The Point Is Nov. 12-30, 2016

 

Wikimedia Commons images with attributions:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-10460,_Adolf_Hitler,_Rednerposen.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mr_Donald_Trump_New_Hampshire_Town_Hall_on_August_19th,_2015_at_Pinkerton
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The point is not that a dangerously out-of-control narcissist & racist & woman-hater pro-Russian has been elected to be our new president. In an election influenced by Russian hacking. One of the new generation of Robber Barons.

Besides praying that he somehow finds a connection to reality that isn't a mirror (and for someone who has lived all his life without it, that's unlikely), we can hope that the constraints of an actual political position will restrain him.* He would find that frustrating. Of course, his behind-the-scene white supremacist friends will be busy, whatever he does. (bannon, his chief of staff pick, from breitbart.) [*It won't restrain the repugs in congress though.]

The point is that his election was enabled by voter suppression since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the supreme court, and fueled by a protest vote from millions for whom the system has not been working for a long time, and with gasoline thrown on the flame by hundreds of very profitable Fake News sites and stories, which the Right passes around like poisoned KoolAid, since they are the not-connected-to-reality side of the population, without any critical thinking skills, and cannot tell the difference between Fake and real news… [Several reports during the last week, including more than one FakeNews purveyor who said that they tried to sell FakeNews to the Left, but they wouldn't buy it. "It's debunked by the second comment, and they don't share it." (On the Media interview approx 11/20)]

The point is that his election has brought his other supporters out of the woodwork like bugs. Emboldened and empowered. All the old-time-haters, liberated. KKK.* Neo-nazis.** White supremacists. Racists, woman-haters, sexual assaulters. Immigrant-bashers, Islamophobes.*** Rabid racist anti-government gun-nuts. And their children.****
[* david duke's joy at election - I won't link since I don't want to give him traffic.
** spencer at a white supremacist meeting, shouting "hail trump", and being answered with nazi salutes. (leaked video)
*** High school girl whose classmate came up behind her and tried to pull off her hijab, shouting racial epithets.(This American Life 11/11/2016)
**** School boy who grabbed a young girl's crotch and shouted "if the president can do it i can too".(TAL 11/11/2016)]

The Southern Poverty Law Center said that by a week after the election, there had been over 700 hate crimes and hate incidents, almost all by trump supporters. They hadn't seen anything like it since the day after President Obama's election. And, of course, it's the same people, encouraged now to do more, to keep on doing it. Even though dt said to stop it. That's their notion of celebration - commit hate crimes.

And all those voters, who say they are of course not racists, but are ok with racism, woman-hating, and everything else, demonstrably, because they could vote for a man who talks and acts like that.

I'd like to think there is some hope sooner than outliving all those evil old racist white men. But apparently they have taught many of their kids to be just as bad. Half of the hate crimes and hate incidents have happened in schools. 

And sooner than outliving the rich who believe in the new Social Darwinism*, the survival of only the richest.[* Funny because, not being connected to reality, denying science, they don't believe in evolution.]

And, the problem is, when they remove health care from millions of us, they will be increasing our death rate, not their own. Fewer of us will outlive them.
[Try to convince me that that is not part of their plan – hooray, fewer voters on the Left.]

But my country will not be taken over by white supremacists and robber barons without a fight. To the death.

And there are a lot of us who already believe this, as shown by the continuing protests around the country. We will not be convinced to accept politics-as-usual, make nice, come together and support the president, get over it, sit down and shut up for 4 more years and forever.


Because autocracies do not allow free speech.

My America includes everybody. It is fair to everybody.

My ⚐America includes everybody. It is fair to everybody.

I was not caught by surprise as much as many Hillary supporters were, who were hoping to see the first woman president elected, and have their view that we had outlived the old hates validated.

I've lived long enough to see a lot of lost elections (and one stolen), so my default mode is pessimism. And any excitement I might have felt about the prospect of the first woman president was killed by Madeline Albright "a special place in Hell for women who don't vote for Hillary" and Gloria Steinem, who lost all her street cred with "the young women are just there in the Bernie campaign because the boys are there". No.

And then, towards the end of the primaries, when it had become completely obvious that the democratic party had cheated to kill Bernie Sander's chances,  (as well as the media's totally ignoring him, while they provided DT with free wall-to-wall 24-hour celebrity coverage), and the establishment started saying "It's time for him to concede now, and get behind Hillary", I said to a guy on the bus "No. If she has any chance to get the support of Bernie voters, to get us behind her, he has to go through the whole process, as he promised us. He has to have, and be seen to have, influence on the platform. He has to have major influence on her positions."

So, we were not excited about her. As Michael Moore says, we voted for her. Get over blaming us already. But we were depressed, not excited, to vote for her.

(And to be clear, I like her. She is a smart, caring woman, who has always had an unfair deal from the right and the woman-haters. But she is a hawk. And she was a politics-&-business-as-usual (together) candidate in a year when we ALL wanted change. Yes - progressives, women's rights, and freedom for the billionaire-corporate-fascist-takeover agenda and the closet racists and haters of all stripes. All of America wanted change. And we got - The New Robber-Baron-Era supported by racist gangs who feel free to come out of their closets now, and use their new freedom to teach their children to be bullies and haters too, out in the open.)

The Southern Poverty Law Center had counted over 230 hate crimes and hate incidents in the first few days after the election, many in schools, against children. By children. By a week later, there were over 700*. Nothing like that many seen since the day after President Obama was elected. (Why did I not know about that? Media at fault again, not reporting it?)


*And, full disclosure, a few of them were by my folks, not the right-wingnut haters. But many fewer.

The Morning After the World Turned Upside-Down Nov. 9, 2016

Reflection, Morn Nov 9 2016

The morning after the world turned over. Well, the sun came up.
As President Obama said.

On the local radio early this morn, they were playing a song called "In the blink of an eye" ... "the stars fell from the sky".

I had heard Michael Moore talk about his recent surprise movie, Michael Moore in Trumpland. How the DT campaign had edited it to make it seem as if he was supporting DT. How Michael Moore went on Fox to say "Don't spend your money buying this movie" (to the deluded DT supporters who were making it a bestseller). "It doesn't say what they told you it did."

And that what he actually said was "You want to vote to send a message, to say you're angry. And for a moment it will feel really good. Or for a day, a week... Then like for the Brexit voters, reality will set in. But there are no do-overs. You have just elected the last president of the United States."

The other students in one of my classes were upset to very upset. One of them is from Canada, it turns out. (We talked about how the Canadian immigration information site had crashed last night.) Canada will need a wall; the US can pay for it...

Some of them know DT voters, or have family members. One wanted suggestions for talking with a family member about this. One decent idea was to ask her how she thinks the other side is feeling, how she understands where they are coming from.

But one student, who comes from a background of redneck racist haters (his words) says he has had to just learn to walk away, that he lives a long way from them now. And the teacher says that we're lucky to live on the Left Coast. And that he won't deal with angry bigots like DT voters anymore, life is too short to waste time with people like that.*

After class, I walked by the pond again, and then went online. First I looked up some favorite comics for comfort. (Mutts is always comforting, even if not relevant.)

And then, starting with the NYTimes article the teacher had recommended, and following references, I found a few things. Followed by Michael Moore and Van Jones.

Among the collected wisdom I found, and then heard on Democracy Now in the evening, and Thursday morning on the radio:

First Michael Moore - the best wisdom and advice, and the only one who lets me understand that maybe they are not all racist-misogynist KKK-and-nazi immigrant-bashing-Islamophobe haters, the DT supporters. They say they're not. But as one classmate said (approx), "They're all OK with that, since they were willing to vote for someone who could say those things." Yes.

It's why so many of us, especially young people, but me too soon, are out in the streets. "Not our president!" We are not willing to be complicit, even by silence, let alone cooperating, in a racist, sexist, xenophobic, woman-hating, immigrant-bashing, white supremacist, nazi, KKK regime.


* Feb 2018  -   In the other class, a couple of weeks after the election, a couple of girls (used purposefully) were high-fiving each other over the election results. [ 2 weeks later because they are the kind of students who don't come to class, and then blame the prof when they don't do well on the tests.] I regret having censored my comment. What I said was that I didn't think any young people voted for dt. What I was thinking, and should have said, was that I didn't think any young folk were stupid enough to vote for dt.


My ⚐America includes everybody. It is fair to everybody.