Saturday, November 12, 2016

everything you know is wrong

In a Dickensonian dystopian disaster, trump won the election. I don't know what else to say. I came home tuesday night, made a lovely dinner, (Kurt had asked for something a little stuffy, rich and progressive., like Hillary) I bought a bottle of sparkling cider and sat down to watch Hillary take out the trash. I don't really remember eating. The sparkly is still in the fridge. Still.

I have many feelings, so far best articulated by Bill Moyers in an article titled, "The Death of America." I allowed myself to be lulled to sleep by talking heads who said he couldn't win. She had it in the bag. "How much crow can one pundit eat?" Good question. Now the nation is on fire.

I used to feel good about listening to NPR. I trusted their news sources. Now, days after this travesty, I have lost trust completely. The report today was that a trump presidency would be good and bad for the gun industry. Good, because he is a fan of the NRA, bad because gun sales are down because Hillary and Obama are no longer coming for our guns. What a shit show. All of the talking heads, and I mean from fox news to NPR, are picking at the scab that may never form, playing the same campaign promises over and over as though a record is skipping. Playing them like dire warnings that someone should have heard. Anyone. But they all, to a person, would not speak truth. They played a comedy show of their own making. And for what? Ratings. The spineless wordspinners just cranked out their silken horseshit, perfectly balanced, perfectly serious, as though they were both valid and competent candidates. And I sucked it up like mother's milk. I couldn't get enough. Trainwreck that it was, I couldn't look away, because I was certain how it ended. They said so. And now, as though they had warned us, they replay the entire campaign, byte by byte, as though they had taken it seriously from the beginning. As though his rambling threats had merit.

Truth is, or seems to be, that trump is the parrot of whichever person he last listened to. When he last listened to Obama, he thought parts of Obamacare were great and should remain in place. Now his transition team, the KKK, are keeping him isolated in trump tower so nobody else can confuse him before the takes office in January. Nobody but him can decide about the cabinet posts, and there will be a "big reveal" like I guess he had on his show, when he's good and ready. He's not allowed on Twitter. I wonder if he has any idea what he has signed up for.

Mexicans and all people of color are terrified, queer folk are flipping out, women are outraged or should be. I've gone through so many layers of grief I can't remember where I am. I am not aiming for acceptance. It is not my goal. In the beginning I felt bad for all of the regular folks who feel/felt no home in the democratic party -- and I still do. I am no elitist, but fear democrats have become the champion of "other" until there is no room for whatever is the opposite of other. In this I was thinking we needed the numbers and that inclusion would be a part of the fix. I guess white is the opposite of other. At any rate, I did not take into consideration that voter turnout had been crappy. That only about 50% turned out and that means that only 25% of the US is insane. Having redone the math, my argument now is that the democratic party needs to educate the youth vote. Maybe a Bernie-type candidate.

Enter: Jon Stewart 2020. I am not kidding. Not one bit.




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