It's been a month and change since the election. The last post I wrote was in response to the outcome of the voting. Today the Elecoral College will certify Donald J. Trump's victory by voting their candidate into the White House. I had hoped that Hillary would not be the nominee after Bernie Sanders did such an unexpectedly good job challenging her, and once the delegates were counted, the rebellion we hoped for didn't materialize...I'm confident the feelings expounded in the past weeks about the Electors staging a similar vote of conscience will go the same way - namely nowhere, and we will install a fascist bully, bigot and misogynist as the the 45th President of the United States a month from now.
I have lost sleep about this. I wake up, as do many of my friends, at 4:00 am filled with disbelief and dread. I am appalled at what we have done...at what so many of my countrymen have been duped into believing is a good idea. I can barely watch the news, news feeds on the internet, Facebook. Since the election the media has been stuffed full of articles about Trump, Trump tweets and retweets, Trumpers' hate crimes, insensitive, ignorant, mean, even vicious comments and graffiti– a rising tide of vocal expressions against everything I thought we stood for, everything I have believed in all my adult life. As a nation, we have voted outspokenly for bigotry instead of diversity, greed instead of equality, anger instead of hope, division instead of unity, simplistic rhetoric instead of critical thinking. And we have announced to the world that we are far worse than anyone imagined we could be.
England has rejected many of the same ideals I thought they held dear. Italy, France, Hungary and other members of the EU are leaning further to the right in response to the continuing influx of Syrian refugees, economic stagnation and Muslim extremist acts of terror (whether they are, in fact, Muslim-based or not). Russia and Syria are orchestrating mass executions in Alleppo, and no one cares enough to stand up to them - not even Obama, who everyone with experience agrees is far better a leader than Trump could ever hope to be. So it's not just us. But it IS us now, and for the next four (only four, I hope) years. Even if DT does something else inordinately stupid, and most predict he will, and gets run out of office, his replacement, Mike fucking Pence, is very possily a WORSE man for the job, with his self-righteous religious agenda that again is anti-everything I believe in. The cabinet appointees that Trump is proposing are amazingly unqualified, and astoundingly pro-corporation, capitalist oligarchs. All the signs point to the right - and except for the uber-wealthy, we are in deep shit for the forseeable future.
So what now? What can we do to forstall this sea-change? Build walls between us and the rest of humanity? Escape? Become ex-pats with no place to call home? Not many of us have that choice even available to us. THIS is why I'm losing sleep these days. I have no clear answer. I feel helpless, powerless to stop this reality from coming down the rails at me, and I feel as trapped as if my family and I were tied up and thrown across the tracks. I have raged against it - see my most recent blog posts if you haven't read them. I have cried. I have most recently slipped into a deep depression. Part of me is afraid that DT will rise like Hitler to a position of Dictator-for-Life. That is the bogeyman I fear most. But over the past two days I have discussed my overwhelming trepidation with my wife and two of my best friends, and I feel that I need to get past the fear. At breakfast today, Michael said to me, "Action is the remedy against despair," and suggested I do exactly what I am doing now. Add my voice, my passion to the clamor that says, "No." So here I am. I am going to stay off Facebook and social media for a while. I am going to read the news sparingly, and I am going to share my feelings here. As long as I can, as long as it takes. I WILL get over this. Once you get past the DT's, you can come out the other side. So here I go. Bracing for withdrawal... it'll get worse before it gets better, but it WILL get better. I have to believe that...for my children, for my grandchildren. And I need to fight this, each day, for them.
I have lost sleep about this. I wake up, as do many of my friends, at 4:00 am filled with disbelief and dread. I am appalled at what we have done...at what so many of my countrymen have been duped into believing is a good idea. I can barely watch the news, news feeds on the internet, Facebook. Since the election the media has been stuffed full of articles about Trump, Trump tweets and retweets, Trumpers' hate crimes, insensitive, ignorant, mean, even vicious comments and graffiti– a rising tide of vocal expressions against everything I thought we stood for, everything I have believed in all my adult life. As a nation, we have voted outspokenly for bigotry instead of diversity, greed instead of equality, anger instead of hope, division instead of unity, simplistic rhetoric instead of critical thinking. And we have announced to the world that we are far worse than anyone imagined we could be.
England has rejected many of the same ideals I thought they held dear. Italy, France, Hungary and other members of the EU are leaning further to the right in response to the continuing influx of Syrian refugees, economic stagnation and Muslim extremist acts of terror (whether they are, in fact, Muslim-based or not). Russia and Syria are orchestrating mass executions in Alleppo, and no one cares enough to stand up to them - not even Obama, who everyone with experience agrees is far better a leader than Trump could ever hope to be. So it's not just us. But it IS us now, and for the next four (only four, I hope) years. Even if DT does something else inordinately stupid, and most predict he will, and gets run out of office, his replacement, Mike fucking Pence, is very possily a WORSE man for the job, with his self-righteous religious agenda that again is anti-everything I believe in. The cabinet appointees that Trump is proposing are amazingly unqualified, and astoundingly pro-corporation, capitalist oligarchs. All the signs point to the right - and except for the uber-wealthy, we are in deep shit for the forseeable future.
So what now? What can we do to forstall this sea-change? Build walls between us and the rest of humanity? Escape? Become ex-pats with no place to call home? Not many of us have that choice even available to us. THIS is why I'm losing sleep these days. I have no clear answer. I feel helpless, powerless to stop this reality from coming down the rails at me, and I feel as trapped as if my family and I were tied up and thrown across the tracks. I have raged against it - see my most recent blog posts if you haven't read them. I have cried. I have most recently slipped into a deep depression. Part of me is afraid that DT will rise like Hitler to a position of Dictator-for-Life. That is the bogeyman I fear most. But over the past two days I have discussed my overwhelming trepidation with my wife and two of my best friends, and I feel that I need to get past the fear. At breakfast today, Michael said to me, "Action is the remedy against despair," and suggested I do exactly what I am doing now. Add my voice, my passion to the clamor that says, "No." So here I am. I am going to stay off Facebook and social media for a while. I am going to read the news sparingly, and I am going to share my feelings here. As long as I can, as long as it takes. I WILL get over this. Once you get past the DT's, you can come out the other side. So here I go. Bracing for withdrawal... it'll get worse before it gets better, but it WILL get better. I have to believe that...for my children, for my grandchildren. And I need to fight this, each day, for them.
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