{"id":9933,"date":"2020-12-07T01:45:07","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T01:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/?p=9933"},"modified":"2022-05-05T15:12:38","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T15:12:38","slug":"now-that-the-trump-era-is-almost-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/?p=9933","title":{"rendered":"Now that the Trump Era is almost over…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Now that the Trump Era is almost over… <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Or at least now that his first run-through as president is almost over… (But see\u00a0Trump\u2019s Possible\u00a02024\u00a0Bid Leaves Other GOP Candidates in a Bind<\/a>.) So to repeat, “Now that at least the first<\/em> <\/strong>incarnation of a Trump Era is almost over,” it’s time to start looking back.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Which is what many of us do near year’s-end anyway. I\u00a0Googled<\/a>\u00a0“why do we do year-end reviews” and found these two:\u00a0How to Conduct a Year-End Review and Why You Need to Do it<\/a>, and\u00a0Why You Should Do a Year-End Review for Your Writing<\/a>. Here’s a bit from the first one:<\/p>\n

Ever since I began writing personal goals, December has been a month of reflection and planning. I tend to slow down, take a step back, and think about how I feel the previous year went. I take time to reflect on what I accomplished and what I want in the upcoming year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though\u00a0HOLLY SCHERER<\/a>\u00a0did<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0say “these check-ins are frustrating” some years, she added that still, such reviews are “<\/span><\/span>opportunities to learn from my mistakes and find a better way.”\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then there’s the\u00a0Review for Your Writing<\/a>\u00a0article. (And since I’m a writer I paid special attention to that. E.g.<\/a>, read about my recently-published e-book in\u00a0\u201c(Some of) My Adventures in Old Age<\/a>.”) Anyway, this is what the writer\u00a0Joe Bunting<\/a>\u00a0said about such year-end reviews:<\/span><\/p>\n

A year-end review is about\u00a0experiencing\u00a0gratitude … that we\u00a0made the choice\u00a0<\/em>to write instead of watch television or procrastinate…\u00a0It\u2019s important to note that this isn\u2019t just a feel-good exercise. You can\u2019t move forward – with your writing, your life, or anything else – if you\u00a0haven\u2019t made peace with where you\u2019ve been.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which is what I’ll be doing a lot of in the remaining three-or-so weeks of this eventful “Year of Our Lord<\/a>” 2020<\/em><\/strong>. But we were talking about “Now that the Trump Era is almost over…”<\/p>\n

Which makes this a good time to go back and review some early posts I did on Donald Trump. And – possibly – some of the hopes I had for him. Like that he might turn out to be the “closet liberal” Ted Cruz once suspected. (See\u00a0Cruz: Trump [is] a ‘rich, New York liberal<\/a>,’ 2\/26\/16.)<\/p>\n

One early post with an allusion to Donald Trump came in October 2016,\u00a0\u201cNo city for Grouchy Old White People<\/a>.\u201d (Part I.) In it I described a summer visit to New York City, with a family-base in Staten Island. One thing I noted was that – in that summer of ’16 – the City<\/em> <\/strong>was a “refreshing reminder that there\u2019s more to this country than just the right-wing wackos so prevalent back home.” (Trump’s campaign was heating up.) I quoted a Facebook post from September 22:<\/p>\n

Ever since last Saturday, September 17, we\u2019ve been taking the Staten Island ferry into and back from Manhattan Island. So that\u2019s eight times \u2013 twice a day for four days now \u2013 that we\u2019ve seen the Statute of Liberty, off in the distance\u2026 \u00a0And I don\u2019t remember ONCE seeing a sign that said, \u201cthe heck with your tired, your poor,\u201d those \u201cwretched refuse \u2026 yearning to breathe free.\u201d \u00a0WE\u2019RE GONNA BUILD A FRIKKIN WALL!<\/strong>\u201c<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which was either\u00a0irony<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0sarcasm<\/a>. (I often get those two confused.) Anyway I ended Part I by noting that with all its diversity and relative tolerance, “the\u00a0Big Apple<\/a>\u00a0is ‘No city for Grouchy Old White People.’\u201d (Who seemed to be so prevalent, “back home” and elsewhere.)<\/p>\n

I followed that with\u00a0\u201cNo city for Grouchy Old White People\u201d \u2013 Part II<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. I noted that on our many rides on the subway and Staten Island Ferry<\/a>, “we did a lot of people-watching, of the ‘passing panoply.’\u201d And especially on the crowded subways, we listened “to all kinds of languages spoken by all kinds of different people.” Which was one thing making the visit so refreshing\u2026<\/p>\n

And just as an aside: The day we left to go our separate ways –\u00a0Thursday, September 22 – I kayaked across the Verrazano Narrows.\u00a0<\/em>Mostly following the Bridge of the same name, and here’s a picture “down below” to prove it. I took it half-way back to Staten Island. Note that the waters are choppy, and in fact WAY<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0choppier than when I started.\u00a0It only took 20 minutes to get from Staten Island to Brooklyn, so I toyed\u00a0with the idea of cruising along the Atlantic side of Brooklyn awhile. But I headed back while still fresh, as detailed in “Part II.”<\/p>\n

Anyway, getting back on topic: I ended\u00a0Part II<\/a>\u00a0with a zinger about the kind of people – I feared – who would end up voting for Trump as president. I took the photo below during our visit to the\u00a0Museum of Natural History<\/a>, on September 19. And added, “With all the talk of politics lately, I figured this would be a good\u00a0one size fits all<\/a>\u00a0insult, for whatever political opponent you may have in mind.” (Though I knew the kind of political opponent I<\/em> <\/strong>had in mind.) I then wrote:<\/p>\n

“So here\u2019s my gift to you, a souvenir from my recent [2016] visit to New York City:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a typical [- fill in the blank \u2013 ] voter!\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

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The upper image is courtesy of\u00a0Looking Back The Past Year\u00a0–\u00a0Image\u00a0Results<\/a>. The image accompanied an article,\u00a0“Inspiring Quotes to Start Off the New Year in 2019.” (How innocent we were…)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I took the above picture on September 19. Note that I reviewed this Summer of 2016 visit in\u00a0Looking back on \u201cthe summer of \u201916<\/a>,” last February 2020. One final note: I’ll be doing more Trump’s-end and year-end\u00a0postmortems<\/a>\u00a0in the remaining weeks of December 2020, and possibly beyond!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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* \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * Now that the Trump Era is almost over… Or at least now that his first run-through as president is almost over… (But see\u00a0Trump\u2019s Possible\u00a02024\u00a0Bid Leaves Other GOP Candidates in a Bind.) So to repeat, “Now that at least the first incarnation of a Trump Era is almost over,” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9933"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12943,"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9933\/revisions\/12943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}