At 11 am CT on January 20, 2017 — just as Donald Trump was being sworn in as the forty-fifth President of the United States in Washington, DC — I was sworn in as a brand new American citizen in Rock Island, Illinois. It was an odd day. On the one hand, knowing that the… Read more →
Tag: Donald Trump
A View from Inside the Suburban Mom Movement
Before 2016, conversations at school pickup time in my affluent suburb nearly always revolved around kids’ activities and home remodeling. We stayed away from political topics mostly; it seemed impolite to provoke a fellow PTO member.1 If anyone temporarily put up something as unaesthetic as a lawn sign amongst their manicured shrubs, it said something… Read more →
Change We Need? Why the Name of the President’s Fitness Council Matters
At the end of February, President Trump renamed the council that supports American physical fitness as the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition (PCSFN). This is not in and of itself a big deal. It is the fifth time the Council has changed names since its 1956 creation, and seemingly one of the least… Read more →
Let’s Say “Happy Holidays” and Share Hope, Joy, and Light in the Darkness
“Merry Christmas!” It was the standard December greeting in the New Jersey town where I was raised. New Jersey is diverse as a whole, but it is made up of a patchwork of small towns, many of which have historically been ethnic enclaves. I took for granted that dried pasta had its own aisle at… Read more →
Was the Founding Generation Right to Worry?
On February 13, 2017, thirty-five physicians signed a letter to the New York Times that stated: “We believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.” Even a quick glance at social media or political buttons and bumper stickers shows us that these… Read more →
What Lies Beneath: The Handmaid’s Tale in Trump’s America
I first came across Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale in my junior year of college, when it was assigned for my feminist theory class. I didn’t know much about the novel, but I remember that the professor emphasized how relevant the book’s message was in 1985, when it was first published; in 1990, when… Read more →
She probably doesn’t want my Progressive feminist sympathy, but I’m giving it to her anyway: Thoughts on the Republican Debate, Donald Trump, and Fox’s Megyn Kelly
Was it just me, or was Thursday night’s Republican debate deeply, deeply weird? The entire event seemed farcical, as though we were all watching a Saturday Night Live sketch of the nuttiest idiosyncrasies of the candidates. And yet Lorne Michaels was nowhere in sight. Presumably, the sixteen men and one woman (of course) who lined… Read more →