Some thoughts on POTUS 45 and the Resistance

As much as I loathe the guy, I must say there are some unexpected upsides to all of this. In calling into question some of our most cherished values and institutions (e.g. checks and balances) and making us all articulate and fight for them, there is a gift. Sure, it’s a unfortunate that we have to expend energy defending values that we once could take for granted instead of working on implementing those values, but to be honest it’s probably just taking the time we would have spent watching Netflix anyway, so really not a loss. And we’re unified by a common enemy and that’s a surefire trick for focusing the mind.

On full display for all the world to see are the darkest secrets of the American, and even the Western, psyche: the rampant greed, the aggressive appropriation of “facts” to serve the purposes of power, the strategic racism, the utter disregard for the environment that is the support system for our very lives as well as all other life on earth. All the stuff that made America “Great.” There it is, he is us, or at least that part of us. Maybe it’s good for us to see it up there in all its raging immaturity. Maybe we’ll learn something about ourselves in the process. So let our resistance be tempered with gratitude, our anger with the acknowledgment that what we fight is also part of ourselves. 

Also, this resistance thing is like a vacation from having to come up with all the damn answers all the damn time.  And that's why Obama is smiling and you should too.