One year lost under Trump

It’s almost too easy to mock our president these days. All you have to do is use his description of himself as a “very stable genius” to elicit a smile or at least a grimace from the most casual acquaintance. Of course, his erratic behavior is nothing to joke about, especially because it appears to be getting worse as his grip on reality weakens by the day.

The president won’t be changing his personality and can’t acknowledge that the rest of the world sees him as a foolish, dangerous man on the brink of senility, incapable of fulfilling the most basic tasks of the presidency. But we must not let the Republican Congress lose its collective mind along with him.

Case in point: the multi-billion dollar wall on the Mexican border. Trump is asking Congress to approve a down payment of $18 billion to construct 316 miles of fencing and reinforce barriers along an additional 407 miles of the 2000-mile border. The administration also wants $8 billion for new personnel and training, $5 billion for new border technology, and a billion dollars more for access roads, an unfathomable amount of money to waste.

Talk of forcing Mexico to pay for the wall has been abandoned, because we all know they never will. Instead, Trump’s GOP allies want to force the Democrats to support this tremendous squandering of our taxes in exchange for avoiding a government shutdown and fixing DACA—the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shields young people who arrived in the U.S. without documentation as children, known as Dreamers.

Trump also wants to expedite the deportation of unaccompanied minors, even though many of them fled unsafe political situations in their home countries and would be deported to places where they’d likely not survive. Last week, his administration decided to throw out 200,000 Salvadorans, many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens. The Salvadorans have been allowed to live in the United States during the last 20 years due to perilous political conditions in El Salvador.

Trump’s advisors, staff, and cabinet members reportedly refer to him as a moron, a dope, an idiot and a child who doesn’t like to read. In last week’s hour-long televised “negotiation” session with congressional leaders, Trump managed to take conflicting positions, including some in direct opposition to GOP policy. But then we all know you can’t believe anything he says since he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He just wants to “win.”

Amid talk of invoking the 25th Amendment to rid the nation of its madman, the GOP continues to embrace Trump, desperate for his signature on their policy initiatives to make the rich richer while destroying health care for everyone else. Their rhetoric about Trump is reminiscent of “Dear Leader” worship previously unimaginable in our democracy. It’s embarrassing to watch GOP leaders humiliate themselves so profoundly, not to mention the danger the precedent presents.

Meanwhile, many citizens worry and seethe. As a prelude to November 6, when we’ll be able to vote for change, there’s an opportunity to stand up and be counted this Saturday, when the second Women’s March takes place in Reno. The event will stretch from the federal building on South Virginia Street to the Believe sculpture in front of City Hall, beginning at 11:30 a.m. The national Women’s March will take place on Sunday in Las Vegas.

While a march doesn’t change policy or rid us of Trump and his henchmen, it does send a message that the masses are mobilizing for change. It also inspires and comforts those who feel isolated and overwhelmed with despair at the direction our country is headed under Trumpist rule. Show up on Saturday and let your voice be heard.