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.