~a column by Colleen O’Brien
I, along with 6,999,999 other Americans, took a walk this last Saturday. We were on streets, along rivers in big cities and in front of county courthouses in small burgs. We were venting, in a genial way. Our dissatisfaction with the current administration. We were friendly to one another and to the local cops, who were friendly to us. We chanted, chatted and sang and strutted to drums. We sat on curbs and watched others in outrageously amusing costumes making fun of you-know-who (he’s such a trumplethinskin, he’s an easy mark for teasing).
He is a cynical booby who makes us cynical, sad, anxious, afraid and mean. Saturday we were not mean because we were with one another exercising our First Amendment right to peaceful protest. It makes for an extremely justifying and satisfying afternoon, and if you didn’t partake this time, do so next time. There will be plenty of other chances. Even if you’re in Ireland. Or France. Or Japan – allies boosted our morale by protesting their own deep sadness regarding the facts of a vaunted democracy being degraded verbally, its citizens thrown in jail, those standing by stifled by a loud-mouthed mean man deploying his masked thugs to round us up.
Seven million of us. Just think.
Not long ago, in one more slough of despond (defined as disheartening hopelessness) regarding my county and what’s happening to its Constitution, its agencies, its citizens, I looked up once again the word ‘cynicism’. I have decided more than once to be as against cynicism as I am against him, for the word cynicism is personified in the leader of the Unfree World.
From my online dictionary, based on Random House Unabridged Dictionary: Cynicism is “…having the qualities of a surly dog; snarling, captious, currish; given to sneering at rectitude and the conduct of life by moral principles; believing the worst of human nature and motives; disbelieving in the reality of any human purposes which are not suggested or directed by self-interest or self-indulgence; having a sneering disbelief in the selflessness of others; a scoffer at pretensions of integrity; characterized by such appearances as a snarler, a misanthrope, a person who believes that human conduct is directed wither consciously or unconsciously wholly by self-interest or self-indulgence and the view of others; an easy manipulator pulling the wool over the eyes of a gullible public….”
I simply want good humans – ones who inspire, smile sincerely and don’t lie – around me and leading me. We don’t need to believe the same things, except that we all want and need our freedoms. And will stand up for them.
I am tired of woe and complaining and nasty things said about what he calls our “dying” republic. He lies about our city streets being on fire and our Democrats being Marxists or Hamas or pedophiles.
When the Cynical One is talking about our country, he ridicules with aplomb: “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” he said in his first inaugural speech. I was bewildered at what he said…”What in the hell is he talking about?” I wondered.
I had no idea it was going to be HIS carnage we would be living through.
Now that he’s president again, he’s creating carnage across the globe, not just in America. He wasn’t fully up to it first time around. And now he thinks he might as well do as damned well pleases (thank you, Supreme Court and Project 2025), he will take on anything and everything, especially if he knows nothing about it.
He says things like: “We’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidized the armies of other countries, while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military.”
He certainly bewildered 800 generals and admirals on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, enough to wonder why he made them show up in Quantico, VA, from across the country and around the world where they are stationed, to be chastised for degrading their own military (projection again: he is talking about himself, the one who degrades), being fat (does he never look in a mirror? Or try to see his own toes?), among other nonsensical whines.
According to 2020 TaxAct information, the U.S. spends more on defense than the next 12 countries combined (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia). His “facts” have never been facts because they’re never accurate.
He says things like: “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. I will fight for you with every breath in my body and I will never, ever let you down.”
He lets everybody down. He bombs unknowns in fishing boats in the Caribbean, telling us he’s killed a few druggers whose goods would have killed 25,000 Americans. Who does he thing he’s talking to: Someone as ill-informed as himself?
He says things like the following that he intends for you to think means he will fix things: “When American is united, America is totally unstoppable.”
Well, I think the 7,000,000-citizen march might be his answer, and it really did have all to do with him.
Okay for today: enough about the horrible traits of one man. There is really good news in the 7,000,000 (seven million!) Americans who took to the streets this last Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, to peacefully protest the difficult-to-endure behavior of a man not worthy of us. It was a lively day across the continent as we should in our history-breaking numbers the homemade signs and rhyming chants and patriotically hilarious outfits how we loathe him and fear him and want him to go away.
God knows what he’ll do now. But we are ready for him, against him; we are millions strong against a small group of his loyal friends who for their own financial gain think they can cow us into obedience.
Bah.
