With the holidays rolling in, the time has come for party planning, gift giving and plenty of last minute shopping. But it’s also a time to reflect on our lives over the past year, recalling, perhaps with fondness, some of the most noteworthy occurrences of the past 12 months.
Unfortunately, year one of the Donald Trump administration has made this task more polarizing and troublesome than in years past, with an inexhaustible stream of public blunders that can’t be drowned out by blasting holiday music ad nauseam. All this from a president who seems to think his mere presence in the oval office is nothing short of a gift to us all.
And the gift has just kept on giving, regardless of the time of year. How about Trump’s insistence that we go back to the glory days of wishing everyone a “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays,” thus solving a problem that never existed? Or a game of chicken with North Korea over nuclear missiles? A healthcare proposal that treats pregnancy as an inevitable consequence of sexual activity rather than a women’s healthcare issue?
And most recently, an assertion from Trump that the voice on the infamous Access Hollywood tape—the one that the then-Republican nominee took ownership of and apologized for more than a year ago—actually belongs to someone else? Oh Mr. President, you shouldn’t have.
Following Trump’s latest offense, in which he retweeted three anti-Muslim videos that aligned with a far-right party in Britain, Texas Congressman Al Green took it upon himself to remind us that this four-year-long present we’ve been saddled with actually came with a receipt.
“Let’s give hate an expiration date,” Green said on Twitter, before wishfully asserting that there will be an impeachment vote before Christmas.
For all of its inability to compromise on anything, maybe our Congress is filled with enough savvy shoppers to make that return.
—Joseph Catrone
