How We Got Here (Trumptopian Nightmare) in Distress

In retrospect, I don’t think it’s all that difficult to see how this came about. I think it’s taking the easy road to simply decide that half of America is racist, sexist, anti-Islam and batshit crazy. We all probably know people, who we thought were normal, intelligent people, who voted for President Fuckwit Cheetotard.

I think it was the perfect storm.

Look, there’s no point in trying to get into the heads, hearts or minds of the many Trump supporters who are racist, sexist, anti-Islam and batshit crazy. You can’t fix stupid. Let them drink too much beer, say, “watch this” and thin their herd by trying to become internet famous for doing stupid things with their guns, trucks, tractors or whatever else is handy.

The people we have to worry about aren’t the ones who were showing up at his rallies. It’s the one who kept quiet and voted for Trump–throwing off all of the polls. We have to understand from them, WHY?

I think I understand a few of the reasons:

1. Hilary. I heard a lot of bullshit about Hilary and how not liking her was sexist because if Hilary was a man…he’d be a fucking dick. I’m sorry, but Hilary Clinton is an asshole. I’ve never liked her. It has nothing to do with her plumbing. There’s nothing about her I’d accept or like in a male candidate. She’s a notorious introvert who does not relate well to others. She tries–she probably tries too hard, but she fails. It comes off as false, because it is false.

Hilary was also the perfect spoil to Trumps point about 30 years in government and not making any kind of major change in it. Obama opened the CHANGE can of worms. Trump tweaked it to go on the offensive against those who felt and feel that the government doesn’t work for them and hasn’t in a long time.

Be honest. You’re one of those people. You bought it and put it on your posters when Obama used it. You felt underrepresented. You felt marginalized. You felt like your vote didn’t count and didn’t make a difference. You felt like no matter what you did, things would go on the same in Washington.

Some of you didn’t vote because you didn’t feel like it meant anything. Even after writing about how you can be an agent of change in previous posts, I have people noting me, already having given up, telling me that no one will run against the incumbent and no amount of email will change his mind. It’s that kind of attitude that got Trump elected.

Hilary was a bad choice. Bernie? Look, I’d take Bernie over Trump any day, but I think, if the Democrats had put up a candidate that far left, the Republicans would have rallied to make sure he wasn’t elected. Maybe I’m wrong. But Bernie was dangerous in his own right.

I honestly think the one person who might have had a chance against Trump was Joe Biden. Yes, like Hilary (and Bernie) he’d been in government for a long time and been a part of the malaise that grew, but I think he was also moderate enough to win the left and get the necessary middle and some of the short right votes.

Hilary is simply unlikeable to many. It wasn’t the emails that did her in–it could have been anything. Trump supporters were just looking for a reason not to vote for her. Ask them to explain the email situation. They can’t. They just know it was EVIL.

It was a mistake. It’s a mistake someone in Trump’s government will make. When they do, it won’t make them a crook, it’ll make them someone who made a mistake. It wasn’t about the emails, it was about Hilary and needing something to point to about why they didn’t want to vote for her. Hilary was a poor choice. Her ego needed the top spot. We’ll pay for that now.

1. I wrote about this the night after the election, on FB, when I was trying to make sense of things and I saw someone else tweet about it and it sparked my thinking. Hilary pandered to women, the LGBTQ community (I refuse to add any more fucking letters onto that already confusing string), the Muslims, the Mexicans, the Blacks–she was obviously the candidate of the minority. Sure, she’s a white lady, but she told us who she was for and it wasn’t us.

By us, I mean white guys.

Hi. We’re still here.

I didn’t like Hilary, but I voted for her–for my niece. I don’t know that Hilary had anything in her agenda that was for me. Climate change? For the future. Right to choose? For women. LGBTQ? For LGBTQ. Muslim for Muslims, Mexican for Mexicans, Black for Blacks.

I think the last one, in particular, struck a nerve with white voters. Hilary came on the heels of BlackLivesMatter and if that hashtag had just read, #BlackLivesMatterToo, I don’t think it would have ever been an issue, but the exclusionary nature of the rally cry got white males feeling separate and apart and maybe really noticing that apartness in politics.

Now you’re down to two candidates. You have one who is talking to you, telling you that you deserve better and more and you have the other who is telling you that you need to stop being part of the problem. Which one are you going to hear? Who are you going to tune out?

Yes. Common sense. I get it. You get it. We get it. Is it truly so hard to see how some could have taken Hilary’s message of inclusiveness to also be a bit of white-shaming though? I mean, if all these other groups are marginalized, whose fault is it? Who’s left?

Put aside, for a moment, all the things you were for and think about, not what was being said, but what was being heard. I think it’s highly conceivable that a lot of rational people heard themselves being scapegoated for all the things that Hilary wanted to fix, while Trump chose to blame the career and the lifelong politicians.

We’re all the hero in our own story. You don’t ever win hearts and minds by suggesting, implying, insinuating, or even allowing the possibility of interpreting otherwise. Hilary allowed the possibility of interpretation at a time when the greatest racial movement of the time seemed to be pretty darn exclusive and separatist.

It’s conceivable to think that people thought a vote for Hilary was a vote, not for equality, but for “the other side,” in sides we had no part of picking.

1. Point three takes me back to this idea that our government is broken. We thought so before Obama. While he was an amazing president, he never accomplished the kind of CHANGE he spoke of, so eloquently, in his campaign speeches. The Right wanted their CHANGE too. It took place in the form of the Tea Party, a cancer that is still eating away at our country.

Regardless of who is in power, I think a lot of people feel powerless. They feel like their vote doesn’t count. They feel like their opinions go unheard and their ideas go unrealized. They feel the government happens separately from their themselves.

But the want a say. And they think that, perhaps, chaos is the answer. They feel that shaking things up may just be what it takes to give their government back to them.

Now, there are many reasons why this is a bad idea, but once again, remove yourself from the current situation. Think about how many people were burning for Bernie. Ladies and gentleman, Bernie is a socialist. Now, I’m not throwing the word socialist around like a dirty word. I believe Jesus would have been a socialist too–certainly His teachings were of a socialist nature. My point is that we were ready to elect someone who would have shaken things up just as far to the left as Trump is attempting to shake them up to the right.

The hunger to throw a wrench in the works exists. The idea of putting a catalyst into office who will turn everything on it’s head is real. These thoughts exist on both sides. Now, there are many examples of democratic socialist countries doing very well right now. There are also many examples of socialist countries dipping their toe too far in and finding that the government controlled everything they did.

Some social aspects are good ideas. Is it really a good idea to have a socialist president? Probably not. But we were all for it, weren’t we? Yes, it’s true, Bernie and Trump couldn’t be more different, but each represented the idea of voting a fuck-you into the White House to watch them fuck shit up and see what came of it. You can’t blame the other side for thinking the same way you did.

After months of deliberation, I believe those to be the reasons. How do we fix them?

1. I think we must, as a nation, move away from old-school politicians like Hilary. There comes a point where you’ve been in politics too long to make a good president. I think we need to look to those with, yes, some experience, but more importantly drive and ideas that aren’t tainted by business as usual politics. Let’s look for candidates like that on both sides. No more Clintons, no more Huckabees and Bushes.

2. I have a hard time buying this idea of White Privilege. I don’t make enough money to the point where anyone should be upset. I make less than the woman who sits next to me. Don’t shame me while I struggle the same way that many others do. Don’t compound my own financial struggles with the burden of yours.

It’s true. I don’t get pulled over for driving while Black. I never have and never will. I’ve also never pulled anyone over. Fight for police reform, but don’t lump me in as part of the problem. I have seen women move to the other side of the street at night when I’m walking toward them. I’m a big guy in a hoodie. I might look intimidating. I don’t begrudge them that. In fact, I make a point to look out for them because they’ve signaled to me that they are alone and possibly afraid. I want to help.

My point isn’t that income inequality doesn’t exist. It’s not that racism doesn’t exist. My point is that a middle-class, average white guy isn’t the cause of either. This is battle against the 1%. Just because the 1% is mostly white doesn’t mean I have any more in common with them than you do.

I want better wages. I want more opportunity. I want equality without being made to feel like inequality was my fault in the first place. If you want Trump out, you need more of the white vote. You won’t get it by making me your enemy or deciding I’m to blame. Learn to distinguish between those of us who punch the clock just like you do, and those take advantage of us. Lump us in with them and you make enemies of us all.

1. This is, perhaps, the most encouraging of all of the points. We’re already of like mind. We feel the same on both sides. How do we bridge that from left to right and meet in the middle on a plan that gets us all back involved again, that gets us all having a voice? If we all feel this way then there has to be some common ground that allows us to work together and it’s here where we should begin. We’ll learn the lesson of putting a megalomaniacal cheeto-pallored fuckwit in charge. That won’t be the answer, but perhaps a major change in our government is the answer?

Maybe it’s time to move to a direct democracy where popular vote is all that counts and you don’t need a Harvard degree to understand the election results. Maybe it’s time for term limits–not just for a particular office, but for any federal service at all. For instance, no more than 6 terms served in any federal government office. Maybe it’s time for common sense and language in bill writing. No more piggybacking this piece of legislation on top of that one. If you want a law about guns, that’s all that is in it. So, when it’s time to elect you again, or not, I know what your vote was on that issue, not that you had other reasons to not vote for that bill. Maybe bills should be written in common language so that they are understood by the products of our education system. What about term limits for Supreme Court Justices? That way, every president is constantly reappointing judges and there’s always a new mix and we don’t get stuck with a liberal panel or a conservative panel for too long, either way–and we can stop praying for people to die, so our president can appoint a replacement.

Couldn’t we all agree on those things? I think we might.

We have to stop dismissing President Cheetodust’s voters as something they surely can’t all be. I believe more and better of my fellow American’s than that. We got so caught up in things that we failed to see what was happening and who we were alienating. It would be great if everyone had someone to vote for like I had my niece. I cared about the air she’ll have to breath and the kind of world she’ll be living in someday. I cared about her right to choose. I cared about her so I voted along with a candidate I didn’t like and didn’t believe in at all. I wonder–if I took my niece out of the picture, could I have been swayed? If I had listed a little differently would I have heard one candidate shaming me and the other promising me to break the system and make my life better too?

I doubt it. But it’s possible. I think for a lot of people, it was more than possible.