Transcript

I'm Keith Olbermann and this is The Resistance.

When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me of a dream he had

again and again starting in the late 50s.

He was at his draftsman desk,

looking out his office window

in Union Square in New York City

watching a perfect spring day

trotting towards its sunset

hearing the sounds of life and humanity

through the open window

and perceiving with his artist eye

the balance of the contrasting colors

of the vivid sky and the city more vivid still beneath.

And then noticing, out at the horizon,

over the water, the mushroom cloud.

It was a nightmare

but it was one rooted horrifically

in a reality of nuclear annihilation.

The nightmare that got just a little bit worse

every day, and which as he noted,

you then had to pretend wasn't reality.

And you had to pretend wasn't getting worse everyday.

And you had to pretend wasn't abnormal.

And you had to pretend wasn't inhuman.

And you had to pretend it wasn't unacceptable

until you ended the day exhausted

by the sheer amount of your life

spent pretending that it was just fine.

Better to find ways, small ones,

symbolic ones, if possible, financial ones

to fight back.

You're spending just as much energy, he said.

I was too young to share his nightmare

an he is gone too many years to share mine

but wise words stand the test of time

and his words were wise.

At the pussy grabber in Chief's victory party,

a woman named Omarosa Manigault,

who was briefly on television,

said of people who did not vote for him,

I would never judge anybody for exercising their right to

and the freedom to choose who they want,

but let me just tell you, Mr. Trump has a long memory

and we're keeping a list.

We have to pretend that isn't abnormal.

Then the Chief of the Campaign,

is named the Chief Strategist in the White House

and he has a track record a mile long

of antipathy to women and black people

and all of a sudden you realize

Ms. Manigault, who is both, is herself pretending

that he isn't abnormal and she isn't a target.

And then we get half a dozen different answers

about whether or not the victor

in the presidential election, who lost the popular vote,

is going to shatter all precedent

by fulfilling his campaign boast

and become personally involved

in the prosecution of the loser in that election.

And all of a sudden, the media,

is pretending that this isn't abnormal.

And last Sunday, the President elect,

who lost the popular vote,

finally speaks about the Clintons

and says I don't want to hurt them,

I don't want to hurt them,

they're, they're good people.

As if the decision whether or not

to prosecute somebody in this country

is to be decided about

how the President personally feels about them.

And now we all have to pretend that this isn't abnormal.

Then the outgoing Minority Leader of the Senate,

Harry Reid, actually doesn't pretend.

And he says the election,

has emboldened the forces of hate and bigotry in America

and is being celebrated by white nationalists,

Putin, and ISIS, while innocent, law abiding Americans

are wracked with fear.

To which the campaign manager of the Banana Republicans,

Kellyanne Conway replies, He should be very careful

about characterizing somebody in a legal sense.

He thinks he's just being

some kind of political pundit here,

but I would say be very careful

about the way you characterize it.

And then Ms. Conway pretends

she wasn't referring to a lawsuit

even though she used the phrase legal sense.

Which I guess necessarily means

she was just referring not to a lawsuit

but to a prosecution.

And once again, we must pretend this isn't abnormal.

And the CNN headline after it, actually reads,

Conway, Reid trade barbs over Trump.

As if criticism and threats against the first amendment

are somehow equivalent and the pretending escalates.

And it is reported that the transition team

allegedly asked the White House

how the children of this man

could receive top secret security clearance.

The children who were supposed to be running

the anything but blind business trust.

That we have to pretend is a real blind business trust.

A trust for the man who we have to pretend

did not spend the campaign accusing his opponent

of mishandling classified information.

And then the radio conspiracy peddler, Alex Jones,

announces Trump has phoned to thank him

and to promise to be on his show soon.

And now we have to pretend Alex Jones

hasn't claimed that the massacre at Sandy Hook

was staged and we have to pretend

that he isn't crazy.

And we have to pretend

that it's not abnormal for a man

elected President of the United States

to even acknowledge that an Alex Jones exists,

let alone to feed his machine of madness and brutality.

And then the Cabinet names start falling.

And we have to pretend Giuliani

isn't an international, political whore

who hasn't taken money from repressive elements

everywhere from Qatar to El Salvador

and who's now consulting Uber.

But of course they all have to pretend as well.

They have to pretend that there aren't still avenues

open to us for economic blow back.

Giuliani, Uber, stop using Uber.

Alex Jones, that creature is on a hundred radio stations,

google them, call them up,

identify their advertisers, boycott their advertisers.

The ludicrous media equivalencies

and the euphemisms that normalize hate

and enable pretending.

Don't tweet, don't call the writer, don't call the editor.

Call the President of News

or his boss at his corporation.

I promise you, from personal experience,

they always overreact.

Trump's hidden tax returns

and the first for profit presidency.

How many Trump businesses can you avoid?

How many firms that applauded his election,

like New Balance, can you make go bankrupt?

Just this week, the owners and residents

of three New York apartment buildings

got the names of their places changed.

They are now 140 Riverside Dr,

160 Riverside Dr, and 180 Riverside Dr.

They were Trump Place.

These are the kinds of protests against pretending

that we can make

and the kind that will hit the ego elect the hardest.

That and forever referring to the fact,

that he lost the popular vote.

And then we gear up for the biggest fight

against pretending of our lives.

That man elected by a minority of voters

says he will immediately incarcerate or deport

two to three million undocumented Americans.

Which is roughly the same number of people

who live in Houston Texas.

Which is roughly the same number of people

who are already in all of the federal prisons

and all the state prisons

and all the county jails

and all the city jails

and all the ICE detention facilities

and all the Navy brigs

and the Army stockades

and all the military disciplinary barracks.

All of them combined, which leaves no inference possible

except that he somehow means to

take two to three million people

off our streets and keep them somewhere

until they can be jailed or deported

and that we again have to pretend

that this somewhere for a population

roughly the same size as all the prisoners,

in all the jails in this country right now.

We have to pretend that this will not

involve concentration camps.

But don't worry, he's unifying the nation.

Kellyanne Conway said so.

Go back to pretending.

This isn't getting worse everyday.

This isn't abnormal.

This isn't inhuman.

This isn't unacceptable.

Resist.

Peace.