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Roger Marolt: Resolving to ignore Trump in 2020

Roger Marolt
Cluster Phobic
Roger Marolt

I am not going to pay much attention to Donald Trump this year.

It may mean I need to expand my repertoire of column topics to include favorite recipes I’ve made up, ideas for exciting off-season staycation opportunities, and environmentally friendly, all-consuming arts & crafts projects that you can do in bed. An advice column for avid skiers who hate winter and all the nuances that go with that has also crossed my mind. Stay tuned.

Why the commitment to lay off the throttle hurtling my frustration and anger through the maze of lies, stupidity, and general lack of moral turpitude possessed by our current history rewriter and baloney fabricator in the Oval Office? Because I have finally realized the whole exercise is pointless and I am threatened by a family history of hypertension-induced insanity (not really, but I’m sure people who know me well will make the case for it anyway).



I have convinced myself this resolution is necessary because I am accepting humility as an approach, not laziness. While it is true that I can’t cerebrally digest much more of him — and his lack of character, constant bullying, crudeness, crassness, ignorance, Mad Men attitude toward women, fear of foreigners, exaggerations over things that do and don’t matter, terrible examples for children and their parents, childish tweets, lying, on-the-fly revisions of indisputable truth, tolerance of racism, infatuation with fame, idolization of money, admiration of dictators, p—- grabbing, doling out “justice” as party favors, and the video of the lazy bum driving a golf cart over the putting surface of a green (I don’t even care that he owned the course) — I also must resolve to accept the fact that I can do nothing to change him or his position in this world. If 52% of American voters couldn’t do it in the last election, there can be no bigger waste of my time and emotion than to try. I would do better to concentrate on solving global warming. It is child’s play by comparison.

This also does not mean that I am accepting Trump. I am only going to ignore him. I will continue to vote and then head home to watch a ballgame. I will keep up on real news but refuse to use it to chastise Trump’s supporters or fuel those who can’t stand him. I will hope just this one last time that Trump becomes the only U.S. president in history to get impeached at least twice. And now (inhale), I let it go (exhale).




I finally understand that Trump thrives on attention like a healthy garden does manure. He craves boos as much as he does cheers, perhaps even more. The reason he claims that the crowd at his inauguration was the largest one ever is because he counted everyone who didn’t show up in protest as part of it. In his mind the math works. Basically, when we are at our worst, Trump settles into his comfort zone. He doesn’t care what we think of him, only that we are thinking of him. Us getting under his skin is like a deep tissue massage.

Frighteningly, his response to negative press is probably not as hard to understand as we tell each other it should be. How would you feel if The New York Times and The Washington Post were blasting you every day, your phone was ringing off the hook from posers bolstering you with support, and agents were crawling all over each other to get you book and movie deals? It’s not hard to see how this could affect each of us and we’re normal!

I’m not hoping that reporters stop writing stories about what is going on in the White House. And I hope that the checks and balances installed by the Founding Fathers work more efficiently than ever to protect the U.S. Constitution and our freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights therein. But, I think we have overdone things with opinions and commentary and jokes overly obviously laced with disdain for the man who is certainly one of the three worst presidents in U.S. history all on his own. It’s not that he doesn’t deserve it, but I think our expressed angst has amounted to a gigantic woodpile of kerosene-soaked kindling that has stoked the fire of those who prefer to keep him around. If we take away that dry and volatile fuel, the only thing he has to produce steam with is his jerk-in-the box personality.

With less smoke and heat, perhaps we can all stand closer to what embers are left and see it was just garbage burning all along. And, this will never happen based on anything I say.

Roger Marolt looks forward to a New Year writing about pot holes and bear sightings. Email him at roger@maroltllp.com.

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