I have read many articles linked on Facebook that try to give reasons for this and i do believe there is blame to go around everywhere, including with the Democrats. But most of all is the astonishing fact that so many people did not vote.
I am not subscribing to the 'love trumps hate' and l'et's all try to get along and be nice'. Now we are asked to support our President (SHIT, their side in the Senate and House never tried to do that why are we supposed to?) He's bringing in some horrible people, starting with those sons of his who look like serial killers who be starring in American Psycho instead of Christian Bale. Nice doesn't ever seem to get us anywhere. Trump tapped into the anger in this country, and to a different degree, so did Bernie Sanders. Hillary was always so careful and measured. But as a woman she wouldn't be able to get away with it in the same way. Look what happens when Elizabeth Warren gets fierce. I feel like we need to get tougher. Fierce. Feisty. Taking no shit. Standing up for what is right and not trying to have it all ways to seemingly please everyone. I did not support Bernie Sanders as the nominee though i did like him. (I had trouble with his pie in the sky ideas, especially about free college tuition for all.) But i had wished Bernie Sanders was chosen as her running mate instead of Tim Kaine.
Political correctness does go too far. I think i wrote here somewhere about the Pacific Lutheran University billboards "Words Can Hurt". from a few years ago I liked them at first: 'ghetto', 'homo', 'illegal'. But then came 'exotic' and 'what are you?' and that gave me pause. Maybe i need to ask my niece Jessica who is part black and how this makes her feel. Is it really so bad to want to know the heritage of someone you know or just met? Jessica could pass for Native American and Hispanic. And she does look 'exotic'. (Which i always thought was a nice word. ) People get jumped on often for the slightest words, when they mean no malice. And then what was okay before is no longer okay today. So yeah, maybe the folks who can't stand this about we liberals are fed up and want us to shut up. And they shut us up didn't they? By voting.
I also believe Van Jones was correct about the 'white-lash'....that the vote for Trump is a backlash for Black Lives Matter movement and the misunderstanding of what that was. And of course, it's about the Supreme Court.
And certainly that FBI fucker didn't help. And Hillary made the mistake Kerry did when he was Swiftboated. She should have come out swinging. While i admire her ability to keep it together there is a part of me that wanted to see a glimpse of the real Hillary behind the scenes.
Facebook hurt too. Folks are so quick to vote by headlines and memes and believe the outright lies that are a part of them. (I think it was Bill Maher that said Americans will spend more time researching on Yelp on where to find the perfect taco than they do voting their ballot. )
I am sad. I am as sad as anyone. But i have to say this too: I am tired already of the handwringing, obsession and crying (sobbing even!) about the outcome. Right now i don't even want to read more horrible news about what Trump is going to do or not do. (I don't need one more reason to be afraid or sad! )
I was very lazy with this election, (the laziest since before Al Gore). But we live in a blue state and i our state did indeed vote that way without my help as i expected they would. And i am so burned out on local politics because it was a huge part of my job and when i retired i wanted to be retired from some of that stuff i used to have to do.
But there are many folks who spend hours and hours who have been pissed off all year long, posting about how horrible Trump is. And many live in states that are not blue, where maybe they could have made a difference if they got off their ass off Facebook and showed up to Hillary headquarters. I don't know what to do except right now write a check to NARAL and Planned Parenthood, which i did this morning.
I have no answers or ideas on how to bridge the divide between us. I am afraid of what a Trump presidency is going to do because Making America Great Again is a scary mission statement. Keeping America Great i can subscribe to. But that word 'Again" i fear is about taking us back in time where it sucked for so many, except for white men. In the past years we have made such great strides in being more inclusive of more Americans who were so discriminated against. What happens now?
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One of the coolest things that happened on election night was my niece Ashley texting me when it started looking bad. She is one of my nieces who actually asked for my help voting this year. This is what she wrote:
"Are you doing okay? Hope you have enough wine to get you through the night."
What pisses me off about the election the most. In order. #1 being what pisses me off the most.
1. Bernie supporters who voted for Trump,
2. Bernie supporters who didn't vote at all or still wrote in Bernie's name, know full well how dangerous this was. I would not have minded so much if the nominee was Romney or Jeb Bush. Stubborn fucks.
3. People who didn't vote at all because they feel like there is no difference in the candidates.
4. The media who gave him his free attention (over $1 billion dollar's worth I read in more than one article) and gave him a legitimate voice to a good part of the country I didn't know existed. Had they not done that I believe no one would have paid attention to Trump and the nominee would have been Mark Rubio or Jeb Bush. At least with Bush the playing field was equal - nobody new in the game and both sides with fatigue from these two dynasties.
5. The fringe of Trump supporters who truly are supporting him because they hate gays, blacks, Hispanics and feel that their country has been taken away from them.
6. Trump himself. No explanation needed. I don't put him at the top though because I feel like so much could have happened that would have stopped him. You know how a kid gets mad at their mom more than the dad who actually beat them up because the mom didn't protect them and she was supposed to be the sane one? That's kind of where I'm going.
7. The Democrats for not understanding what was going down and living in their own bubble. I do feel the Bernie folks have a good bone to pick with the DNC over their candidate. They better learn something from this. Actually this might be #6.
8. People on Facebook who are baiting and gloating. And those fucking anarchists who show up to protests and disrupt everything and make it look like the protestors are the total dicks tearing the cities apart.
9. I think I am missing something but I will have to come back to it cause were on our way to my brother's house to play cards!
I will end on a positive note: I think (hope) two good things will come out of this election. Women fighting back on sexual harassment. I think we learned a lot from Anita Hill back in the 90's but kind of forgot again. I think that we will be standing stronger. We did elect what looks to be like some good women this year. Did I hear we now have 21 women in the Senate? It wasn't that long ago that our photographer friend went to DC and photographed 7 women.
The second thing is I believe the Democratic Party is going to have to do some work. We have lost ground with unions and that scares me because that is my livelihood and with a new Supreme Court it could happen. They have lost a good part of their working class base. They can be pretty namely pamby, my favorite word for them. They need to quit being afraid to be tough. And when they need to get down and dirty they should get down and dirty because it obviously worked for Trump. They need to find out why people are not voting.
NAMBY PAMBY... I wish I had an edit button. Seems like on my own blog I would have that power. But no!
I need to add one more thing. I think the wearing of safety pins is DUMB!!! I see this all over my newsfeed - this idea that we wear safety pins to show others that they are 'safe' people and to show solidarity, especially to the very folks that Trump has insulted and discounted during this election.
I understand that this comes from Brexit and has been adopted now by folks who are so upset over Trump being president. Whatever. I suppose it's no different than me affixing my Hillary/Kaine bumper sticker to the inside of my glass door to prove I am not someone who voted for Trump in my conservative community, or wearing my Hillary t-shirt still (though I am not going to continue wearing it out in public, except maybe run in it).
But the safety pins seem like a lazy way to say, ok, I'm doing something! And it's only a matter of time before someone finds a way to make them cuter and market them for their own personal gain. PLUS there is nothing stopping a Trump person from wearing them. If I were a Muslim I would not look at someone wearing a safety pin, thinking oh, I am so safe now. Maybe if there was a solid pledge that everyone wearing such a pin would risk their life and limb and would stand up and do something when they see the KKK march in victory or when a guy grabs some woman's p*$sy on the train or when someone shouts out racial slurs to people on the street. But unless someone is willing to take out that safety pin and threaten to poke someone's eye out with it if they bear witness to this kind of crap then I don't see what a good goddamn thing the safety pin does.
Also I see lots of stuff in my news feed of examples of what has been happening around the country that reeks of Jim Crow. It's astounding. I want to write it off as fake, maybe some anti-Trump folks setting up such props (such as the index card taped over two water fountains where one says 'colored' and the other says 'white') but I'm afraid it's not. I grew up my first few elementary school years in Louisiana and lived with those laws. It's not too hard to believe that Trump has given allowance to let folks be out with their feelings of prejudice.
Anyway, I had to rant about the safety pins. I was going to make it a brand new post but decided I need to vent on one blog post for now and then maybe try and find a nice new subject for the next one when I post it.
I forgot one of the other Words Can Hurt billboards. Don't know why either because it was the final one and it put me over the top. The word was "lame". PLU thinks you should not be using the word "lame". How crazy over the top political correctness that is.
I agree with everything you wrote here (and that was before reading about Pence who supported "conversion therapy" for gay children (torture) and subsequent cabinet appointments. I get sicker about every day I read something new and horrible he's said/done. I haven't been wearing the safety pins, but I would disagree there because there are some states, like Oklahoma, where many things stay quiet, because had I had a Hillary sign in my yard, I might have had my house vandalized. It's like THAT here. It's always been a red state, but you would not believe the level of hate for Hillary here, and no amount of campaigning would have turned Oklahoma blue (it never has been in my recollection). I still expected her to win. I'd had a friend from Missouri visit the month prior and asked her if she was SURE, because in my part of the world it was Trump Country. She said yes, and this guy who'd always predicted it right (Nate Silver?) had predicted the Electoral College would prevent it. My jaw dropped the night of the election. And the reason I'd wear the safety pin around here is because there are a LARGE amount of groups who are uncertain now, not just women and Muslims, but gays, immigrants, etc. I see a lot of them around Tulsa. People are afraid to speak up here because it can turn violent, and I mean that very literally. If a safety pin sends a silent message of "I've got your back" and makes someone feel safer, I'd wear it. Not a "cutesy" one, but I do need to fish one out and start wearing it. I was searching for potential Hillary supporters around work and in the community, but everyone kept pretty silent. When I posted on Facebook I got crap for "upsetting" people. Now I wish I'd posted more. I took it for granted from all the polls and media announcing it like she had it in the bag we were safe. She DID win the popular vote by over 2 million! It's crazy. More people voted for her, but because of the Electoral College, it doesn't matter. Yet before the election, it was predicted to go just the opposite. It's pretty sickening.
One funny thing - I saw that Bill Maher episode you mentioned before I read this and emailed you about it!
As of 12/03 when I respond to this, President Elect Drump has already angered China by calling Taiwan. I don't have a good feeling about the next 4 years, and God help us if it's 8. I've tried watching late night comedians to feel better, but nothing really does. Kate McKinnon's "Hallelujah" cold open for SNL the Saturday after the election gave me chills. In her words, "I'm not giving up....and neither should you!"
Cat... You were the one person that made me realize after the election that I was comfortably living in my bubble. You were worried about the election when I naively and stupidly thought we had it in the bag. I hear what you say about the safety pins.
Well, to my shame, after saying I'd do it, I never did!!! I don't see anyone else doing it now either. No one is really discussing politics here. It's truly a divided nation, like Stephen Colbert said. The challenge for me now is to stay alert, attuned, and not to tune out in disgust, because as Bill Maher says, we're still here, and we need fighters for "the Resistance!" I hope you keep writing your blog and posting. Personally, I think you need to have a book out! :)
Happy New Year!
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