Tommy Washbush
A dog in front of a TV showing Donald Trump.
My wife, Linda, and I went to bed early on election night, before the race for president was called but after it was clear what was happening. The next morning, after a fitful night, we confirmed it: Donald Trump had won, rather handily. We moped around for a while. And then Linda (the associate editor of Isthmus) uttered these welcome words: “I think it’s time for us to get a dog.”
Our beloved dog Stella, who was 14 years old, left us on Aug. 2. We mourned her loss then and we mourn it still. There will never be another Stella. We wanted to wait a respectful time before getting a different dog, though we missed having one. A lot.
But 10 days after the election, we had a new dog, thanks to Donald Trump, who doesn’t like them. She’s from Oklahoma, adopted through Underdog Pet Rescue of Wisconsin, around seven months old. We named her Piper. She looks like a Jack Russell terrier but the doggie DNA test said that is not among the 20 different breeds within her. (Talk about containing multitudes!) She’s a smart and funny dog.
Why am I telling you this? It’s because having a dog in the family makes me happy, which I prefer to being miserable. Here’s the single greatest life lesson I know: There are and always will be good reasons to be angry, to be sad. But that doesn’t mean we have to be. Just because the world is full of contention and hate doesn’t mean that our lives cannot be full of joy and love.
We live with horror all around us. Children are being killed by the thousands in Gaza. Even here in Madison, a teacher and her students were gunned down in school. The blood flows and the epidemic of gun violence continues. We are changing the climate in a way that is already wreaking havoc on the planet. These are terrible times.
There is every reason to believe that Trump 2.0 will be even worse than his first administration, with all its incompetence and flagrant criminality. People are going to suffer.
Trump will focus his energies on the wants of billionaires, not the needs of ordinary people. He may enact tariffs that will drive up the costs that U.S. consumers pay. (He’s already walked back his promise to lower grocery costs.) He will “drill baby drill,” destroying whatever he can of Biden’s modest steps toward addressing global warming. He will seek to build his wall that Mexico is still not going to pay for and unleash monstrous cruelty on immigrants who are now making positive contributions to their communities — as parents, caregivers, taxpayers and valued employees.
As before, there will be nonstop spectacle and chaos. And yet this is not a time to practice resignation, as Thoreau put it. We must continue to resist Trump and Trumpism with all our might. We have an obligation to push back against his constant lies — not because his followers will cease to believe them but because defending the truth is the right thing to do.
As I expressed before the election, I have never thought it was a good idea to argue, as the MSNBC crowd did with such regularity, that the fate of American democracy hinged on the outcome of the Nov. 5 election. If that were true, it would now be Game Over. In fact, the fight has just begun.
And, just as it was during his first term, Trump will likely not succeed in doing much of what he has pledged to do. Reality will get in the way. So will the concerted opposition of millions of people. In the end it will matter that clean energy is more affordable than dirty fuel. It will matter that most Americans will be revolted by the mass deportation that Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, and his policy adviser, Stephen Miller, will seek to conduct. The removal of the guard rails will send Trump flying off the cliff. His presidency will crash and burn. Mark my words.
Finding ways to survive Trump and dispel the toxins he has injected into the body politic will not be easy. It will require creativity, commitment and perseverance. There will be setbacks and defeat and damage that cannot be undone. But there will also be moments of comradery and triumph.
As we head into this dark and trying period, let us take stock of the good things in our lives. I for one find joy and comfort in contributing to publications and causes I care about, including Isthmus, The Progressive, The Bulwark and the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. I get to work with smart, resourceful and funny people. I have my amazing family, good friends and a beautiful dog, who just now wants to play.
Bill Lueders, Isthmus news editor from 1986 to 2011, is a writer in Madison.
