Scared and angry? Well, guess who else is.

You've likely heard about Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who preached Tuesday at the National Cathedral, at a prayer service following Monday's presidential inauguration. The head of the Episcopal diocese in Washington, Budde ended her sermon with a brief plea to President Trump, who was in the front row, asking him to show mercy to queer kids and immigrants.

You can watch her address him—it's not even two minutes long. Budde isn't forceful or sarcastic. She doesn't pass judgment on Trump or his policies, just notes that they scare a lot of people in this country.

Trump, naturally, attacked her the next day on the internet, called her "a Radical Left hard line Trump hater" who'd "brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way" and "was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart." Other conservatives followed suit, and Budde continues to field insults and threats from the president's supporters. All this is par for the course with him.

Like I said after he won in November, I'm going to do my best to wait and see what happens before I start panicking about Trump's second term. But I won't wait to say this: He is a weak person, and his soul is diseased. That's not news, but it bears repeating. If someone asks you to be merciful to others, it's sick and bizarre to attack them for it. (A normal corrupt politician would just smile and nod, and then ignore it.) There are people who believe Trump is merely flawed, and that he can do worthwhile things for the country despite his flaws. But no, when you're viciously repudiating a gentle, earnest plea for mercy, that's not being flawed—that is some demonic shit. That is a poisoned root from which no good thing shall grow.

At the same time, though? I find it kind of comforting: this powerful man, who makes so many of us so fearful and angry, reduced to sputtering lies by a preacher speaking calmly. Trump and his crew are not strong. They're just bullies—fearful and angry themselves, and poorly equipped to handle those feelings—and they know their power evaporates as soon as we stand up for each other. Be safe. But be courageous.

💡 Good to Know

• Minnesota Senator Tina Smith posted yesterday that the Minneapolis VA has stopped hiring, thanks to one of Trump's new executive orders: "They’ve rescinded offers to dozens of people who were going to fill critical roles to care for vets."

• Milwaukee's CBS affiliate fired a weather forecaster because she criticized Elon Musk for the Nazi salutes he did at the inauguration, on her personal Instagram.

• NASA employees got an email yesterday announcing the space agency was "taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA-related contracts"—again, because of a Trump executive order. The email, which you can see here (it's from a template; all the federal agencies got these), asks employees to inform on each other, or risk facing "adverse consequences."

• DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and Republicans have been threatening to shut down DEI programs for a while, so that white men can finally get a fair shake in this country again. The A in DEIA is a surprise new addition—it's for accessibility. Does the Trump administration want to, like, stop enforcing federal agencies' compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act? I don't know. But just the other day, the right-wing activist at the heart of this stuff said the government needs to stop using sign language interpreters, so, maybe?

• Oh, and the GOP's story on DEI programs is that they were well intended but got out of control in recent years. The reality, though, is that Trump revoked federal government workplace antidiscrimination rules that LBJ put in place sixty years ago.

؎ POETRY CORNER

Yeah, we have a poetry corner now. This was the Poetry Foundation's poem of the day on Monday:

Good Bones
by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

© Maggie Smith, 2016

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