12-YEARS-OLD

                        "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."

- President Gerald Ford at his inauguration, August, 9^th 1974

Over the past four years or so, I’ve told this story several times. It’s about the first time I ever saw and/or heard our soon to be (democratically) deposed “leader.” Now seems like the perfect time to share it with those who haven’t quaffed down a beer or two with me or don’t know me personally.

I was 12-years-old, so this around 1983. My father and I were watching the ABC news magazine show, 20/20. As I am recalling, I don’t believe the profile of a rich New Yorker named Donald Trump was the lead story that night…a fact that I’m sure pissed him off on some narcissistic level.

Nevertheless, there he was, defiling the 27-inch, wood-grain cabinet TV that sat in the corner of my family’s living room. I only watched him prattle on with his bullshit, which was quite elaborate even then, for about three minutes before a rather powerful and distinct thought meandered through my 12-year-old brain:

“Who the FUCK does this guy think he is?”

I obviously didn’t say that out loud as my dad was sitting two feet away from me in his recliner, but it almost eked out of my mouth for sure. That’s how immediately repulsed I was by this guy – I almost dropped an F-bomb right in front of my father.

Rather than hear him utter another contrived syllable, I decided to retire to my room for the evening to do something more befitting a tasteful and cultured lad of my age: read comic books.

If you could have somehow told that 12-year-old boy who was now wholly engrossed in the high-speed adventures of the Flash that one day, in November of 2016, the absurd, braggadocios man you saw on television tonight would be elected President of the United States, he would’ve called you a filthy liar…and then he would have pushed you out of his goddamn room because he had to go to bed soon and that Flash comic wasn’t going to read itself.  

It pains my soul, the part of my soul that still tears up at particularly stirring renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner, that over 72 million of my fellow Americans couldn’t and/or flat out wouldn’t see what I saw so, so clearly as a pre-pubescent boy. Regardless of his political affiliation, Donald Trump is in absolutely no way fit to be the Leader of the Free World, and is unquestionably one of the least “presidential” men our country as ever produced.

I do not consider myself particularly political. I do not believe in fake news, conspiracy theories, or organized religions of any ilk – I believe, and will continue to believe, in science, reason, and logic. Because of this, people assume that I am a left-wing, bleeding heart liberal – a “libetard” in today’s charming, right-wing vernacular, but that is not true. I was raised by a man who greatly admired both Richard Nixon and Ronald Regan, so I can see the many pluses and minuses of both the Democratic and Republican parties, and I vehemently believe in the power of America’s ideals, so clearly defined in the unforgettable words of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.

Donald Trump believes in none of those things. He only believes in one thing, which is as true now as it was in 1983: he only believes in his own dumb ass at the expense of everything and everyone else. I sincerely wish that the 72 million Americans who voted for him would come to understand this. You disgust Donald Trump and his abhorrent cronies, and they wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. And that fact right there, beyond his myriad other failings, is why he never, ever should been elected President in 2016. If we had to endure four more years of a Trump White House, I have no doubt that we would have seen the ruination of this country – the death of the American Dream which, truth be told, is kind of on its last legs anyway.

But I still believe in it, and I hope you do too. And for the first time in four long years I have hope that we can ALL still live that dream. Let’s live (or revive) that dream for the 12-year-olds, the 12-year-olds who dutifully recited the Pledge of Allegiance approximately 275 days a year growing up, still living inside each and every one of us…