Trump is a criminal. He’s also a liar, cruel, a business failure, crass and, abusive.

He has the characteristics and the resume that wouldn’t get a person a job in any sector of the workforce.  Yet, he won the presidency.  A second time.  (His previous unsuccessful term notwithstanding.)  

I cannot imagine what the U.S. will look like on January 20th, 2025 and after. 

The word “retard” will make a comeback.  White Nationalist paramilitary groups (fully dressed like cosplayers from Call of Duty) will increase.  And everyone will roll out of bed feeling anxious.  But for very different reasons.  

To reduce my own anxiety, I toiled in Frida’s Rebel Garden-Park, a community green space that’s exactly one mile from the Tops Market on Jefferson Avenue, the site of 5/14 Buffalo Massacre.  I was pruning the area around the flagpole when the idea of quiet defiance came to mind.  I thought of the small acts of resistance used by Black domestic workers to subvert Jim Crow practices. 

Those small acts of resistance included throwing away “gifts” from their employees, feigning incompetence about tasks, or working at a very slow pace.  The acts themselves were non-confrontational and came with minimal risks.  But they allowed the women to push back against inequality, assert their dignity and express a personal agency against oppression. 

I followed their example and engaged in my own small act of resistance. It communicates the mourning of the national tragedy that is Trump, and how his presidency will very likely lead our imperfect, yet beloved democratic nation towards destruction.

 

Fly the flag at half-staff in solidarity.

Spread the word.

Let’s make it a movement.