And another thing in the news that has made me smile: Trump’s visit to SpaceX with Elon Musk!
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Tag: Donald Trump
bookmark_borderCelebrating Trump at Madison Square Garden
Another thing in the news that has brought a smile to my face is President Trump’s visit, along with some members of his new administration, to Madison Square Garden for a UFC match. No further commentary from me is needed, because the wonderful pictures speak for themselves:
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
bookmark_borderCelebrating Trump and his awesome cabinet picks
For four and a half years, I have abstained from consuming news. I don’t read the newspaper, I don’t watch news on TV, and I don’t visit news websites. For four and a half years, I really have not followed, or been involved with, electoral politics. Starting with the progressive left’s decision in late spring 2020 to obliterate from the earth everything that makes life worth living, and culminating with the election of November 2020, essentially everything in the world of news and politics has been100% negative. The content of the news has been so painful, so demoralizing, so depressing, so almost entirely bad, that I have not been able to engage with it, to be involved with it, or to even consume content about it. Doing so was simply too painful.
But now this has changed.
For the last two weeks, something very strange has been happening. Things are happening in the news that are cool! Things are happening in the news that are positive, that are good, that are awesome! The content of the news makes me happy, and brings a smile to my face!
This is a revolutionary concept indeed. It is something that for four and a half years, I did not experience. At all. Ever. It’s been such a long time that I’ve forgotten what it was like.
For four and a half years, this blog has been dedicated almost solely to expressing my rage and grief about, and attempting to process, the unspeakable atrocities inflicted by the devotees of “woke” ideology. But I remember now that I used to blog about things going on in the world of news and politics, both positive and negative. It used to be a regular occurrence that I would share, on my blog, things in the news that made me smile.
Once more, as I did in the distant past, I have been feeling the urge to blog about the cool things in the news that I’ve been coming across. I am feeling, just a little bit, like the blogger that I used to be, before society decided to completely destroy everything that makes my life worth living. I had forgotten what it was like to be that blogger. I thought it would never happen again.
Throughout these hellish four and a half years, I did keep one source of news open. I continued to follow right-wing politicians, activists, and organizations on social media (specifically Instagram, because I decided to cease using Twitter as well, finding it too triggering and overstimulating). Finding out about major news developments through an ideological lens that for the most part I agree with, was the only way that I could find out about such developments without it being overwhelmingly painful. For now, those right-wing social media accounts continue to be my only source of news. It is through them that I have found out about the incoming Trump administration and the amazing cabinet picks.
So without further ado, here are some of the social media posts that have brought a smile to my face regarding Trump, his incoming administration, and his awesome cabinet picks:
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
bookmark_borderTulsi Gabbard appointed Director of National Intelligence
The good news continues! Tulsi Gabbard, one of the most outspoken advocates for liberty and individual rights in recent years, has been named Director of National Intelligence by Donald Trump. Gabbard used to be a Democrat, and served as a Congresswoman representing Hawaii from 2013-2021, before becoming an independent and then a Republican.
Various people pointed out the poetic justice of Gabbard’s appointment, considering the fact that she was placed on a terror watch list for the “crime” of criticizing the Biden administration:
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
bookmark_borderNewspaper headlines about Trump’s victory
President Trump posted this graphic showing all the newspaper front pages about his victory, and it’s so cool to see!
View this post on Instagram
bookmark_borderThe best social media posts about Trump’s victory
This has been a great week, and I am still filled with happiness and hope thanks to the election results (a sentence that I never thought I would write). Here are some social media posts that brought a smile to my face over the course of the week:
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
And of course…
View this post on Instagram
bookmark_borderA beautiful day
I am happy today.
This is the first time in my life that I have voted for a presidential candidate who won. In 2008, the first year I was eligible to vote, I voted for libertarian candidate Bob Barr. In 2012, I voted for libertarian candidate Ron Paul. In 2016, I voted for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. I was happy that Trump won, and definitely preferred him to Hillary Clinton, but due to the fact that all of Massachusetts’s electoral votes are basically guaranteed to always go to the democratic candidate, I continued my tradition of voting third party. In 2020, I voted for Trump, and he lost. In 2024, I voted for Trump and – it feels both strange and amazing to type these words – he won.
View this post on Instagram
It is a beautiful day. Things feel lighter, more hopeful. I feel that I can breathe again. A noose is no longer tightening around my throat, the heavy boot of tyranny no longer stomping on my face. For four years, I never thought that this result would happen. To some extent, it feels magical, unreal, almost like a dream. Part of me feels that any moment I will wake up, and this beautiful reality will be shattered.
View this post on Instagram
I am proud of my country today. For four years, the sight of the American flag, the sound of patriotic music, and the mention of the Fourth of July made me feel more pain than pride. For me, these things signified the country that had elected a government determined to force people to undergo a medical procedure against their will and to destroy everything that makes life worth living. But now I feel much more positively towards America. Self-righteous bullies have spent four years pompously lecturing about “our democracy,” but now the very democracy that they’ve spent all this time worshipping and fetishizing has elected Donald Trump! Perhaps this country, this democracy, isn’t so bad after all.
View this post on Instagram
I admit that Trump is not perfect. He almost certainly does not care about statues with the same intensity as I do, or in the same way that I do. He cannot fully reverse the atrocities that have been committed against historical figures, and by extension against myself. He may not even partially reverse them. But for today at least, it feels like a healing balm has been smoothed over my wounds. This election result is the most significant good thing that has happened in a very long time. It does not undo the pain, anguish, and trauma that I’ve experienced over the past four years. But it helps. It really helps.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Four years ago, at this exact time of year, was the rock bottom of my life. Everything that made my life worth living had been destroyed, the historical figures that I love having been lynched, smashed to pieces, set on fire, beheaded, strangled, and drowned with complete impunity, and the people who committed these atrocities perceived as holding the moral high ground in the eyes of society. And by electing Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump, our country confirmed that they didn’t care about my pain, didn’t care about my perspective, didn’t care about the historical figures’ right to exist. Our country’s response to my pain was to inflict even more of it. Our country’s response to my (metaphorical) gaping, bleeding wounds was to rub salt in them. Seeing other people’s joy, exuberance, celebrations, and gloating, after the excruciating agony that I had experienced over the preceding months, was nothing short of soul-crushing.
View this post on Instagram
Now, the situation is reversed. It’s the mirror image of that horrible time four years ago. I never thought that such a thing would happen, and I hesitate to type these words for fear that I will somehow jinx it. But the people who gloated so cruelly and gratuitously four years ago, who fell all over each other in their eagerness to shove their spiteful celebrations down my throat, lost. I won, and it is now my turn to gloat. Part of me wants to do exactly that. The people who hurt me deserve to be punished for their actions. Retribution, revenge, justice… these words are all synonyms to me, and all are completely justified in this situation. But another part of me sees the merits of what is commonly referred to as “taking the high road.” If I gloat as nastily as my enemies did, then that makes me like them, at least a little bit. Part of me feels that the people who caused my pain deserve to experience the same pain in return, while part of me feels that no person deserves to experience pain so horrific.
View this post on Instagram
Regardless, I am happy today. I intend to savor this feeling, to soak it in, to enjoy it for as long as I can. For the past four and a half years, positive experiences have been hard to come by for me. This is a big and important one, which I truly appreciate.
In an Instagram post which you can view here or below, Breitbart News described Trump’s victory as “indisputably the greatest political comeback in American history,” and I can’t help but agree. Trump is only the second president, after Grover Cleveland, to win two non-consecutive terms, and as the post mentions, he overcame “multiple prosecutions; two assassination attempts; censorship on social media; overt media bias; and even efforts to intimidate his lawyers.”
View this post on Instagram
Breitbart’s mention of overt media bias is no exaggeration. Starting with their coverage of the capitol protest on January 6, 2021, the news media has completely given up on even pretending to be neutral. Their coverage of that protest was appalling, disgraceful, literally sickening, beyond unprofessional, and absolutely shocking to the conscience. Nearly 100% of their political coverage over the ensuing four years has fit those descriptions as well. Any semblance of neutrality, or professionalism for that matter, has completely vanished. Prior to 2020, the news media certainly had a progressive bias, but at least it was covert. Now their bigotry, their closed-mindedness, their utter contempt for anyone who deviates from their totalitarian social norms, is naked, blatant, and on full display. I have been hurt, enraged, and traumatized dozens if not hundreds of times over the past four years thanks to the news media, and this is despite making the decision to almost entirely cease news consumption due to finding it so hurtful, enraging, and traumatizing. Every time I so much as glimpse a biased headline, I am reminded painfully of the fact that news consumption, previously an enjoyable and interesting way to gain information, has devolved into just another way for society to torment me by expressing its rejection and hatred.
View this post on Instagram
Which brings me to the most amazing and remarkable thing about this election result: for possibly the first time in my life, the people who hurt me didn’t get what they wanted, and I did. The gloating “friends,” acquaintances, family members, and strangers on social media. The mindless conformists who displayed Harris/Walz signs on their lawns in order to remind me every time I walk down the street that they support the lynching of the man that I love. Democratic politicians, activists, and government officials determined to eradicate every last shred of diversity and individual liberty from the earth. Their despicable accomplices in the aforementioned news media, who have traumatized me dozens if not hundreds of times. Bullying prosecutors. Orwellian social media executives. Wannabee assassins. All of these people lost. And I won. That’s something that has never happened to me before, and I am in awe of it.
View this post on Instagram
One final observation about Trump’s victory is that it provides a bit of justice, even if only small, for the historical figures. Particularly the statue of Christopher Columbus who stood at the Minnesota state capitol until being lynched by a mob of bigoted bullies in summer 2020. Perhaps statues weren’t in the forefront of voters’ minds when they cast their ballots, but rather overshadowed by more mundane issues such as inflation, social security, immigration, and the economy. Regardless, the man who chose to allow this lynching to happen, and later to characterize it as an understandable act of civil disobedience, lost his bid to become vice president. So today I am thinking about Christopher Columbus of St. Paul, Minnesota. Nothing can undo the atrocity that was done to him, but today brings him a quantum of justice. He, and what was done to him, must never, ever be forgotten.
bookmark_borderWhy I am voting for Donald Trump
Today’s election is a very important moment for our country. I’ve identified as a Republican for many years and have volunteered for various Republican campaigns and organizations, but the past few years have really changed how I see the world. Tomorrow I will be voting for Donald Trump. I feel more strongly about this decision than I’ve felt about my choice in any other election, and here are three reasons why:
- I never thought that the continued existence of historical statues would become a political issue. Tragically, countless statues have been permanently removed, torn down, and destroyed, something that has been devastating to me. Donald Trump is the only candidate who has spoken out for statues. He has stood up for them in his public remarks, signed an executive order increasing punishments for people who harm statues, and signed an executive order calling for a new statue garden (unfortunately canceled by Biden).
- Additionally, I never thought that the United States government would require people to undergo a medical procedure. Yet that is exactly what the Biden administration did by introducing an OSHA rule mandating the covid vaccine. In my opinion, this is a huge violation of individual rights, and I would never support any politician from the Biden administration as a result.
- The horrible thing that happened to the Christopher Columbus statue in St. Paul, Minnesota is important enough to list as its own reason. The images of what was done to this statue – see this blog post for more details – are horrific, traumatizing, and seared permanently into my consciousness. Tim Walz deliberately chose to allow the atrocity to happen, and late characterized it as an understandable act of “civil disobedience.” The Italian American Civil Rights League issued a press release correctly characterizing what happened as “racism” and “a flagrant hate crime,” which you can read here. Additionally, Dr. Christopher Binetti published an important article, an excerpt of which is below:
When rioters came to destroy the Columbus monument on the grounds of the state Capitol in Saint Paul, Governor Walz ordered state troopers, who were on the scene, to stand down and let it happen. The main culprit, shown lassoing the head of Columbus in broad daylight, was penalized for his crime with only community service. Walz never returned the statue to its rightful pedestal. Italian Americans have been in a state of second class citizenship under Walz, ever since.
Italian Americans are not safe anywhere in America because of Walz’s actions. Thanks to him, the attack on the Columbus monument in St. Paul was copied all over the country: In Richmond, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Ohio, etc…
Walz wants to erase us because he loathes us as Italians. This is not about Columbus or even Howard Zinn, whose warped views of history Walz seems to embrace. This is about the dehumanization of Italian Americans in Minnesota and throughout America. Remember, that in order to destroy Columbus, his statue had to be physically lynched. No one seemed to care about that symbolism; how it reminded us of the horrifying lynching and riotous massacre of Italians, in 1891, in New Orleans. Make no mistake, Walz loathes Italians.
Binetti correctly, and importantly, characterizes what happened as “the lynching and tearing down of the Columbus monument.” Indeed, a mob of bigots and bullies decided to viciously lynch Christopher Columbus at the Minnesota state capitol, and Tim Walz decided that it was OK for this to happen. This statue, and the horrible thing that was done to him, must never be forgotten.
For these reasons, my little statues and I are voting for Donald Trump.
bookmark_borderGlimmers of hope – a photo essay
The past few blog posts have been pretty negative. It is true that the past few months have not been a great time for me, with numerous setbacks and challenges that have exacerbated my autistic burnout and landed me in a negative headspace. However, things have not been 100% negative, so I wanted to take a break from the negativity and share some things that have brought a smile to my face:
This entertainment column in a local newspaper (called “Aldo, The One on One”) specifically mentioned Columbus Day and Christopher Columbus himself.
I wore this t-shirt to a community event, featuring a drawing of Christopher Columbus that I made. I knew from looking at the schedule for the event that there was going to be a “Land Acknowledgement,” something that I find both hurtful and potentially able to trigger a PTSD attack thanks to its connection with the ideology that is responsible for the traumatizing events involving statues. Because of this, I considered not going at all. But I ultimately decided to go, while wearing this t-shirt as a statement that Christopher’s life matters, and mine does as well.
After my co-workers caused a PTSD attack by calling Columbus Day, “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” (as explained in this blog post), I decided to wear a Columbus-themed pin the next two days, leading up to Columbus Day. I am not entirely sure what my company’s policy is regarding such pins, but I figured that it would be okay given that a handful of co-workers wear Palestine pins at work. Plus, many co-workers wear jewelry, headbands, and hair accessories in celebration of Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, the Fourth of July, and St. Patrick’s Day, and Columbus Day is a holiday just as those are. Ultimately, no one gave me a hard time. That could just be because the pin was too small for anyone to be able to see what it was, but I at least felt that I was making a statement in defense of Columbus.
Also on the Columbus theme, I took baby Christopher Columbus out of his display cabinet and did a photoshoot with him.
My American Girl dolls decided to organize a little get-together to celebrate Columbus Day.
After numerous weeks of lacking the time and energy to do so, I was able to take photos of the beautiful fall leaves, after all. These, for example, were spotted at a local park where I volunteered at an event with my local Republican committee:
(more photos from this park can be found here)
These were taken at the pond near my house:
(more photos from the pond can be found here)
And these were taken at a nearby cemetery:
(more photos from the cemetery can be found here)
I don’t have a photo for this next one, but things are looking up, for the moment at least, with my special interest in sports. The winter sports season has started, and the amount of coverage that NBC and its networks are showing appears to actually be manageable (knock on wood). I am currently caught up on figure skating, am almost caught up on horse racing, and am looking forward to the Breeders’ Cup, which is starting today. And miraculously, I have begun the laborious process of going through my backlog of Olympics recordings, something that until recently, made me nauseous to even think about doing. I watched the very beginning of the equestrian and swimming competitions, both of which involved an officiant ceremonially pounding the ground with a staff to signify the official opening of the venues. Even when watching the events three months later, it was beautiful to see the sun shining through the fog in the background of the early morning dressage competition at the Palace of Versailles.
On a different note, I came across these Trump stickers at the parking garage near my work:
Additionally, I finally got a Trump sign, which my little statues wanted to pose with:
Last but not least, my “Mini Lee” arrived at my house! This is a tiny replica of the Charlottesville statue of Robert E. Lee that was sickeningly destroyed. As you can see, I showed him to the bigger statues, and they think he is pretty cool. These are being sold by Monuments Across Dixie to raise money for a full-size recreation of the statue at a location to be determined. If you are interested in getting your own Mini Lee, more info can be found here.
The world often feels like it is trying to make it impossible for me to have a life that is worth living. But I will continue to fight for such a life, one small glimmer of hope at a time.
bookmark_borderDear Tim Walz…
Lately, I have been finding it difficult to go on.
I have been thinking about the idea that everyone has the right to their own perspective, their own viewpoint, their own feelings, their own emotions. Some people would argue that it makes no sense to say that a person’s feelings are wrong, or that someone has no right to feel angry or upset at a situation. According to this way of thinking, if a person is angry or upset at a situation, then they automatically have a right to feel that way, because that is the way that they feel. As a believer in objective moral truth, I am skeptical of this idea. I believe that if something is objectively not bad, then no one has the right to criticize it or feel any negative emotions about it, because to do so is to punish someone who has done nothing wrong.
But I digress. Regardless of which side is right in this philosophical debate, what has bothered me so much about the events of the past four and a half years is that people have not merely felt, or voiced, negative emotions about the historical figures that I love. They have enacted those feelings in ways that have involved the physical destruction of the historical figures. And regardless of one’s feelings about the historical figures that I love, regardless of what one thinks about their merit as historical figures, everyone should agree that physically eradicating historical figures from the earth is wrong. Everyone should agree that disliking someone does not give you the right to murder them.
Yet everyone, clearly, does not agree with this.
I’ve had to watch, through pictures, videos, news reports, and social media posts, the man that I love be strangled, lynched, beheaded, smashed to pieces, drowned, burned. I have had absolutely no power to stop this, to prevent it, to reverse it, to gain any sort of compensation or restitution for that harm that has been done to me. I don’t even have the power to voice my pain and be heard. Because no matter how hard I try, no matter many different ways of explaining I attempt, society refuses to recognize that any harm has been done to me at all. Whenever I try to express my viewpoint, to voice my grief and anger, to present any sort of argument for why what happened was wrong, I am met with insults and ridicule. People call me a racist, an idiot, a moron, say that I should be barred from public spaces, laugh in my face using Facebook’s hideous “laughing face” reaction. When I contact public officials, I am either ignored entirely, or lectured about how I am wrong, and how the murder of the man that I love was a good thing, and how I need to have more empathy for others and to educate myself about the harm caused. The fact that harm was caused to me by the murder of the man that I love is denied and disregarded. The idea of others actually having empathy for me is not even acknowledged as a possibility.
This is why I’m outraged upon coming across the following quote from Tim Walz: “How is it fair that you’re paying your taxes every year, and Donald Trump hasn’t paid any federal tax in the last 15 years?”
Walz’s sentiments are so lacking in empathy that it’s appalling.
After being forced to watch the man that I love be strangled, lynched, beheaded, smashed to pieces, drowned, and burned, dozens upon dozens of times, I don’t care a whit about how much tax money Donald Trump pays. What I care about is the man that I love, and the fact that he was murdered.
Tim Walz, in fact, made a deliberate decision to allow the man I love to be murdered. Tim Walz knew that a group of bigots and bullies were planning to lynch Christopher Columbus at the state capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota on a particular day and at a particular time. And he ordered the state police to stand down, to do nothing, to make no attempt to stop the lynching. So the man that I love was lynched, brutally and excruciatingly, on the steps of the state capitol, as dozens of cops stood and watched. The images of the noose being tied around his neck, his metal body crashing to the ground, a bigot named Mike Forcia standing on Christopher’s pedestal and thrusting his arms into the air in sickening triumph, mindless bigots posing with their knees on Christopher’s neck as he lay pitifully face down on the ground, a line of cops standing at attention and doing absolutely nothing as these horrifying events took place, are indelibly seared into my mind. The excruciating agony will be with me forever. It burns my consciousness and torments my soul as I type this sentence.
But to Tim Walz, the lynching of the man that I love does not matter. It is not important, not a problem, not worth doing anything about. Tim Walz thinks that the amount of taxes paid by Donald Trump is more important than Christopher’s life, more important than the soul-crushing trauma and pain that I’ve been subjected to.
Lately, my mood has been low and down, my soul feels crushed, and everything feels heavy. For four and a half years I’ve lived with trauma that never goes away, that contaminates nearly every person, organization, place, and activity, that eats at my mind when I’m trying to fall asleep, that erupts into a volcano of anguish at the smallest reminder. And no one cares. Society thinks that the problem is me, that the man I love deserved to be murdered, that I am racist and bad for loving him, and that I need to change so that I’m not as upset about the fact that he was murdered. It’s difficult to imagine a path forward, a life that could be meaningful, given these circumstances.
Meanwhile, the people who lynched the man that I love have faced no negative consequences at all. Their needs are being met, just as they always have been. They haven’t suffered trauma. They are told that they are perfectly fine the way they are (righteous and honorable even, depending on who you ask), that they don’t need to change. They are able to live their lives, spend time with friends and family, love their romantic partners, raise their children, engage in their hobbies, and voice their views without criticism, without insults, without laughing face emojis. Tim Walz is able to campaign for Vice President of the United States with his wife and children by his side, participate in debates, speeches, and interviews on meaningless issues, and almost entirely avoid any accountability for his decision to facilitate the lynching of the man that I love.
In the eyes of society, the people who hurt me, the people who murdered the man that I love, hold the moral high ground. In the eyes of society, I am condemned as shameful, disgusting, and morally bad for having been hurt, and the man I love is ridiculed for having been murdered.
In other words, the person who has done nothing wrong in this situation bears 100% of the negative consequences, and the people who have done something wrong, by causing the horrible situation, bear 0% of the consequences.
Tim Walz, that’s what isn’t fair.