Following Natl Park Svc NASA Peeps Create @RogueNASA on Twitter (VIDEO)

There is a word to describe President Trump’s first week in office although it might not be a word that you’re familiar with. Certainly, it’s not one we’ve used to describe the Presidency before. But it’s a good word. It’s the kind of word we should use more often.

Omnishambles.

Get used to it.

We were forced to stand in mute horror as the leader of the free world obsessed over the number of people who attended his coronation. As we sat, we watched his press secretary reprimand a room full of professional journalists for focusing on what happened instead of acting like craven enablers eager to reinforce the President’s delusional state of mind.

In silence, we hung our heads as he condemned tens of thousands of women to death via unsafe abortions. We saw unofficial Spice Girl, Sean ‘Whiny Spice’ Spicer, complain that negative coverage of Trump’s incompetence was getting him down. We read reports of Trump watching cable news alone in the White House separated from the dubious comfort of a clearly loveless marriage and the irregular titillation of his eldest daughter passing by.

New concepts were added to the lexicon of the English language. Alternative facts became the watchword for any piece of bullshit Trump cared to fling at the general public like a caged chimpanzee calmly trolling gawkers at an eastern European zoo.

We learned that numbers had become subjective, that the lack of evidence of voter fraud was no barrier to a belief in it.

In short, we learned that the current President fits into any number of disturbing food metaphors: crackers, fruit loops, nuts.

You get the idea.

Gagging Behind

As if entering the job with the lowest approval ratings ever wasn’t bad enough, Trump felt the need to compound the situation by announcing his intense paranoia to the world. On Wednesday he signed an executive order that prevented the Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Environmental Protection Agency from speaking to journalists, providing documents to the public, or even tweeting.

Naturally, his plan backfired.

Fascist plans often do.

Within hours of Trump’s initial putsch towards the creation of the fourth Reich, an as yet unknown member of the U.S. National Park Service defied the executive order by tweeting out one or two uncomfortable truths. The initial tweets were taken down but an alternative twitter account was opened almost immediately.

At the time of writing, they had already accrued close to a million followers, in just over 24 hours.

Not that they were the only ones to defy his Royal Cry-babyness…

Not Even The Sky’s The Limit

NASA soon followed suite. Two alternative twitter accounts sprung up overnight both of which began attracting thousands of followers per hour.

At any rate, such resistance is admirable. It’s arguably one of the things that make America great.

Indeed, deep down we all know that the U.S. political system is not perfect. It was a bold experiment; the application of European political theory writ large across a different continent. Parts of it are dysfunctional, much of it is obsolete. But be that as it may, at its heart, its raison d’être is as secure and undiminished as it ever was.

Because above all else, the constitution was set up to ensure George III was America’s very last taste of tyranny.

In fact, it was designed, from the ground up, to protect certain rights, certain values, certain self-evident truths.

Which is why we can be confident in the assertion that Trump is not about the law. He wields power, yes, but he does so clumsily. Each edict he issues is that of Caligula, of Hitler, of Stalin and other deranged despots.

But this isn’t Rome, It’s not Nazi Germany and it sure as hell isn’t Soviet Russia.

This is the land of we the people.

People who willingly risk their jobs in order to remind people that this is America. Those who know in their hearts that Americans for all their divisions, idiosyncrasies, and flaws, are united in one thing.

That first and foremost, there is a universal truth in these lands; Americans do not bend their knee to dictators. Ever.

Which is why the cry is being heard all over the country.

In whatever way you can, however hard it might seem; resist, resist, resist.

Watch analysis of Trump’s disastrous cabinet.

 

Featured image via Twitter.

I'm a full- time, somewhat unwilling resident of the planet Earth. I studied journalism at Murdoch University in West Australia and moved back to the UK where I taught politics and studied for a PhD. I've written a number of books on political philosophy that are mostly of interest to scholars. I'm also a seasoned travel writer so I get to stay in fancy hotels for free. I have a pet Lizard called Rousseau. We have only the most cursory of respect for one another.