Here's some of the problems as I see it.

According to an essay written by Jacob Levy, McGill professor of Political Theory, Donald Trump's words are doing far more damage to the political institutions of the United States and the institutions outside of government not just in the United States but countries in which the U.S. has a partnership. Further, those countries' governments take those words in and know that they have to set policies based on what is being said as well as the actions taken because Donald Trump is President of the United States. 

https://niskanencenter.org/blog/the-weight-of-the-words/

Consider though that both right and left, the more moderate of those extremes, believe that it is possible that once Trump is gone that everything will go back to where it once was. The attitudes being that Trump's words are merely distractions and that the institutions remain. Checks and balances are working and that the country has survived worse events and periods in the past. But in fact words matter and ideas have consequences. Among conservatives, "Tear down this wall" "Radical Islamic Terrorism"  have had its effects. Go back to the end of WWII and Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech had an effect on the entire world for decades.  

For example if Trump survives his administration or even if it is aborted, his words have created situations within ICE that would allow more anti-immigrant agents latitude to be abusive towards their captives. Other ICE agents who may not agree with these actions may leave and even worse behaving agents will be hired.  An entire culture will be in place that will take a very long time to be undone. Currently the State department is losing good diplomatic corps individuals and no one is replacing them.  It's the same in the Justice department. Eventually only the worst elements will rise to the top and set in place a culture that can't be undone even in the same time that it took to get them there. 

We expect comedians to lead the way by making fun of Trump.  They pick on his hair. They pick on his marital situations, They make jokes about his family. They make fun that Trump doesn't read, that he watches Fox news, that he walks around in a bathrobe, that maybe he suffers from Alzheimer's, that he tweets ridiculous things and they are called distractions. There is no end to editorial cartoons getting in on the action. And lots of money is being made as well by this form of entertainment.  But leading can't be done by comedy.  By exposing these matters as jokes our sophisticated selves are in on the joke and that the damage that has been done by Trump's words and actions, ridiculous as some might be, has been exposed and has now gone away.  We can not entertain ourselves out of this morass that the country finds itself in. There is real damage that is being done to institutions and the culture is being radically altered by Trump's words. We can not take these things as distractions or as matters to tickle our fancy any more.  His words attack the Justice Department.  His words cause fears of nuclear conflict to be a threat. His words encourage attacks by extreme right wing actors. His words help to legitimize racism.  It is a slippery slope from demagogic expressions to autocracy to dictatorship and the subjugation of almost two and half centuries of law as the governmental institutions roll themselves up and roll over time and time again.  

What has been done since the election campaign, the elections and the year plus that Trump has been in office can not be undone in the same amount of time. We will not go back overnight to the way things were. It could take decades.        

An immigrant's life was no walk in the Park

An immigrant's life is not easy. Everyone believes or so it seems there was some golden time when it was simple, easy and good.  It wasn't.  It certainly was less than easy street for my 4 grandparents. My Father's parents came from Sicily. My grandmother hardly spoke English but was incredibly sweet and caring. She cooked wonderful meals.  Even during WWII she never worked a job outside of raising 5 kids and her first died before he was one. I don't think she was ever a citizen.  My grandfather became a legal citizen almost 50 years after he came to the U.S., spoke 3 maybe 4 languages, Italian, French, Spanish and English and ultimately worked for the IRT (before it was the TA) at a power station. (He framed his citizenship paper and hung it on the wall in their parlor).  When he first came to the U.S. he was a stevedore and worked at different ports along the Mississippi. When he first lived in NYC  he made 75 cents a day shoveling coal for Con Ed. He could speak English quite well except he normally wouldn't unless he had to do business with some anglo. I don't know if either my Father's Father or my Father's Mother ever went to school.  I wasn't very close to either of them so I never found out that much about them. They were both hardworking people as was my entire extended family.  

My Mother's Mother lived with us. She spoke 4 languages too, English, Hungarian, German and Yiddish.  She never finished the Hungarian equivalent of 8th grade but she taught herself to read English as well as speak it.  I remember how she used to read the Daily News with a magnifying glass. In her dotage she wore glasses for nearsightedness but didn't have reading glasses.  She came to the U.S. when she was 13 and worked as a servant for her "aunt" in Pittsburgh. She came from a large family but I think she was sold as an indentured servant. I'll never know for sure. She ran away to NYC when she was 15, got married when she was 16 to a Hungarian who worked as a window washer. They lived in small apartments, on the lower East Side, raised 4 children, actually she raised them by herself because my grandfather left them. And she also worked factory jobs to support her and her children.  I met him once on a street corner when I was with my grandmother and he gave me a dollar. I was only about five then but I remember that.  I think he would give my grandmother money when he could hang on to it and wasn't drinking it away. She wasn't more than five feet tall but she was tough as nails and as mean as a billy goat when she had to be and she wasn't afraid of anything or anyone. But when it came to me I could do no wrong. It was from her that I learned what unconditional love meant.    

When my grandfather died he was already eligible for Social Security so my Grandmother could collect his Social Security when she became eligible except she wasn't a citizen. I don't know if she needed to be one but she wanted to do it.  She filled out the forms or actually I helped her, I was 11 by then, and she had to go to some court in Mineola and I went with her on the train and ultimately she was made a citizen. There was no big ceremony.  She was just sworn in. That was April 12, 1955. Why do I remember that date? She said it was the same day FDR died 10 years earlier and she adored FDR.  That was over 40 years after she arrived in the U.S. She was more my Mother than my actual Mother and she is the one from whom I got all my attitude.