Artwork by the phenomenal @lazybeamarte.

You know how they say, New Year, New Me? Well, guess what. It’s a new year, and I’m back to my same antics.

You would think that after spending an amazing holiday with my parents, I would feel renewed, refreshed, and restored. I wish that were the case. But unfortunately, my new year has already begun with stress, frustration, agitation, and everything in between. And you know who I have to thank for a lot of my problems these days? Our dumbass president. Our stupid, belligerent, obscene, repugnant, diabolical rapist of a president. So I decided to bring back my Trump’s Downfall post, six years later, because somehow we have found ourselves back to square one. Never mind all of the millions of people who died during the pandemic, or everyone who got teargassed during the protests. Honestly, who cares about how much we’ve embarrassed ourselves in front of foreign countries? And the rape allegations? Boys will be boys, and Trump will be Trump, am I right? We truly never learn. Lately, I have been surrounded by those around me who love to smile in my face and then post racist rants online, hiding in the shadows of American pride and a president who “speaks the truth.” So, I have decided to return the favor. You all believe you’re doing something right by stripping away rights, financial security, international law, and national benefits programs. Those freeloaders didn’t deserve them, right? These decisions will come back to haunt you, but in the meantime, those of us with common sense are the ones made to suffer. Trump doesn’t care about you. Keep feeding his ego, because when this ship goes down, you’re going down with us. Although I find myself struggling to hold on to the small bit of sanity I have left as my patience and willpower dwindle day by day, nothing feels quite as cathartic as reading musical lyrics degrading this orange fucker. Although he may not see the reality that a majority of the country hates every bone in his body, it sure feels good to bruise that disgusting ego a bit.

When I first thought of revisiting these posts, I expected to see a large influx of new music mentioning Trump after his second win. But to be frank, most of the music I didn’t include in the first post was made closer to the end of his first term and around the time he lost his second term. I’m now realizing it’s because we felt energized enough by his loss to see a future in which his behavior was condemned. When Donald Trump won his second presidential election, we saw a much scarier future, the one that we are living in today. While I understand that the pendulum swings, it’s hard to imagine just how extreme everything will have to become in order for the country to swing back and right itself. The things that we are seeing, the things that we are discovering. It’s terrifying. And how do we find hope after that? When we have first-hand seen how full of hate our neighbors, our classmates, our co-workers, our family members can all be, how do we find peace and unity? We experienced fear in ways we never imagined during his first term, as the world suffered together. But now, it’s our own people. Our own people taking jobs with ICE to rip families apart, our own people getting taken from their work and their schools despite their citizenship. With Trump’s first presidency, we could all collectively envision an end in sight. But now, I’m not so sure.

In the times of terror and dread, I’m so thankful for music. I’m thankful for the years of protest in the forms of lyrical melodies and fun beats and silly raps. I’m thankful for the coping mechanisms artists around the world have given us to foster a sense of solidarity when everyone feels so isolated, even though we’re no longer quarantined. I’m thankful for the words that embody all that I feel, all that makes me angry, when all I want to do is stay silent out of worry that I’ll let the enraged tears fall from my eyes, giving these assholes the satisfaction when I am so helpless already. The words from these songs lift one another up, and tear our president down, lyric by lyric, brick by brick. Music will be part of our salvation, and part of Trump’s death.

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