Trump won. What now? Dear god, what now?
What do you do when your country elects a racist, misogynist, morally bankrupt unsuccessful businessman as president and national humiliation?
Well. I don’t know about you, but I had ice cream and wine for breakfast.
What next? Beats me. I’m tempted to stock up on canned goods in preparation for civil war. Or just start drinking. My brain keeps suggesting the names of countries around the world not populated with racists, misogynists, xenophobes etc. Or maybe I just give up hope for this country, it was good while it lasted, and laugh while the whole thing burns.
I find myself waiting for an FBI report to come out saying “Russia rigged the election! Don’t worry America, you ARE better than this!”
But no, time to face facts. Trump won. Against all reason or logic or moral consistency, Trump won. So how could this election be a good thing? There has to be a way. Some light of hope. A couple ways come to mind.
Even the Republican Party knows how awful Trump is. If they have any shred of decency left, they’ll oppose him from within. That could reclaim the GOP for sanity. For the principles they claim to support, but have strayed away from. They played a dangerous game when they harnessed the power of racism and ignorance through the Tea Party, and it’s turned out that they were tying themselves to rabid dogs. Will they cut the cord now?
And maybe it will be the salvation of the Democratic Party to lose this election. For too long the Democrats have been a substandard semi-Republican party. Lapdogs to Wall Street, unwilling to take real positions to improve the illnesses of this country, tax cuts and ignore the poor. Maybe now those political minds will wake up to the changed nature of reality. Stop pivoting and start telling the truth. Which would mean actually pursuing honest policies. That is, find their souls and their cajones. (Hint: look to Bernie.)
Maybe we on the left will demand they be better. Maybe We of the Sane will mourn for a moment, then organize instead of just bitching. And who knows, maybe it would even work?
For too long the political class in this country has ignored the masses and treated them like idiots, assuming they would never get their act together enough to threaten the status quo. After all, democracy is not a threat when the elite chooses the candidates. They dumbed us down until we were more focused on American Idol than America.
But that was their mistake. Because it taught too many of us to vote for the shiny, with no criteria for intelligence or substance. Those on top taught the middle to blame the low, and the low to blame the bottom. But they never expected the masses to demand the lowest intelligence, the most impoverished morality, the (let’s be honest) scum of the nation. The lowest common denominator, which has been the centerpiece of reality TV for 20 years. It’s only poetic irony that the fool they elected is actually one of those idiotic centerpieces.
Remember this one? Paint an orange toupee on that mean fish and let’s go.
Yesterday the flawed system collapsed. I would have preferred the tower had tipped over to Good, but either way, America today is different than America yesterday. The question now is what will we build for tomorrow?
Yikes
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Hugs!
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When I heard Trump had won, I wondered if you would do a post! Thanks for sharing with the world the views from inside America.
It certainly has shocked the world just as Brexit!
One thing is for sure no matter which side of the ‘pond’ we are all in for a shake up and wake up!
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The area I live in is so heavily Left that you can approach anyone on the street and offer them condolences, and they know exactly what you’re talking about. I’ve had a couple Right Wing friends have yet another go at Hillary, but even they can’t think of anything nice to say about Trumpo.
As you say, we’re definitely all in for a shake up and wake up. I’m just curious to see if we wake up to our better natures, or if Trump/Putin/Duterte dictators rise in other countries. Le Pen seems ready in France, and a number of other countries have them waiting in the wings (usually funded by Putin), and if we give them power, it’s just a matter of time until we get a spark that can send us back into humanity’s eternal loop of totally unexpected and tragically predictable bloodshed and collapse.
I’m going to go eat some more ice cream. 😉
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Ice cream and wine sounds reasonable for a day like today
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Doesn’t it just? And that might continue or reoccur at regular intervals for the foreseeable future. I feel like I should invest in Ben & Jerry’s…
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Yup, majorly freaked out. It’s so hard to believe…like an evil game show. And he foments hatred. Anyway, great post.
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It’s so shockingly clear what a terrible human being and terrible president he is. What’s harder to see is how he was inevitable in a system that consistently ignored massive swaths of the electorate, and doesn’t properly educate them on how good they have it, how to get it better through positive means, and who is actually to blame for their neglect and desperation. So we get Trump. And the human species moves back towards its cycle of collapse. (If the EU goes, we all go with it at this point. Putin’s not going to be content with just the eastern Baltics.)
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At least he promised that we’d have beautiful airports. As for everything else, I hope there’s a silver lining, but right now it feels as if we are entering a new dark age. In the meantime, this article may give you a smile: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/opinion/ten-step-program-for-adjusting-to-president-elect-trump.html?_r=0.
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That’s a great article, thank you.
And indeed, it was interesting to hear that during his gloating- sorry, “Acceptance Speech” he needed to come up with an initial realistic policy to set the stage, had none, so grabbed Hillary’s infrastructure plans. I guess even a colossal ignoramus has to acknowledge a good idea when he sees one. But just the one. 😉
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Oh brother, please rest and know that all will be well.
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As long as you’re not a member of his list of victimized “Others” who now have to worry about the violence and intolerance he legitimizes. But as for the rest, we’ll move forward…one step at a time…unless those steps include the election of more leaders like Trump who don’t understand diplomacy, in which case we get a weakened EU, Russian aggression, and…
But most likely human reason will win out, elsewhere, and we will indeed be just fine. Fingers crossed.
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Same here, i had ice cream and red wine, but later in the night, seemed to be comforting.
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If one were to make ice cream FROM red wine…. But no, the alcohol would mess with the freezing process, right? But gelato on the other hand, that has a much higher freezing point… (if someone makes wine gelato and a bajillion euros, they owe me a free scoop.)
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Ugh, ice cream from RED, never thought about this, maybe just like a sorbet. But I like more the creamy ice cream.
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