Now that Inauguration Day has come and gone and we’re all still here, it’s time to peer into the future and take a peek at Mr. Trump’s first year in office. Expectations on the right are high: America will be great again in just a Tweet or two. Predictions from the left, however, are a bit more dire: the stock market will not just crash but burn, too. That wall along the Mexican border will finally get built but American taxpayers, not Mexico, will pay for it. The planet will boil over sometime in July; burkas will be banned by August. By September, no one will have health insurance, there will be no such thing as art, and the press corps will be in the out house, not the White House. A shirtless Vladimir Putin will throw out the first pitch of the World Series in October, but the only media there to cover it will be Breitbart. As for President Trump himself, by year’s end, he will be cutting the ribbon at Trump Tower Taiwan under the glowering eye of Alec Baldwin, our new Ambassador to Outer Mongolia. Oh well…
Ok; maybe I’m overdoing it a little, but that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about sailing off into a new administration on Mr. Trump’s ship of state. I’m not expecting a smooth ride. There are still too many rogue waves of animus roiling the political seas and the only thing all the weathermen and pundits can predict is that things will be unpredictable. I need better navigational aids than that.
I admit the Obama years have spoiled me. We’ve recovered from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, unemployment is as low as it has been in decades, markets are at an all-time high, there hasn’t been a whiff of scandal or any hanky-panky in the Oval Office, and the Cubs finally won a World Series. But I also admit that things are far from hunky-dory. ISIS is still out there, Syria is in shambles, Russia is resurgent, North Korea is a wild card ruled by a Joker, far too many lives—Black ones and Blue ones—don’t seem to matter, and Aroldis Chapman is back in pinstripes. But on the whole, we’re a lot better off than we were back in 2008 when Dubya rode off into the sunset and Dick Cheney took up duck hunting with friends. (Cheney was out for elk at the time, but all his buddies kept yelling, “Duck!”)
But then the “S” in USA doesn’t stand—never did—for “Stasis.” Despite all the unpredictability that currently abounds, one thing is for sure: this new administration will be different. Just how different remains to be seen. Maybe Mr. Trump really is Rumpelstiltskin and he’ll spin all this abounding uncertainty into gold, jobs, a healthier planet, and peace on earth. Maybe he’ll even surprise us with a tax return or two, or some Churchillian prose instead of Tweets. Maybe he really will drain the swamp. Maybe unicorns exist after all.
Now that Mr.Trump has sworn to bigly preserve, protect, and defend our fantastic Constitution, off we sail into that fog-banked horizon. So hold on to your anemometers. Let’s hope we’re capable of weathering whatever storms come our way and that the upcoming voyage of the USS Unicorn will be a safe and prosperous one for all Americans.
Be vigilant. Speak truth to power. Believe in love.
Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer with homes in Chestertown and Bethesda. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. “A Place to Stand,” a book of his photographs, was published by the Chester River Press in 2015. He is currently working on a collection of stories called “Musing Right Along.”
Deirdre LaMotte says
It is dire if one is a woman or minority. Very dire.