So that happened. And quit it with that post about the electoral college overriding the will of the electors. Hillary had more total votes, but this election was contested under a certain set of rules, and we have to honor the fact that she lost with more total votes.
1. The electoral college has to go, as Trump said himself in 2012.
This is the second time in five elections that someone has lost with more votes than their opponent. Obviously this is one of the very dysfunctional systems Trump won by lamenting in the first place. Go ahead, candidate of change, show us some integrity!
2. It wasn't all racists.
There just aren't that many white hoods to go around. There also aren't that many white people to go around anymore. A big part of the Trump vote were people who felt left behind, people whose insurance premiums are skyrocketing. Many of them mistakenly think Obama personally raised their rates. (Price-gouging big pharma C.E.O.s seem to have avoided blame...) Many more voters didn't know or didn't care that there was a Republican congress in power who should've been equally accountable. It doesn't matter. It's over and the damage is done. Even the non-racist Trump voters voted in the name of change, and boy are we all going to get it.
3. Your black, latino, gay, and female friends get to be angry with you the first time racist, homophobic, or misogynist legislation happens.
You voted based on the interest of your family, or at least you believe you did. The fact that you didn't consider what might happen to the families of your friends and neighbors is going to come back to haunt you. Expect some backlash. Expect some declined invitations. Expect fewer wedding and Christening gifts from your gay friends, friends of color, and some female friends. You just showed us that at the very least, our rights weren't important enough to consider when you voted. If laws making us second-class citizens are passed, we have every right to be pissed off at you. Friendships end when there is a lack of basic respect by one of the parties involved. It's a lot more than sour grapes when you show your friends that level of disregard.
4. Democrats, governing to the center leaves you vulnerable.
I give Obama credit as a human being for reaching across the aisle as many times as he did, but as a politician, it will be thought of as his fatal flaw. He looked at the Republican-majority congress and got the legislation through that he thought he could, but voters mistook those compromises as his principles. By running to the left and governing to the center, he discredited left-wing populism. Trump stepped into the vacuum with nationalist, right-wing populist rhetoric, and appeared principled (to some) by comparison.
The next time Democrats have power (assuming we recover from whatever form the Trumpocalypse takes) in the White House and not in congress, the president and his Democratic allies in congress need to put forth the laws we need and force the other side to reveal themselves as the problem when they shoot those laws down. Then we need to loudly show the voters who the problem is. Obama, in his pragmatism, probably thought that would be a waste of time. His legacy will unfortunately suffer because the voters mistook him for all three branches of government. Many of them probably believe Democrats have been in power for decades, based on how George W. Bush has been erased from history.
5. We owe Trump a chance not to be as terrible as we think he'll be, based on his atrocious campaign.
Trump was credited with "being real" while running, so he now must make every effort to fulfill his promises to the working class. If he brings Apple factories back to the U.S.A., and allows those jobs to be good union jobs rather than the child labor jobs they currently are, we all have to expect to take a hit on our retirement accounts. (Remember, we are Wall Street too, whether we want to admit it or not.) We'll all have to pay more for products as well, and as a result, our employers will have to be forced to pay us more. This will be worth it, if it means an economy where everyone's labor is valued and everyone can participate in the economy. To keep his promises, Trump must harm the fortunes of all of his oligarch golf buddies and old prep school roommates. I never believed he would actually do it, and I still don't, but I'd be thrilled to be wrong.
The anti-government radicals must now govern, and be held responsible for all of the results. You no longer have the black boogeyman to kick around, boys. It's all on you to reign in corporate power without becoming the fascists many of us fear you to be.
6. You are responsible for the increase in hate crimes that has already happened, and all that happen during your tenure.
When Chad and Todd and the neanderthal frat boys, who somehow feel ostracized despite their trust funds, go out on a Saturday night to gay bash or run over someone they perceive to be an illegal immigrant, that's on Trump, and all of you who voted for him. He showed you who he was and you failed to recoil in horror. You need to own that shit.
7. If Trump starts to live up to his fascist rhetoric, we must all shut this country down to stop him.
Whether you like him or not, we all need to admit what Trump said on the campaign trail. He did threaten to attack the press by "expanding libel laws" if they criticized him (though in truth, they couldn't have rolled over harder for their orange ratings cow if they tried). He did threaten to jail his political opponents. He did play footsie with assassins with that "my second amendment people, maybe there is a solution" bullshit. He did say "I alone can solve all of these problems" during his odious R.N.C. speech (which Hillary would've been crucified for, based on the level of America-bashing in it). The promise of solving all of our problems if we just give him all the power is something that fascists do. The fears of the majority of us who didn't vote Trump are real: they are based on his own words.
In the event that he attempts to overreach, we are prepared to shut this country down in the name of justice. Remember, we are the majority, though we lost. And Trump needs us a hell of a lot more than we need him.
I didn't sleep very well election night, but I slept fine the night after, because I realized there are still more of us, and all of his supporters are not deplorable, though they do need to answer for those among them who are. I realized I owe this man a chance to earn my vote in 2020. I owe him a chance not to be what I think he is based on the hideousness he's shown me so far. If he reigns in corporate power without becoming a fascist, brings jobs home, invites all of us into the economy, and owns his inevitable failures and shortcomings rather than scapegoating the least powerful among us, there's a chance I could get behind him. If he does what I think he'll do instead, and gets congress to legislate like a more racist, more homophobic, more ignorant, version of the George W. Bush crew, I'll be among the many stubborn obstructionists he'll have to contend with. I think we just burned down the house because some of us were mad about our helpings from the kitchen, but I would love to be absolutely wrong about that.
1. The electoral college has to go, as Trump said himself in 2012.
This is the second time in five elections that someone has lost with more votes than their opponent. Obviously this is one of the very dysfunctional systems Trump won by lamenting in the first place. Go ahead, candidate of change, show us some integrity!
2. It wasn't all racists.
There just aren't that many white hoods to go around. There also aren't that many white people to go around anymore. A big part of the Trump vote were people who felt left behind, people whose insurance premiums are skyrocketing. Many of them mistakenly think Obama personally raised their rates. (Price-gouging big pharma C.E.O.s seem to have avoided blame...) Many more voters didn't know or didn't care that there was a Republican congress in power who should've been equally accountable. It doesn't matter. It's over and the damage is done. Even the non-racist Trump voters voted in the name of change, and boy are we all going to get it.
3. Your black, latino, gay, and female friends get to be angry with you the first time racist, homophobic, or misogynist legislation happens.
You voted based on the interest of your family, or at least you believe you did. The fact that you didn't consider what might happen to the families of your friends and neighbors is going to come back to haunt you. Expect some backlash. Expect some declined invitations. Expect fewer wedding and Christening gifts from your gay friends, friends of color, and some female friends. You just showed us that at the very least, our rights weren't important enough to consider when you voted. If laws making us second-class citizens are passed, we have every right to be pissed off at you. Friendships end when there is a lack of basic respect by one of the parties involved. It's a lot more than sour grapes when you show your friends that level of disregard.
4. Democrats, governing to the center leaves you vulnerable.
I give Obama credit as a human being for reaching across the aisle as many times as he did, but as a politician, it will be thought of as his fatal flaw. He looked at the Republican-majority congress and got the legislation through that he thought he could, but voters mistook those compromises as his principles. By running to the left and governing to the center, he discredited left-wing populism. Trump stepped into the vacuum with nationalist, right-wing populist rhetoric, and appeared principled (to some) by comparison.
The next time Democrats have power (assuming we recover from whatever form the Trumpocalypse takes) in the White House and not in congress, the president and his Democratic allies in congress need to put forth the laws we need and force the other side to reveal themselves as the problem when they shoot those laws down. Then we need to loudly show the voters who the problem is. Obama, in his pragmatism, probably thought that would be a waste of time. His legacy will unfortunately suffer because the voters mistook him for all three branches of government. Many of them probably believe Democrats have been in power for decades, based on how George W. Bush has been erased from history.
5. We owe Trump a chance not to be as terrible as we think he'll be, based on his atrocious campaign.
Trump was credited with "being real" while running, so he now must make every effort to fulfill his promises to the working class. If he brings Apple factories back to the U.S.A., and allows those jobs to be good union jobs rather than the child labor jobs they currently are, we all have to expect to take a hit on our retirement accounts. (Remember, we are Wall Street too, whether we want to admit it or not.) We'll all have to pay more for products as well, and as a result, our employers will have to be forced to pay us more. This will be worth it, if it means an economy where everyone's labor is valued and everyone can participate in the economy. To keep his promises, Trump must harm the fortunes of all of his oligarch golf buddies and old prep school roommates. I never believed he would actually do it, and I still don't, but I'd be thrilled to be wrong.
The anti-government radicals must now govern, and be held responsible for all of the results. You no longer have the black boogeyman to kick around, boys. It's all on you to reign in corporate power without becoming the fascists many of us fear you to be.
6. You are responsible for the increase in hate crimes that has already happened, and all that happen during your tenure.
When Chad and Todd and the neanderthal frat boys, who somehow feel ostracized despite their trust funds, go out on a Saturday night to gay bash or run over someone they perceive to be an illegal immigrant, that's on Trump, and all of you who voted for him. He showed you who he was and you failed to recoil in horror. You need to own that shit.
7. If Trump starts to live up to his fascist rhetoric, we must all shut this country down to stop him.
Whether you like him or not, we all need to admit what Trump said on the campaign trail. He did threaten to attack the press by "expanding libel laws" if they criticized him (though in truth, they couldn't have rolled over harder for their orange ratings cow if they tried). He did threaten to jail his political opponents. He did play footsie with assassins with that "my second amendment people, maybe there is a solution" bullshit. He did say "I alone can solve all of these problems" during his odious R.N.C. speech (which Hillary would've been crucified for, based on the level of America-bashing in it). The promise of solving all of our problems if we just give him all the power is something that fascists do. The fears of the majority of us who didn't vote Trump are real: they are based on his own words.
In the event that he attempts to overreach, we are prepared to shut this country down in the name of justice. Remember, we are the majority, though we lost. And Trump needs us a hell of a lot more than we need him.
I didn't sleep very well election night, but I slept fine the night after, because I realized there are still more of us, and all of his supporters are not deplorable, though they do need to answer for those among them who are. I realized I owe this man a chance to earn my vote in 2020. I owe him a chance not to be what I think he is based on the hideousness he's shown me so far. If he reigns in corporate power without becoming a fascist, brings jobs home, invites all of us into the economy, and owns his inevitable failures and shortcomings rather than scapegoating the least powerful among us, there's a chance I could get behind him. If he does what I think he'll do instead, and gets congress to legislate like a more racist, more homophobic, more ignorant, version of the George W. Bush crew, I'll be among the many stubborn obstructionists he'll have to contend with. I think we just burned down the house because some of us were mad about our helpings from the kitchen, but I would love to be absolutely wrong about that.
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