Lamia Imam (@ Sassy Little Hobbit) / President Donald Trump Photo: Supplied / AFP
Texas-based New Zealander Lamia Imam (aka Sassy Little Hobbit) has been tweeting a daily update of Donald Trump's frequently surprising American presidency.
The former Labour Party staffer now works for a tech company in Texas.
Lamia found the presidential inauguration "a bit too intense" to watch live, but after watching a televised recap she tweeted this:
Day 1: pretty shit eh
— Sassy Little Hobbit (@LI_politico) January 21, 2017
The urge to document the presidency came from it feeling so surreal, says Lamia, who works as a writer and communications consultant in Austin.
She initially thought she'd do it for the first week… then the first 100 days... then the first year.
"It just seemed to be getting crazier and crazier … and then I just couldn't stop because it just keeps getting crazier."
When she writes each daily tweet, all the previous ones come up and occasionally Lamia scrolls through, often in disbelief as she is reminded of all that has happened in the last 472 days.
Day 440: Threw away ‘boring’ tax script that was written for him and went on a rant about Mexican rapists and illegal voting claims.
— Sassy Little Hobbit (@LI_politico) April 6, 2018
Lamia says she doesn't understand why Trump still commands between 30 and 40 percent support and why people put up with behaviour that would have been deemed unacceptable by any former president.
"The fact that he dictated his own health letter to the doctor, that would be a scandal, that would be, I think, a resignation-worthy scandal, but it kind of flew past us. And, honestly, I don't think anyone is surprised that he dictated it."
The Trump presidency has revealed the weakness of American public institutions, she says.
In particular, she is shocked that no-one acknowledges voter suppression there.
"Right before this election, the Voting Rights Act was dismantled by the US Supreme Court because they didn't think they needed it. As a result, a lot of minorities are not voting or cannot vote."
Photo: AFP / Pool via CNP
Russian interference in American politics is "probably a thing", Lamia says, but she believes Trump would have been voted in either way.
"He didn't change. He was exactly who he was from the day he announced his campaign… we already knew who he was. It wouldn't have mattered whatever the Russian meddling was, people had already made up their mind. There was a certain group of people who were always going to vote for him."
Lamia plans to tweet out the duration of Trump's presidency.
"I used to take breaks from Twitter but because of this I can't take breaks from Twitter."
