I’m trying, trying to escape the pit of despair. I’m not doing very well.
Went to a march in Golden Gate Park organized by the folks who run the Richmond District Blog. Lovely day. Nice people. All on the same side, happy to be together aligned against the dark side.
Didn’t help. There is no denying what this election says about America. There is no way to avoid the conclusion that racism, xenophobia, hate, misogyny, and ignorance have seeped to the surface because he made it acceptable.
I don’t want to hear about how he’ll moderate his views now that he’s faced with the reality of governing. I don’t want to hear about how he said all those things just to get elected. I don’t believe it and it doesn’t matter because by saying them he revealed what America really wants and believes. He gave the haters permission and they responded.
Take all that hatred, now socially acceptable, combine it with all the guns in this country and the growing right to wear them in public, and you have a prescription for a tsunami of violence. Hate crimes rose dramatically in Britain after the Brexit vote but their firepower pales in comparison to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
So much damage already done. So much worse to come. I’m looking, but I can’t see the light.
And then the death of Leonard Cohen. So long Leonard, no longer playing in the places where he used to ache. At least we still have the music.
©2016 Ron Scherl
Fear, loathing, and despair are appropriate reactions to the reality that has been visited upon us. But let’s remember that the True Villains are voter supression tactics employed by the GOP consistently and even more aggressively since the Supreme Court called a halt to the Voting Rights Act.
Thanks Mike,
Appreciate your thoughts and I agree but they wouldn’t have been close enough to make that work if Democrats had not ignored the destruction of the middle class and the obscene scale of income inequality.
I read a piece yesterday that said we need to work through the anger and feeling of loss because our candidate didn’t win. But I realized that’s not why I’m angry. I’m angry because 1/2 of those who voted put someone into office that will make colossal mistakes and put us on a road that no one will want to be on. And then those same voters will want the rest of us to bail them out. I don’t really want to feel compassion for Florida as it slips under the ocean or as the gulf coast is hit by yet another epic hurricane. Do we really have an obligation to help them when they no longer have affordable insurance?
I’m trying to figure out a legal scheme or loophole in the tax code where we can all avoid paying taxes for the next 4 years.
I’ve had to turn off the news and cut my ties with Facebook just to keep my anger in check. I don’t want to watch this train wreck. But I also don’t want to live with this anger either. It’s not healthy. I think my therapy is to have more dinners with friends and drink more good wine.
Karl,
Anger is certainly not healthy. It “riles up the blood:, as Satchel Paige once said about fried food, but we cannot allow a Trump presidency to be normalized, as Obama and Clinton seem to be suggesting. I suppose they feel they have to do that “for the good of the country and to bring us together”, but I think they’re wrong. He is a dangerous man, ignorant, arrogant, and autocratic. Getting behind him and giving him a chance is the worst thing we can do for our country.
I agree but I’m not sure how to really make a difference. In those moments where some snippet of news slips through to me, I’m shocked at the ugly implications of his presidency. I feel we have gone from a 1st world democracy to a 3rd world disaster where the president will use his office to enrich himself and his cronies while manufacturing _____-phobic strife to stay in power while the economy and ecology tanks. All of which will cause real unrest.
I don’t want to stay silent but I’m not sure how to make my voice heard.
I’m quite late coming to this conversation, but I decided after the election that since enough people voted for Trump to get him elected, they deserve him and what they will get as a result. I think they are in for a rude awakening when they finally realize that he’s not close to the caliber of person they thought he was. I hope that I’m the one that’s wrong because I do want what’s good for the country, but most of his picks to date for his cabinet and other officials make me certain that I am totally correct in my judgment.
In the 2016 New York Republican Presidential Primary the people that know him best, the people of Manhattan, totally rejected him. That should have been a sign to the Trumpets.