taught him that when people chose a certain lifestyle, the police would target them and there was nothing wrong with that.

Inauguration buttons on sale in Washington DC on Friday. Photograph: Lois Beckett for the Guardian

Brandi and Steph said that felt that racism toward black Americans had been given a disproportionate platform compared with other kinds of racism. They disapproved of Obama supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, which they saw as racist.

Why is it Black Lives Matter, not all lives? Stephanie asked.

I just dont think most cops are out to get black people, Brandi replied.

The media blows a lot of this out of proportion, Stephanie said.

I didnt think its bad that we had a first black president. Thats not bad. Thats great, Brandi opined. But Obama should not have been elected to a second term. I think his color had a lot to do with that.

In school, Brandi said, some black girls had bullied her, and when she complained, my teacher told me to grow a thicker skin.

Asked about the systemic inequality black Americans face in the criminal justice system, or in education Brandi said that, because shes been living in Delaware, a relatively liberal state, maybe I havent seen that as much.

I, like, see the opposite. Black people get free college, she said. My moms a single mom. Im not white privileged, and Im sick of being told I am.

Both said that felt they had grown up and gone to school while constantly being told things trying to make us feel bad for being white. Slavery was a topic of discussion again and again, the schools focused on black authors, its always black history month.

Its like, I get it, I get it, slavery was bad. I didnt do it, Brandi said.

Brandi said she felt bad for her other minority friends Hispanic, Asian, Indian who also faced racism, but seemed to get less attention. Her Indian American friends faced job discrimination, she believed, by people who might not think they fit the look they wanted, or who bought into the stereotype that they might be terrorists.

Im a little bit worried about the tweeting

Both friends also had some concerns about Trump. Stephanie didnt believe for a long time that Trump could really pull off a presidential demeanor. Thats why she thought Clinton would win. Brandi said she did not believe new environmental protections should be rolled back, and her stepmother had serious concerns about Trumps pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, a billionaire philanthropist and school choice advocate whose understanding of basic educational concepts and laws came under question during her confirmation hearing. I know teachers arent very happy about that, she said.

Brandi Tillman, 25, and Stephanie Friess, 24, display their homemade Adorable Deplorable hats on the way to Trumps inauguration. Photograph: Lois Beckett for the Guardian

Im a little bit worried about the tweeting, Brandi added. She was concerned, she said, that he might say something

That he cant take back, Steph broke in.

But for the most part, the two friends were optimistic that Trump would tackle the economy, create jobs, address cyber-attacks, and make America stronger. Brandi, who was waitressing as she went through college, said: Id like to see more money. Id like to see more tips.

Neither of the friends had been concerned about his comments about grabbing women by the pussy. That was 10 years ago, and people change, Brandi said.

Brandi said if a famous billionaire had tried to grope her, she would have sued immediately, not stayed silent for years until the man ran for president. Damn straight, if someone gropes me, I would want to sue, she said. Steph disagreed. She probably would have stayed quiet, she said.

A Belgian journalist who was also on the bus then took his turn and interviewed the two women about their support for Trump, and asked them to comment on the fears many Americans have about the coming months.

Brandi said her faith as a Christian kept her from being too anxious, and that Americans should calm down. Trump, after all, was just the president.

Hes not God. Hes not Hitler. Its not the end of the world, she said.