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The big C by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on April 29, 2017

The big C
by Tom Sullivan


View of the Women’s March on Washington from the roof of the Voice of America building in Washington, D.C. Photo: Public Domain.

It’s 100 days of Trump (C in Roman numerals). And what a hundred days it’s been. He’s had accomplishments. Tremendous accomplishments. (Remember when executive orders were tyranny?) The man who thought he would govern the government as a CEO has instead, according to Vox, punctured “a glib myth” that running the nation like a business could “solve the eternal plague of government inefficiency.” Instead, Trump has presided over “the least productive first 100 days of a presidency in modern American history.”

So unproductive that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night condensed 99 of those days into 99 seconds.

The Late Show left out the rollout of Trump’s Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) hotline this week. It was swamped with prank calls about encounters with extraterrestrials and other troublesome beasties:

The man who thought he would govern America as its CEO has instead, according to Vox, punctured “a glib myth” that running the nation like a business could “solve the eternal plague of government inefficiency.” Instead, Trump has presided over “the least productive first 100 days of a presidency in modern American history.” He’s so insecure about it, he still needs to prove to reporters (he hates the press, remember?) that he’s actually the president:

For the #Resistance , however, things have gone better than expected. The text-messaging activism site Daily Action celebrated yesterday:

SO MUCH WINNING … This was supposed to be a HUGE week for Trump to celebrate his 100 days but it turned out to be two victories for us – blocking the funding for the border wall at the beginning of the week and keeping up the pressure on GOP “moderates” to deny them the votes on the latest version of the healthcare bill.

In the last 100 days here are a few of our victories:

We forced the GOP to walk back their plans to gut the Congressional ethics office jamming their phone lines with our protest calls as soon as the news broke.

The withdrawal of Andrew Puzder’s nomination for Secretary of Labor after we made over 35,000 calls to Senators on both sides of the aisle.

Forced U.S. Customs and Border Protection to publicly commit to complying with all judicial orders and immediately release data on how many individuals were detained in their custody (by jamming their phone lines all day)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the Russia investigations after we made almost 20,000 protest calls in less than 24 hours

Stopped ExxonMobil from receiving a sanctions waiver so that they could drill for oil in Russia — with over 6,000 calls to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs within 24 hours of the news breaking.

In one 24 hour period, Trump publicly demanded border walls be included in this week’s must-pass budget measures, 8,300 of us called the Senate and made our voices heard … and Trump publicly retracted that demand and said he would try again in September.
Over 80,000 calls to Congress helped stop both attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

We certainly haven’t won every battle but we are winning a lot of them and most important, we are winning more and more. Stay vigilant, be proud of the amazing work you’ve done and the wonderful community that we have formed. Share broadly and recruit your friends and family. Text DAILY to 228466 (ACTION) for daily action alerts.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland believes the last 100 day have proven opposition can work … resistance is not futile:

We’ve seen that Trump is weak, backing down when confronted – most recently by Canada and Mexico over his threat to leave Nafta. But public protest works too. The combination of courts and crowds, gathering instantly at airports across the US, halted the travel ban. Similarly, it was when citizens turned up at congressional Republicans’ town hall meetings, threatening to punish any politician who stripped away their Obamacare, that Trump lost his healthcare bill – the one that would have deprived 24m Americans of healthcare and funnelled a $600bn tax cut to the rich.

The satirists and journalists have played their part too, needling Trump and getting under his skin as well as shedding light on his spell in power. His devotees remain loyal, but thanks to those who keep insisting on telling the truth, most Americans now see Trump for what he is – which is why his poll numbers are so low.

Resistance works. Keep it up.


SFO Muslim Ban Protest. Photo by Quinn Norton via Creative Commons.

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