Way back in the summer, my dismay and incredulity at the popularity of Donald Trump among my countrymen drove me to express my feelings that he does not represent American values and will not (now DOES not) work toward a better present-day or future for the US or the world. I landed on the Spoonerism “Truck Fump!” as my slogan.
Nowadays on Twitter, people like me who feel the urgency of protesting against the actions of POTUS #45 are using hashtags to create channels where we can vent and commiserate and show the world that not all Americans are of Trump’s mindset.
Searching my slogan on Twitter, I found that #TruckFump was already a thing. This was good news for me, because I found fellow resisters there and learned from what they had shared. I learned about the hashtags #Resist and #TheResistance and #DumpTrump and so forth. As you probably know if you use Twitter, clicking on a hashtag in a tweet or typing a hashtag into the search field results in access to all tweets using that hashtag.
Since #TruckFump was already happening, I changed my personal slogan to #TrunkFump. By putting this hashtag on my original tweets, and by attaching it my retweets of selected tweets from others, I have been able to create a little antiTrump cache of information.
Lately, in addition to #TrunkFump, I am using #FumpTrunk. If you are at all interested in Trump and what’s been going on with him, you can search either of these for some info.
Today, my antiTrump efforts resulted in a direct back-and-forth with a Trump supporter, who goes by Deplorable_Ed. I found him using the hashtag #Resistence (sic).
Seeing my response to his tweet, Deplorable_Ed sent me by direct reply a meme of Samuel Jackson saying “English – Do you speak it?!” Here was my direct reply to that:
Here is the conversation which then ensued:
We went back and forth a few more times, with me struggling to be clear and level-headed while he pretty much attacked, saying “Can you really be that stupid?” and that nothing I had said was rational and that I was lying and so forth.
In the end, I’m not sure this Twitter conversation was productive. Deplorable_Ed seemed to dismiss my concerns and to see me as stupid and antiAmerican, which is I’m afraid quite how I come away viewing him myself.
I’ll carry on, though, with my little personal resistance, and my motivations are mainly keeping myself informed of what’s happening and how people like me are expressing themselves, and letting those like-minded people know that there are plenty of us who aren’t happy with the current state of affairs.
There is also the hope that people sitting on the fence or even on the Trump side of things may be swayed by something I tweet – that they may question Trump and his words and actions a little more. But today’s conversation with Deplorable_Ed makes me feel that this hope is not likely to be fulfilled. Each side seems completely alienated from the other.
wee ditty 