As I travel about the foreign nation known as the US of A, I hear this more times than I can count. How can he NOT be your president; the duly elected high-representative of all the US espouses? How can he NOT??
The thing about true patriotism, is that it is not a creature of personal convenience. It involves not just accepting the glorious chapters but taking personal responsibility for the dodgier ones.
As the increasingly infamous “This Week Tonight” diatribe goes, the US has “the presidential equivalent of a 5 year-old [crapping] in the salad bar of a Ruby Tuesday’s. And the point comes where one has to stop blaming the 5 year-old and blame those who are not doing anything to stop it”.
© 2026 – SoulSequel
34 responses to ““He’s not my president””
If you believe in the multiple worlds theory, every decision that we make, in another dimension a different decision was made, so in one sense that statement is 100% true!
I leave the conundrums of multiple world theory to Jet Li!
My concern is for what is right here before us and the responsibility that is ours to accept: and will likely remain so unless I start exhibiting uber-human powers and and twisted version of me shows up trying to kill me so they can be “The One”.
people like to complain. that’ll never change
Any deeper thoughts on why we like it so much?
no, not really
I didn’t like Nixon, but I did not throw tantrums, beat up people that voted for him, or call voters nasty names. I simply waited out his presidency and got behind anything I could agree with. It was the same for GW Bush. I did not like him, but when he was our President, I waited to see what would happen. I am not in favor of the NWO of a one-government world. Obama ran against people that I did not like as presidential choices. As he showed his Muslim side I began to hate what he was doing to our country. Still, I did not call other voters vile names, riot, break storefront windows, set fires, turn over police cars, and scream like an orangutan with her ass on fire. I simply waited for his term to end and voted for the candidate that would not press for the NWO. Knowing how Donald Trump treats the workers in one of his businesses, I knew that I wanted someone like that running our country. Trump will bring back jobs and BUILD THAT WALL that aliens keep climbing through. He would stop the massive influx of refugees from the Middle East. Yes, that is my President. He fired Comey and I am happy with everything he is accomplishing. The press is against him and every news story tries to knock him down. I don’t bother reading that shit. If I want to know what our President is thinking, or doing, I can get it straight from Trump himself. I like that we have a President that “Tweets”. I like everything he does for the United States of America.
I’ll be brief since you hate me:
1) Obama wasn’t Muslim
2) If Trump manages to build a wall, we’re paying for it, and it won’t really curb illegal immigration.
3) He fired Comey, who was conducting an investigation against him regarding Russian ties. Does that not seem the least bit shady?
I love America as much as the next guy, but Trump just loves Trump and it baffles me that you can’t see that.
Love you long time, please unmute me.
If nothing else, he certainly seems to polarize people. He’s either “The Messiah” or “The Destroyer”!
Several people I care for dearly have fallen under his spell and for the first time there are topics we simply cannot broach anymore.
I always just took it as hyperbole. They don’t like him and don’t want to be associated with him, so they say that. It’s like, “he is THE president, but he isn’t MY president.” He isn’t their guy.
I wonder if it’s any less hyperbole when it runs the other way and people don’t want to see the harm he’s doing or the possible threat he represents?
Any thoughts on what I said about “true patriotism” not simply being a creature of convenience — loving the system when it’s “your guy” and railing against it when it’s not?
If I understand you right: I feel that people should criticize and hold politicians accountable when they do something they shouldn’t. I mean, I liked Obama on the surface, but he did things that I didn’t like and that I have talked about. Bernie is my dude, but I’d do the same with him if I found out he did something I don’t agree with. People blindly backing sides can be reckless. Investigate Trump, investigate Clinton, investigate Sanders. I don’t care. I just want the best person for the job. As for the system itself, I don’t mind it too much aside from a few things. It is the people within that taint it. I don’t want to go off topic with this comment, but it is like police for me. I respect the hell out of the uniform, I just don’t agree with what some choose to do with it.
That’s very close to the view I hold. Respect the uniform or the office, even if you might not like person currently occupying it.
People seeking public office voluntarily expose themselves to the spotlight. It is justified to ask for a higher level of accountability for their words and actions — because the welfare of so many rest upon them. In the case of National leaders, all have made their mistakes; isolated ones they have learned from and repeat ones showing they have not. And when enough keep happening to show a growing bad pattern, it needs to be effectively dealt with.
To me, “people blindly backing . . ” are people playing games. Games not too unalike a religion. A position or person is held in a certain regard, and even a truth that threatens to topple that pedestal is recklessly (even viciously) attacked; spun; demeaned; conversion attempts made; and if all this fails, is “written off” (excommunicated).
The current POTUS presents a case of Historic proportions. I really don’t think the US has seen anything like this ever in her History. And up until now most of the discussion and diatribe has been about “the person”. Perhaps the focus now needs to shift to what the person is doing to “the office”.
There is considerable irony in the letter Trump drafted to fire Comey. With very minor alterations it could be attached quite effectively to his administration of the office of the POTUS. The “person” is expendable, in the gist of them just being a temporary occupant. The “office” — and the integrity/honor of it — is NOT expendable.
In this day and age people are encouraged to boycott or rally against things that they don’t believe in with the expectation that these actions will incite change. In some instances it has worked…but is this the way that we as a species should find resolution to our social issues?
But the “he’s not my president” is just another form of this kind of mentality. It creates a sense of connection with those who may share similar values as you do. I think it gives people a type of silent strength with the knowledge that their position is shared by so much others.
However, at the end of the day….intent without action will fail.
I wonder if there’s a tie-in to the concept of ‘splitting into factions’?
I’ve read several good works over the years that have pointed out that “splitting in to factions” has been the death-knell for many societies, organizations, groups over Human History. “Splintering off” weakens the greater whole. It goes on to become so fractured that it simply fails.
I know what you mean. A lot of those end of days or post-apocalyptic stories are set in worlds where society is run on this concept. I hope that’s not where we’re headed though!
There remains the prospect that if enough people 1) recognize and 2) do something about it soon enough, the destination can be changed.
I think the point made is that a person is in a position of power due to the actions, or just as importantly, inaction’s of others. That is, for better or worse, democracy.
So like it or not, if the world sees a five year old crapping in the salad bar, the PEOPLE are held responsible.
You can say all you want that you didn’t pick him, but YOU in the collective sense did. The longer this twit is left in power by the people who say he sucks, the more responsibility you have to take for the him being there at all.
And while I’m at it, the people who think this idiot is qualified to be in charge are suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Look it up. It’s describing you as it most certainly is describing him.
…and yes…no politician has been treated worse…except for:
1. Julius Caesar, who was stabbed to death
2. President Abraham Lincoln, who was shot in the head
3. President John F. Kennedy, who was shot in the head
4. Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot in the head
5. Martin Luther King Jr., who was shot in the face
6. Gandhi, who was shot three times in the chest
7. President William McKinley, who was shot twice in the stomach
8. President James Garfield, who was shot in the back and suffered through more than two months of horrendous, grotesque infection before dying
9. Anwar Sadat, who was sprayed with bullets by a treasonous cell of soldiers armed with AK-47s
10. Yitzhak Rabin, who was shot twice in the back
11. Leon Trotsky, who was smashed in the head with an ax
12. All the other hundreds of politicians who were shot, stabbed, guilliotined, hanged, torn to pieces by angry mobs, or shot and then hung upside down from steel girders after their bodies were desecrated
And, of course, there was also the American president who was forced to spend significant time and mental energy during his term refuting a white-nationalist reality-TV idiot’s repeated, baseless allegations that, because he was black, he must have been born in Africa. Pretty raw deal for that guy, too.
If I could say just one thing to Trump, I would point out that HE was the one that set the tone-du-jour of using the media to viciously attack anyone and everyone that got in the way of his notions, perceptions and aspirations.
And now he’s upset that the nation is following . . . where he led it? Did he REALLY think he could use the media as a weapon on his adversaries; and then just flip a switch and turn it off when candidate Trump became president Trump?
Cathartic though that mantra may be, it doesn’t really accomplish much. Legally speaking, Trump is the President of the United States. He might not look like it, sound like it, or act like it, but that is the fact of the matter, and those who recite this line are furthering the problem by denying it.
My caution is similar to yours: that it may go beyond “[not] really accomplish[ing] much” to actually endorsing it through denial of social responsibility to the greater whole.
It’s like, “Leave me alone! I want to be the king/queen of my own personal fantasy and not deal with anything that makes me feel icky!”.
[just like Trump? It’s like he’s contagious, both upon supporters and deniers!]
You God Forsaken Canadians just can’t taste the corn sweet hickory smoked cheese flavor of freedom like we who invented it.
Every ahhhMERICAN is their own president of their united states of whatever.
…..and Ruby Tuesdays moved the changing stations to the kitchen, so the salad-bar should be fine now.
A “freedom” that very shortly after arriving (or being “invented”), built more fences, jails, and produced more rules than the free nations pre-existing here had ever seen!
Our Freedom Fences, Rejuvenating Jails, and Revolutionary Rules keep us free from drinking milk out of a bag.
Udderly ridiculous!
I am known for my rabid disdain for tyrants. Donald Trump has not shown himself to be a tyrant, so until such time and event I shall continue to support him as my president. But make no mistake…if he becomes the monster that everyone against him believes him to be, I will rail against him with a vigor. (but I doubt it will come to that) He is a business man not a career politician, therefor he brings his business experience to the table rather than the well practiced snake oil salesmanship of someone who has lived within the beltway for the last 40ish years. He is an honest God fearing man who loves his country and wants to do right by it. Love him or hate him, at the end of the day one thing remains true…He IS the President of The United States of America.
Trump ticks a lot of the boxes that shouldn’t ought to be ticked for the president. But “tyrant” isn’t yet one of them. (Though canning Comey for “a bad job” doesn’t sit well against the job he is doing thus far. The few good points are being vastly outweighed by the need for almost constant damage-control)
immortal_pirate, what’s your opinion of Mister Rogers?
@luftballooneyegouge
I really don’t have an opinion of Fred Rogers.
Uh-Oh, I’m formulating a theory……….
As phrases go, I feel the people who say it in regard to Trump might be at least a bit justified.
When certain groups of people said it about Obama they said it as a result of what?
People didn’t believed he was American (lol)
Black people shouldn’t be in a position of power (lol)
He is a socialist that wants to expand health coverage
He is a socialist that wants to promote income equality (questionable)
He is trying to take away our guns (lol)
He is colluding with the Middle East to sell America (lol)
He pushed a pro environmental agenda
What a terrible human being…
Okay, so why are we saying this about Trump?
He didn’t win the popular vote
He is a misogynist
Zero political experience
A child-like temperament
Someone who blatantly lies to desperate people in the lower class
Someone that has demonstrated their ability to be bigoted
A narcissist
Made fake claims about health care
Made fake claims about a $1 trillion wall
Made fake claims about NAFTA
Took credit for job growth he had no effect on
Hasn’t given a plan to eliminate ISIS
You can fill in the rest.
All of those are proven, right? I mean, yea, what a terrible human being.
Of course, by law, he is president and has the full power that comes with the office. But people need a way to vent their frustration, and saying he isn’t my president is a good way to state clearly that you are not with him.
Referring back to comments between @yin and myself about “respecting the badge” (or the uniform or office) even if one has lost respect for the person occupying it. As many commentaries are starting to point out, it’s just too easy and convenient to say the man is psychologial or incompetent. His “process” is there for all to see. The focus now needs shift to the Office of the President and what is happening to it as a result of recent (and no doubt ongoing) events. If “just not doing a good job” was good for the firing of the gander, why not for the goose?
And the entire focus of my thread, is whether tactics of dismissing, denying, or distancing are going to have overall positive, or negative effect on things. I think negative, in the gist of an ostrich sticking it’s head in the sand and leaving it’s ass totally exposed.
Sorry, I think I got confused. Negative in what sense? For the people that are denying him as a president, or the people that continue to support him?
Not sure I can call him crazy, but I can call him incompetent. You can be good at many things, but with some things, you hit the ceiling. Trump is in over his head. He doesn’t know how to play the game and it shows. Obama, Bush, Clinton all had shit to deal with, but they surrounded themselves with the right people, and when those people said sit or stand, those presidents sat or stood.
If nothing else, I think we proved that an ‘outsider’ doesn’t really work. Maybe Bernie would have worked, but maybe not.
We need a solid moderate. Like really a really boring and forgetable politican that immediatley compromises on things. I’m not sure we can get back to that.
If I think Trump has had a negative effect on things, I would say yes. The next time around, I don’t think people are going to pay attention unless the person is being bat shit crazy at every stage of the process.
But I am torn because I really don’t respect the political process, what with it being dominated by money.
Negative for the nation. For the “greater whole”. The society.
Both the denying him as “their president” and the denying that his incompetence has reached a limit where at least SOME action against him is warranted, are increasingly negative for the nation. There are SO many confusing and contradictory things coming out of the White House, that most other nations have lost all respect for America. (I don’t know if Americans bother to read the news from other countries or “take their pulse” against the heartbeat of the world . . . but it’s a chilling exercise of late. One that Americans ought to sit up and take notice of.)
The political process “is what it is”. Money and power really do a number on the Human psyche. And if nothing else, this “experimental administration” has categorically shown that even an outsider succumbs to these things.
The difference with career politicians, is that they are not suddenly hit with it. They have a slow build-up and have the opportunity to develop enough of an “immunity” that even when they’re in over their heads, they still maintain an air of professionalism and not sob to Coast Guard graduates from the podium about how hard done-by you are in ALL of Human History!!
Technically, he is our president. I didn’t vote for him and he in no way represents my values. I think the term, “He’s not my president,” is a way for people to distance themselves from someone who does not represent what they stand for.