We can't seem to get away from it. Whether we travel north to Canada or south to Mexico to run free of the madness Trump and his allies have brought upon America, the story seems to be the same.
Progressive-thinking friends — whether ex-pats abroad or friends we've left at home — seem obsessed with the bad news. Every day brings a new horror story. The Orange Turd is going to annex Canada, purchase Greenland and unilaterally rename the Gulf of Mexico. When he proposes to strip the voting rights of women whose last names don’t match the names on their birth certificates, women become consumed with rage. When he talks glowingly of turning the devastated Gaza Strip into a tourist destination of high-rise condominiums, deluxe hotels, casinos and nightclubs, it drives millions of Palestinian sympathizers mad. When he cozies up to brutal dictators in Hungary and Russia and snubs the Ukranian patriot fighting for his nation’s very existence, it drives not only our European allies to distraction, but many here as well.
Seniors and those who rely on Medicare and Medicaid for their health care needs are shocked to their very core. When Trump talks of doing away with Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday and eliminating Black History Month, those Blacks who give a damn are shaken to their foundations.
Then there are those progressives, like myself, who are white, male, educated and of sufficient means. Many of these cohorts are enraged at every news cycle and the outrages being committed against those among us who are most vulnerable.
If it has been a strategy of those who pull Trump’s strings to drive left-of-center Americans into paroxysms of rage and frustration, they have succeeded.
I will say that there is a smaller nucleus of liberal thinkers who knew this was coming ... and knew that it would get even worse ... much worse ... before it gets better. Rather than becoming paralyzed by fear at what seems to be the futility of it all, these folks — like Katherine and myself — refused to take the bait.
After the November election, we gave up watching the news. We knew it would be all bad but, even more, we knew that allowing ourselves to be swallowed up by the erosion of those democratic norms which so many generations fought so hard to enshrine — we tuned it out.
Goodbye to MSNBC and Morning Joe. Farewell to Rachel Maddow. We’d gladly have given up social media which strives to turn us all into gibbering know-nothings, but we never went down that rabbit hole to begin with.
This is not to say we are in ignorance of what's happening to America. Our terrified friends keep us more than informed of the headlines. Anything that doesn't smell quite right, we carefully fact check. Despite the web of lies being spread by the Donald and his lackeys, there is a real world of hard facts. Original sources and documentary evidence still exist.
I'm not surprised to find that the horror stories coming out of Washington are no surprise. Every basic right stripped away, every dollar stolen from a working stiff and handed over to Trump and his billionaire friends describes a game plan written out in detail for the November elections. Project 2025, many said, was a fantasy, pipe dream. Too radical to ever be embraced by responsible elected officials. But there's the catch. When the party now in power has drunk the Kool-Aid and convinced itself not only that the 2020 election — despite the virtually unanimous rulings of every court in the land — was stolen and that Jan. 6 — despite the evidence of their own eyes — was not a violent attempt to subvert the Constitution but a legitimate form of democratic protest ... who can have faith that those in charge are responsible custodians of the public welfare?
Oddly enough, in our travels, it has been the ex-pats who are the most shocked and dismayed. The average Mexican and Canadian seem hardly surprised. For them, life will go on. Economically, it may be harder, but they don't have to fear being locked up for expressing their beliefs in public.
Activists, like myself, know, there is a different way — a better way perhaps. Rather than allowing ourselves to let rage about things we can't change translate itself into inaction, there are many struggles to be fought and, some even won, here in our local communities.
In the strife to come, I have a single bit of advice. Choose your battles carefully.
I realize there are some fights you engage in because you have no choice. My old friend, Cass Davis, reminds me of that. Win, lose or draw, you're better off for making your voice heard.
With this, I notify my readers that I will be resuming my regular columns with the Daily News.
McGehee, a lifelong activist, settled here in 1973 and lives in Palouse with his wife, Katherine. His work life has varied from bartender to university instructor to wrecking yard owner.
