President-elect Trump was great at his meeting with President Obama at the White House this week, but then went paranoid 12-year-old again when he tweeted that night about protesters being “very unfair.” On any given day we simply don’t know what we’ll be getting; we must be nothing if not watchful.
We have reasons to be hopeful, and we have reasons to be disturbed. Information is now coming in about members of the transition team, and the kind of people being gathered to form the new administration. This is not a time to look away. Already the lobbyists, the corporate chieftains, the very types Trump said he would drain from the swamp are gathering like a swarm of locusts to constitute the new team. From new environmental chieftains who are mouthpieces for the oil industry, to communications chieftains who are known for their opposition to net neutrality, to economic chieftains who are champions of the banks, we have handed our government to the economic royalists.
Trump’s children, meanwhile, are the executive team who will oversee the transfer. and they will do so while still running their family empire. The conflicts of interest are preposterous.
In a way, I feel sorry for Donald Trump. His aides say he was shocked he won and I’ll bet that he was. He knows deep down that he is in way over his head, and I think he was being sincere when he said he would be calling on President Obama for counsel. I bet he wishes he could call him and simply ask him what to do! Call him Donald, call him! I’d rather he ask Obama what to do than the gang of Alt Righters who are now whispering in his ear.
I have no doubt that the lies Trump told on the campaign trail will come crashing back at him in karmic retribution.
Each of us will be guided as to the part we can play to save our country from this awful mess. We will grieve, we will freak out, and we will look at the painful facts very squarely in the eye. But if we put our upset in the hands of God — most particularly, if we remember that we are all going through this together — then a miracle will happen even here. Pray first of all for Trump himself, that he be healed of his mental dysfunctions. If God can heal a physical ailment, and I believe He can, then he can heal a mental ailment as well. The paranoia, the narcissism, the grandiosity, the bigoted and angry personality — dear God, please heal them all.
I have no doubt that the lies Trump told on the campaign trail will come crashing back at him in karmic retribution. The problem we have now is that we don’t want them crashing back on us. We have to hold the painful juxtaposition of what seem at the moment to be conflicting truths: that a deeply problematical and unprepared politician has won the presidency, yet we must pray for him and his administration in order to protect our government, our country, and ourselves from ruin. And we can do that. Martin Luther King Jr. once said how grateful he was that God didn’t say he had to like his enemies; he only had to love them.
Donald Trump is an innocent child of God, and the democratically chosen president-elect of the United States. We must deeply bow before the first and deeply respect the second. But we are also citizens of the United States, and in many cases our prior disengagement is what got us into this mess to begin with. We must not be disengaged now, nor in denial about the far Right takeover of the United States government now rapidly taking place in front of our eyes. Pray for Trump’s sanity and clarity, because his power to cause real damage to our country is enormous. The very idea that at this point in history the next President of the United States does not believe in climate change and has vowed to dismantle as much as he can of the Environmental Protection Agency, alone should cause all of us deep concern. But we will get through this. We are awakening from our sleep, and hopefully so will he.
