This Side of Fifty: January Letter #2: The Inauguration and the Day After

OK. It has been an amazing and crazy couple of days. I might have even used the word daze.
The polarization in this country is astounding to me. I am not sure if will end in the foreseeable future.
We inaugurated a new President on Friday. His supporters are exuberant that he is in office. The very next day, the opposition, led and organized by women, staged the largest protests ever in the history of this country. I have heard both sides from people I know and like. What I have heard is mostly ranting. I can actually relate to parts of what both sides are saying.
We are in for a most interesting next few years. It will probably get very ugly and very tense. Unless the President can demonstrate that he indeed intends to serve everyone as stated in his inaugural address, I can see that Democrats will probably make inroads in the 2018 elections and he may have to govern his last two years without the majority in one or both houses of Congress. Mandates seem to have a lifespan of two years.
We are divided people. The divisions are along the overlapping lines of:

Liberal and Conservative
Rural and Urban
Coastal and Inland States

This is further confounded with various religious beliefs and racial subsets.

On one side, the dissatisfaction of those feeling disenfranchised has been building for years to the point where a guy, no one expected to last the first two caucuses, was elected president to the surprise of almost every professional politician and news analyst. Upon his election, it was apparent immediately and exemplified yesterday that his opposition were going to show their dissatisfaction without any gradual build-up at all. They started at 100% dissatisfaction.

He won the Electoral College but lost the overall popular vote by the widest margin ever for someone who won the election. This is partially why, folks that didn't vote for him, are so upset.

This is the point in such an essay, where, if I were a better historian and more clever writer, I might say something like the following. You are all assuming that this is the United States in the year 2017 that I am talking but it is really Rome (or fill in another empire) just 20 years before it collapsed. Nah, nothing like that. I am talking about these United States and these most interesting times.

I am probably one of the few citizens that would use the word interesting to describe these times. Some, who proudly have adopted the name Deplorables, are giddy and pleased today. Others, men and women, who have with the same fervor and have adopted the monicker Nasty Woman, are as appalled, sad, angry, and determined as the Deplorable are giddy.

Me, I am sitting here feeling very Rodney Kingish. I am part of the some silent minority that wishes we could "All just get along." I applaud differences of opinion and ideas of what course of action we should or should not take. Debate is a great thing. It maximizes the probability of making the right decisions and minimizes the probability of unintended consequences. The debate can and sometimes should be lively and heated. But, they shouldn't breed hatred and disgust which both sides seem to have for the other right now.

Not only do I feel like Rodney King, who was the butt of jokes when he made his famous statement, I also feel like one of the Three Stooges with arms spread out trying to hold back two men in a fist fight. The Stooge, who I want to say was Shemp, says "Gentlemen, gentlemen..." only to be punched by both. We are in a "if you are not with me you agin me" era. We are in the times where compromise means that "If I were to agree with you, then we would both be wrong."

Trump? I am still astonished that he was elected. But he was and he is now our President. He seems to be moving quickly with his agenda that is not surprisingly further irritating those that are not pleased with his having been elected. White House websites about inclusion are reported to have been shut down. The day after the inauguration, Trump and his press secretary both berated the press for reporting that the numbers at the Trump inauguration were so much less than at Obama's.
My Uncle sent me a youtube: Best Compilation- People Who Laughed at TRUMP...and said he would never be President. I relate to this video simply because I thought his running was a joke and would add a degree of levity to the Republican primaries. I was as surprised as anyone that he started winning and then kept winning. Then, when he secured the nomination, I thought he would never beat Hilary. The more boorish things he said and did, I felt even more strongly that Hilary was a shoe-in. Boy oh boy, was I wrong. Were a lot of people wrong.
Having said this, he defied all the pundits and defied all of the odds. Is it possible that he will, in fact, Make America Great Again. Will he build that wall? Will he bring back jobs? Will he beat ISIS? And on top of this, will he in the process become President of all the people? I know likely readers of this post, who when they get to this paragraph, will be formulating a no holds barred negative response to me seemingly moronic suggestions. Well, I do not think he will be nearly as successful as he brags about. The checks, balances, and realities of actually governing will make that hard to do. But on the other hand, as none, nada, zip, of my predictions about him have been correct, I have to be open to the possibility that I may well be wrong again. Let me use, again, two of the words from the first line of this piece. Amazing. Crazy.

ABC News Photo showing inaugural crowds for
for Obama on the left and Trump on the right

He and his people keep shooting themselves in the foot (and missing?). Today, Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President, was on Meet the Press. She was addressing the aforementioned reports in the press that Obamas inaugurations drew more attendees than Trumps. The White House Press Secretary said that it was indeed the other way around. Todd Carter asked why, on his first official facing of the press, did Sean Spicer lie? Kellyanne's response was, "your saying it is a falsehood... the press secretary gave alternative facts." Alternative facts? Oh my. Here we go. Watch this the interview here. One thing I think we can say about Trump is that he will not zig and zag for the sole purpose in improving his approval ratings.
The opposition? Well, they are certainly upset. They are upset to the point where they are exercising their rights for free speech and public assembly. I can see vigorous organization over the Trump term to express various viewpoints and more likely to get head starts on the 2018 and 2020 elections to get some elected power back. The estimates of attendees of the Women's March were hundreds of thousands with no reported incidents of violence or destruction i.e. no arrests. It was peaceful and purposeful. More people I knew posted selfies of their participation than any other events of this kind I can possibly think of. It is unprecedented and seemingly grass roots. The tone has been set for moving forward.
Will this antithesis lead to synthesis and positive direction for the country? Will Trump allow his cabinet to have different points of view as he said? Will Republican Senators and Representatives challenge executive policy and initiatives that their constituents do not agree with? Will Trump continue to tweet whatever comes to his mind about anybody or will he just stop? Will the polarization continue to intensify or will we somehow come together for the greater good?
With all my hope that we can just get along and that Trump becomes the unifying leader he has been saying he will be, I am not optimistic on either count. That is a bit sad. I will follow the advice of the opposition and voice my opinion to my Representative and Senators. All three are Democrats if that matters. I probably won't follow either party line. I would be doing the same thing if Hilary Clinton got elected. As of right now, criticizing Trump is considerably easier than criticizing the opposition. But, as stated above, I have underestimated him at every turn so far.
Here are some tidbits, mostly from Facebook, from both camps that may or may not shed light, and perhaps a bit of comedy, on this new USA we find ourselves in:

From my friend Nvair: What comes next, you ask? November 6, 2018! That's the date in which 33 senate seats, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and 39 state and territorial governorships (and numerous state and local elections) will be up for re-election. If people are not happier, the "mandate advantage" could easily disappear.
Tom posted: Armenians know all too well what #AlternativeFacts are and they are not truths. Armenians stand up!!
The New York Times posted an article with photos and facts, if you have not already had your fill: Women’s March Highlights as Huge Crowds Protest Trump: ‘We’re Not Going Away’. Agree or disagree the photos and reported turn out are most impressive.
There were postings on Facebooks regarding the attacks on Trump's son Barron. My view? Leave him out of it as Obama's daughters were, I thought, respectfully treated. I hated the way Chelsea Clinton and Amy Carter were treated.
Saturday Night Live was hosted by Aziz Ansari last night. He had some good ones.

"Yesterday, Trump was inaugurated. Today and entire gender protested against him."
On racists spouting off with greater frequency since the election, "You have to go back to pretending... we never realized how much effort you were putting into pretending. You have to go back to pretending."

I saw several posts, "I hope Donald Trump is a good President. Wanting him to fail is like wanting the pilot to crash plane we are all on."
My sister Nancy posted a "corrected" post of Betsy DeVos who will be the Secretary of

Eduction.
I was happy to see a positive tweet from Trump on the protests. There were also tweets taking a few shots.
My colleague and friend, Ann, who teaches accounting forward a wonderful post setting a performance baseline for the Trump Administration.