Breathe
By Gabriela Sotomayor
It is much easier to take a panoramic photograph when you are far enough away to be able to capture the entirety of the landscape you are admiring from the other side of the lens. Perhaps Americans who voted for President Donald Trump are still stunned and haven't quite digested the situation. They are inside. Many sunk in their own tunnel. Others can't believe the betrayal they just suffered by their president, the very person they voted for. Trump used them to get to the White House and once his voters got him into the presidential chair, he sent them packing, or maybe a little further.
The Republicans who voted for Trump handed over the power of the first world power to a capricious billionaire, a full-time bully, cunning, good for business and ruthless with the "billeye". He took power in spite of the unfortunate events on Capitol Hill when he left his first term, in spite of the dead policemen and in spite of the assault we witnessed and could not believe our eyes.
This is happening in Washington! In the capital of democracy, of the free world, of free speech! A group of resentful people manipulated by the little orange man are storming the Capitol! And we switched to CNN, BBC, ABC, NPR, FRANCE 24H and even Svenska from Sweden. And we switched to AP, Reuter, AFP, EFE, Kyodo News, even Xinhua! In all the media there was the same image of a guy with a plume. Almost the same as the one worn by a Brazilian rock band Secos y Mojados singing "Oh Vida". The singer was a bit off-key, but he wiggled in such a sexy and funny way that when they were on TV my dad would say "Take those clowns away! Since those times it has been raining. But we were in that the leader of the demonstrators who burst into the heart of the Capitol was not very original: "White man with a white feather plume and horns copying a Brazilian rock 'n' roll singer from the 60's". Anyway.
It was speculated at that time that Trump did not want to leave the presidency, that he was planning a coup d'etat, that he was planning to arrest Vice President Dick Cheney in order to take power without the Constitution touching him, and also with the scare they gave Nancy Pelosi and her husband in their own house, they left her "quiet and silent, she looks prettier" (I hate that saying by the way). Now, after Joe Byden's lousy administration the same doubts arise again with Trump. Is he planning everything to stay for a third term? It is known that in the USA voters do not change the ruling party when they are at war (almost always), but now, Trump declared a trade war on everyone including the Americans themselves who went to the supermarket and found that meat for hamburgers was considerably more expensive, the same for lemons, avocado, cars, steel, aluminum and a long etcetera. But his six-year term has just begun, he has just completed 70 days in power, and there is still a "long and winding road" ahead! as The Beatles used to say. And yet he is already giving hoarse signals that "a third term would not be out of the question". The problem is that the song the president has been singing is not at all pretty and the tune is rather dreary.
Trump declared war on the whole world from the Oval Office without heavy weapons or bombs, he just fired a missile that hit the heart of international trade and economic order. A situation never seen before, of which perhaps no one, not even the man with orange skin, knows what is going to happen. These are difficult, convulsive times, at a time when humanity needs it least, but what does the world matter to a business expert? Not even Israel was spared the 10% tariffs. And they are "friendly". "Businness are bussiness" , Trump would say and if I see you I don't know you.
Advances in sustainable development, health, infant and maternal mortality, UN-sponsored vaccination programs, refugees in tents waiting for asylum, tuition fees that parents must pay in universities and schools, the trip to the supermarket will now be a time of martyrdom for many, including American middle-class housewives. Of course, Trump has never worried about the beer bill at the supermarket. And the housewives are the same ones who voted for a gallant, conquering, rapist, whose famous phrase is: "Grab'em by the pussy". That's the level.
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