Everyone around me is losing it to some degree or another, and as I'm coming out of the emotional bunker that is my default reaction to, well, anything, I'm having a hard time feeling the same.
Yes, I'm unhappy Trump won, and yes, I'm angry at the Democrats for fucking the dog.
But I'm having a hard time rending my garments the way everyone else seems to be. Honestly I feel better than I have in awhile, simply because the whole thing is over, and we can get on with our lives. As Stephen Colbert said in his amazing sign-off last night, we have to make room for other things. Don't forget too that Obama's election (both times) was literally the end of the country for some, and we're still here.
More to the point, I don't think the end is really nigh. Unless Trump legit causes the apocalypse, the odds of which are small, I'm not convinced it's going to be that bad. Trump's incompetence means he's unlikely to accomplish much of his agenda. His thin skin and resentful nature mean he's going to have a hard time building coalitions in Congress, even with Republicans (especially with those who have snubbed him recently). It's hard to know if he'll just rubber-stamp everything Congress wants to do or if he'll get into petty squabbling with them (which would be better). I also think it's important to remember that his platform is so non-distinct that we don't really know what it is (and I suspect neither does he), so it's tough to evaluate it. And this is an important thing to remember: we have to find out what he's actually going to do rather than project our own fears and stereotypes onto a blank (if yellowish) slate. Intellectual snobbery and a refusal to think that working-class voters had any kind of legitimate claims is, in large part, why Trump won. It's easy to dismiss this as a case of people voting against their interests, but Democrats have done a terrible job of addressing the total economic collapse of the middle 2/3 (geographically) of the country.
I don't want to minimize the very real effects on people's lives this election will have, but my concern is only that we're (a) overstating it, and (b) ignoring that a Clinton victory also would've had very real and negative effects for some. It's easy to say that Trump will cause more damage, but the truth is there's no way to know, and in some respects I question that (see above).
At the end of the day, I think there're two possible outcomes. Either things are terrible and he meets a lot of resistance, followed by the Republicans getting their asses kicked in the midterms, or things don't end up being that bad.
In the meantime, I'm hoping that the neoliberal wing of the Democratic party is now well and truly dead, and we can get actual liberal candidate(s) for a change. Why is no one trying to do a leftist version of the Tea Party at the state level?
I also think it's healthy in the long-term for racism and sexism to come out in the open, because then we can identify it and deal with it head on. It's like cleaning a wound, you have to get the putrefaction out first before healing can begin. Plus, if anyone around me secretly feels this way, I'd like to know about it. I did have a thought this morning about how to one day tell my daughter that she shouldn't let anyone treat her the way Trump treats women, but Trump's election means that conversation is actually more likely to happen, that we're not just going to check the "eliminate sexism" box and move on.
As the saying goes, life is not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. Let us hope that voters made the right choice, even if we don't think they did.
With that, I'm done for awhile. I'll reply to comments here, but otherwise I'm going to stay out of political discussion and handwringing. After all, it was intellectuals' complete dismissal of a majority of the country that led to last night's results, and I'm not going to join that particular circlejerk. We get the leaders we deserve, and now it's time to see what that means. Maybe some penance is in order, maybe not. But I hope we on the left have the courage and self-awareness to consider what went wrong, and we have to start by recognizing that there are some people out there that are hurting a lot.
And now, a poem.
To your last point in regards to racism and sexism, there are some good parts to this election cycle. There is no hiding how unbelievably racist and sexist this election has been. A lot of my friends, who are not technically considered part of a marginalized people in any huge manner now realize how much work there is still to be done. Emotions are high and I feel uncomfortable now, but that's just the way of emotions I guess. I'm more curious to see how this anger manifests itself. Will people take this as wake-up call or will they just give up after a while?
Precisely, and those are the kinds of questions we should be asking. Definitely a question of lemons --> lemonade, but if it's that or do nothing, may as well try.
I'm hesitant to express any optimism or point out silver linings because people are so visibly and uncontrollably shaken, especially on Facebook where conversation is much more emotional. And I don't want to dismiss the well-founded fear that people have of being the target, specifically or generally, of the racism that's very alive and well. But individually, we had nothing to do with the result of this election, and therefore aren't morally culpable. And in the category of "realities we had no hand in making" the only rational action is to accept and work within them, and to seek out any new advantages. That doesn't rule out organizing an opposition, working to elect a future Bernie, improving your community, or what have you. I'm most depressed about the global warming can we kicked down the road for at least another four years. I think we're past the point now of making it out of the worst effects of global warming. Republicans are already gleeful at the prospect of cutting corporate taxes and growing the economy. The lower oil prices due to innovations in fracking mean there's much less impetus to pursue a sustainable energy infrastructure. And a president who has made promises to the coal miner to give him his job back suggests that we're in no rush to wean ourselves off dirty fossil fuels.
All of what you say is true, and I agree about the moral responsibility piece. But I guess that's basically my point: we need to stop being so focused on whose fault it is. We are where we are, and the Democrats can either be self-righteous or win, but not both. So let's forget blame and start thinking about what we can do. And that involves changing the narrative and a lot of prayer.
This I agree with, I mean people actually believe him when he says he will be a president for all Americans even when he has already said he would rather let a woman die than allow a late term abortion. Woman aren't people to too many Americans and that's a reality that needs to be faced if anything will ever get better. When the video of him speaking about harassing/assaulting woman came out there were many posts on the internet talking about how woman actually spoke to the men in their lives about the female experience and their own experiences with assault that they never had before. Hell, it provided an opportunity for me to get mad and open up more about my own experiences. Plus, I'm selfish because Canada is looking to boost immigration for educated people to come in and create new technology plus I think we have a prime minister who's got a knack for working things to his advantage. I also think it's healthy in the long-term for racism and sexism to come out in the open, because then we can identify it and deal with it head on.
The best way I can describe it is that I see a Trump presidency as our penance for the working class's failure to take some agency over their own lives, combined with the rest of the country's failure to even acknowledge there's a problem.
I think at the same time we have to understand why others are freaking out. As a woman if I lived in America I would not be comfortable knowing that should I get pregnant in the future, and have complications that need an abortion I might not have that option. It's very easy for some people to say the world hasn't changed but what they are really saying is their world hasn't changed. Many other people are uneasy and worrying about how their world may be changing shortly. Even if it's not policy changes they are worrying about how this affirms some people's sexist or racist ideas and how that will play out in their day to day lives.
I agree with you, but my point is that what you're saying goes both ways. I'm a middle-class, well-educated white guy. My job isn't going to be replaced by a robot anytime soon, and if it is, I'm part of a constituency that the government will take care of. There's a significant swath of the population for whom that is simply not the case. Parts of our country are dying, and the wealthy on the coasts have been content, as they always are, to let them die. As Aaron Sorkin said in an essay about inner city unrest a year or so ago, "sometimes it's the brick." Trump is the brick. Again, everything you're saying is true, and is a problem. But we can't fix that problem while blowing off other problems because we think the people they happen to are dumb. Even if they are, shouldn't we be taking the moral high ground? I used to scoff at the idea of a "compassionate conservative," but at least they're pretending there's something to be compassionate about. Now the Democrats scoff at "morals" in any way, shape, or form, and then have the gall to look confused when they lose. Democrats specifically and the Left generally have become so scared of being labeled as "liberal" or "soft" or whatever that they've taken on the conservative playbook. Belittle your opponents, rally the base. Forget trying to convince other people that you have better ideas. Alienate everyone else so there's no chance of finding common ground. And then we express our horror at how divisive politics has become. But of course, that's the other team's fault! My hope is that the Clintonite, neoliberal wing of the Democratic party is now well and truly buried, and that we can finally get an actual left in the U.S. again. In the meantime, Trump is our penance for failing to take seriously the middle 2/3 of our country (in terms of geography). Swaths of our country are dying, and the Democrats' only response (when they talk about the problem at all) are the same lies about jobs this and jobs that (while taking campaign contributions from the corporations and investor class that are all about outsourcing and technological replacement for workers), combined with what seems like a "handout" to people whose identities are tied into work. There's a total failure to understand the people they say they're trying to save. Two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides, and the demographic with the highest suicide rate in the country are middle-aged white men in the mid-west. 46 per 100,000, while the gun homicide rate was 3.4 (as of 2014). But no, we have to ban assault rifles. Democrats are so scared of losing that they're unwilling to even consider changing the narrative. Trump had no such fear, and we see the results.
I agree with you and I know you mentioned you didn't want to minimize the effects this will have on people's lives. I just wanted to reiterate and expand on that a little since there tends to be a general attitude of thinking people are over reacting when these things happen because some people can't really empathize with the other side. Although I do think bringing the shit out into the open will help in the long term I feel like it's important to point out it's still shit which I forgot to do in my first post. Otherwise that part of the message kind of gets lost.
Yeah, totally true. As I mentioned to blackbootz (also in this thread), it's a case of facing the inevitable. Those bad things will happen to some degree or another. All we have control over is what our response is going to be.