In her 1969 book, On
Death and Dying, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kṻbler-Ross described five stages
of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the wee
hours of the morning on November 9, I entered Stage One. When I went to bed the night before, I remained hopeful, but harbored a gnawing dread that Trump could actually
win. That week's Saturday Night Live
skit of an election night party with true believer Democrats, captured how I felt.
Shortly after midnight I woke up to check the latest news on
my iPad. I couldn't believe what I saw. There had to be a terrible mistake. By
sunrise my brief encounter with denial had turned to anger. If I were 30 years
younger I would have joined protesters in the streets.
But a couple of arthritic hips, together with vivid memories
of how I survived the elections of Nixon, Reagan and Bush (both father and son),
suggested I stay home. Trump lost the popular vote by more than a million votes,
but so had four other presidents before him. On December 19, Electoral College
voters will do what they've always done, elect our President.
So I'm following the losing candidate's and President
Obama's leads. After a campaign subjecting her to infantile name-calling,
Hillary Clinton's concession speech was gracious. "Donald Trump is going
to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead," she
told supporters.
President Obama, whose very legacy was on the line in the
election, echoed Clinton's words. "It is no secret that the
President-elect and I have some pretty significant differences. We are now all
rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country."
That said, there are plenty of reasons to fear what lies
ahead. Words matter, just as black and blue lives do.
Those who've taken to the streets haven't forgotten how Trump began his
campaign with these words about undocumented immigrants: “When Mexico sends its
people, they’re not sending the best…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing
crime. They’re rapists… And some, I assume, are good people.”
Throughout
his campaign Trump resorted to name-calling and ridicule of everyone criticizing
him, justifying his attacks by explaining when he's hit he hits back harder.
Now he says he wants to be President of all the people, refusing to apologize
for anything he's said, claiming they were just part of a hard fought campaign.
Teddy
Roosevelt called the White House his "bully pulpit." The question
many are now asking is will President Donald Trump's White House become the pulpit
of a bully?
Trump's bullying became personal
for me when, at one of his campaign events, he mocked New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who'd been critical of the candidate.
"Now,
the poor guy, you ought to see this guy..." Trump jerked
his arms in front of his body, flailing them in imitation of Kovaleski’s
disability, arthrogryposis, which limits the functioning of his joints. Trump later
claimed he didn't even know the reporter and was not mocking his disability.
But the truth can be found in an
August 2, 2016 Washington Post article, Donald
Trump’s revisionist history of mocking a disabled reporter, by fact
checker Glenn Kessler, who gave Trump four Pinocchio's for his refusal to apologize
for his viciously unfair attack.
Ten years ago the love of my life
was diagnosed with spinal stenosis, a condition causing the narrowing of the spinal
canal and compression of the spinal cord and nerves. In addition to creating
chronic back pain, it affects her ability to walk.
When she walks across the room at
home she has to hold her arms out for balance. When we go for walks in the
park, she either has to hold tightly to my arm, or use a cane. In public she
fears curbs, stairs, crowds and children, all of which threaten her balance.
She vows to keep walking as long as
she is able, recognizing she may one day need a wheelchair to go anywhere.
Like many others with similar, less
visible, disabilities, Karen's is not as likely to be mocked as is Serge Kovaleski's.
But it often elicits embarrassment, and even rudeness, in public places, despite
provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Take the time we booked a
Daytripper bus tour, only to encounter a vehicle that did not lower its steps to
ground level, or promise that we could sit together, even if I could lift her up
the steps, an impossible embarrassment in itself.
We got our money back, of course,
with an explanation that disabled customers could request a van, IF one were
available. That proviso can be found only in the fine print of the tour
company's promotional brochure.
What does Karen's spinal stenosis
have to do with Making America Great Again? Trump's tough campaign rhetoric
suggests the rise of an American version of social Darwinism, survival of the
fittest.
That's not good news for those with
disabilities.
