Monday, November 28, 2016

I get why you did it. No, really, I do.

You were tired of the same-old up in Olympus, the same elites decade after decade passing around power among them, like the in clique at Homecoming passing around a bottle of Chivas and hiding it every time you come close. What Chivas, man? You were tired of your little voice never being heard above the rabble and rouse of all these newly-minted minorities clamoring for their rights. What about yours, eh? We gotta take America back! You were tired of being left out, of watching from the sidelines as decision after decision was made in direct contravention to your interests, and direct contradiction to your wholesome, farm-grown, old-school common sense. You were tired of feeling like the outsider—in your own damn country! You were tired of being treated like a second-class citizen, and of your country being treated like a second-tier nation around the world.



And so you did it. You elected a man that promised to clean out that in clique, shatter that insider elite to smithereens. Government for the people, right? The real people, the ones that really matter. Someone who will look out for the actual Americans, not a bunch of wetback Mohammed-loving darkie upstarts who have no business being here anyway. And a businessman, too, because who better to resolve the nation's economic problems than a man who's spent his entire life in business? I mean, business is all about getting stuff done, right? It's all about the bottom line, and if we can make the bottom line 'Making America Great Again', then—well, by god, that's exactly what our government needs to be sane again!

I get it. Change—drastic, radical change—is incredibly attractive. Hope is even more so. In the face of such change, such possibilities, all that jaded disillusionment with a system that has betrayed you over and over recedes like a tide pulling back to reveal a beach rife with sea-born jewels. You'd given up, you'd learned to live with the despair and ignominy of being unheard and ignored—and now, against all odds, here is someone who speaks your thoughts, who gets you and the problems—the injustices—you live with every day, and who means to set all these wrongs aright. Why would you not vote for him?

I get, too, that your choices weren't all that great to begin with. I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton; actually, the only way I would've voted for her (if I were a US citizen) is if her opponent was ridiculously, hugely unqualified for office. Any office.

Which—ahem—was exactly what happened.

I hate to break it to you, Trump supporters, but you made a gross miscalculation here. You bought into exactly what Trump wanted you to, and you've now elected a president who has no intention of creating anything except benefits and advantages for himself.

Well, you might be thinking, what's wrong with a little self-interest? Looking out for yourself is, after all, the core of the 'American'* dream, isn't it? And what president—what politician—hasn't put him/herself first in the course of their tenure? You may be right; politicians in general seem to be lacking in basic human empathy. But Trump's self-interest, whether he takes it to a whole new level or just falls in with that 'swamp' he promised to drain, will be just the tip of the iceberg.

Trump himself, or a large majority of his supporters, may not be hate-driven KKK building wooden crosses in their spare time; Trump, I believe, is as much a product of his time as Hitler or Stalin (or Nero or Pinochet) were of theirs. Trump, like so many before him, has had the smarts to harness the tides sweeping the country (and the world) and ride them to the cusp of power.

And that, right there, is the real tragedy of the 2016 US election. Trump (et al) may not be a racist, misogynist bigot, but his rhetoric has unleashed racism, and misogyny, and bigotry. He—his expressions, his posturing, his 'handling' of protest and criticism—has enabled, and, further, legitimized, the hatred distilled over decades of discontent and (perceived or real) injustice. Whether intentionally or not (and I do believe it was intentional, seeing the success he had with it), he let the genie out of the bottle... And there's no turning back from that now.

It took me two weeks to begin to verbalize the devastation Nov. 8th left me with. I watched the election coverage from 5pm to 3am (CUR time). I cried like a baby at Trump's victory speech. The world is not the place I thought it was, and it was that realization, more than anything else (and there was plenty else), which destroyed me so totally. I am fortunate to have mostly liberal, left-leaning friends and acquaintances, though that may be a curse disguised as a blessing: it created an echo chamber, a bubble of opinions and prognostications that took it for granted that the majority of US citizens were, no doubt, on the side of equality and civil liberties and basic human rights. And there was no way—no way—that this majority would allow this clown, this unbelievable idiot, to get to the White House. We absolutely believed that—even though we postulated, for the sake of intellectual discourse, the possibility and the whys and wherefores of why it could happen... But it really came down to discussions of alternate realities, theoretical questions that seemed impossible to translate to the world we knew, the country we loved—yes, even us foreigners, to whom the US has always stood as an example of how things should be, the country we held up to our own Latin American governments as the blueprint of what we had to aspire to, what we had to become.

Well. That's done, I suppose. I can no longer defend the US against its detractors. On the contrary, I now must accept, as much as it hurts, that they, these detractors, were right. The US has a long, long history of racism and bigotry, of segregation and abuse of minorities, of religious discrimination, of willful ignorance and deficient education—it's all been documented, it's all public knowledge. How, then, did we miss it? How did the US become the beacon for civil rights that we all believed it to be? How could we be so, so wrong?

No, it is not Trump's fault. It's yours. Because, regardless of what 'benefits' you heard for yourself in Trump's speeches, you also heard the bigotry—and either you agreed with it, or you chose to ignore it. Whichever it was, your bigotry or your ignorance, that is what allowed Trump to run, and to win. If it was bigotry, I have nothing to say to you. If it was ignorance, though, you may not be beyond redemption.

This is what you need to do: you need to hold your president accountable. You need to educate yourself on his policies and his actions, and you need to make sure that a) he stays on track to provide all those 'benefits' (jobs, whatever) he promised, b) that he does so in a way that doesn't destroy your country's economy (see the bit on educating yourself), and, most importantly, c) you need to stop turning a blind eye on the racism and bigotry. You, as a Trump supporter, have the power right now—and the obligation—to ensure all this talk of walls and deportations and registrations and camps (camps!!! just listen to yourselves!!!) remains only talk. You need to stand up for civil rights and for minorities—because you, white US citizen, are a minority. 'America' has never been white. Stop treating 'others' as minorities. You are the minority, and it's about time you develop some empathy for those whose lands and rights you have stolen and defiled.





*'America' is a continent, comprised of 35 sovereign states plus several dependencies and constituencies of European countries. The US isn't even the largest country in the continent (thank you, Canada).


27 comments :

  1. Guilie: did I just go into a fugue state and write this post without knowing it? I feel as if I might have! Thank you for sharing your (and my) thoughts and pain about the result of this election. My first reaction was almost identical to yours: this country is not the place I thought it was. Apparently I, too, have been living in a bubble, and now almost every day brings its new horrors to prove that to me again and again.

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    1. I'm glad this resonated with you, Susan—though I'm not surprised :) I just wish it weren't happening at all. I read your post from last week about the changes to your work, and all I can say is Kudos, beautiful lady. That's the spirit. In light of all this upheaval, we need to use all the tools at our disposal to shape the world towards the fairness and justice we believe in.

      Thanks for coming by!

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  2. At least you don't have to live in it, lucky you. :-) I've seen many presidents I didn't like much, but none of them has ever made me wish emigration was a possibility. Not that Canada would be far enough away, though. Maybe New Zealand, they haven't been infested with wackos in power like most of the rest of the English-speaking world.

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    1. Larry, I hear you... For all the fear that's invaded the world outside US borders since Nov. 8th, I can only imagine how exponentially worse it must be within those borders. And yes, New Zealand is a lovely choice! Though I can't but help recommending Curaçao... Truly the land of the diverse and tolerant :)

      Thanks for the visit!

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    2. I could go for diverse and tolerant… not to mention beaches. ;-)

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  3. I don't know. I don't have any more sympathy (or whatever you want to call it) for people who just stepped aside and chose not to vote than I do for the ones who voted for Trump. There is just as much evil in silence as there is in being evil. Ask the Germans.

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    1. Too right, Andrew. "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing"—and that near-50% of the population who didn't vote need to bear that burden. Which is why I think it's so important for them to use their voices to keep Trump accountable.

      Thanks for stopping in. Really loved your blog.

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    2. Glad to hear it.
      I plan to be running political posts once a week for the foreseeable future.

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    3. And I'll be right there to read 'em. (Fine, I confess: I subscribed by email :D )

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    4. Hey, that's great!
      Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing how many people do the email thing. I just did the blogger follow option for you. ;)

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    5. I haven't figured out how to see the email subscribers either... And thanks for the Blogger follow! I've been seriously delinquent with this blog, but I do plan on posting more often. (She says. Again.)

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  4. Grooming is an apt description of why people voted for Trump. They have been fed a steady diet of propaganda which has backfired on the Republican party. I don't know that it can recover from a Trump presidency. It is one of those train wrecks we will all have to watch or be a part. The outcome is that so many are going to regret their vote. I've already heard from some Trump voters who are having buyer's remorse.

    I feel a bit angry when they get indignant about people calling them a racist. You go to bed with dogs, you wake up with fleas. I hate that analogy. I sleep with dogs every night. The biggest problem is some of these people are really good people. Which goes to another quote, The devil can quote the bible for his own ends.

    Anyway, the resistance is real and it is made up of everyday people like me. He has one year before all his power can be sopped up. It will be interesting to watch a Republican congress be his undoing.

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    1. Really? Buyer's—or voter's, I guess—remorse already? Wow... That was fast. Though inevitable, sooner or later. Trump will never deliver on the 'promises' his supporters thought they heard in his speeches. I wish I could drum up a bit of sympathy for them, but... well, I suppose I'm not that big a person.

      Thanks for coming by, Ann. Always a pleasure to see your name pop up in the comments :)

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  5. You've articulated what so many of us are thinking, Guilie. I was in California at the time and also stayed up most of the night. Stunned and speechless! We Canadians are waiting with baited breath to see what will happen. Our economies are so closely intertwined and now, our respective leaders are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. I know most of the world shares these concerns.

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    1. I hear you, Debbie. Mexico is in the same position—a tad worse, to put it mildly ;) NAFTA blasted us back in the 90's, so we probably won't be too sorry to see it end, but with all the loans upon loans upon loans Mexico has from the US, they hold all the cards to crash the Mexican economy. And, to top it off, we have our worst president yet in power at the moment, until Dec. 2018. Two full years of a clown with no balls facing off with a clown with no brains :(

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    2. Yikes! No balls vs no brains is even worse than liberal vs conservative. Good luck to us all!

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  6. Hi Guilie - many of us are very worried ... about so much. We need leaders who are honest, true and helpful to their society ... and thus to other societies and countries around the world ... We need to have the right and good examples set for us. Great post ... thank you - Hilary

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    1. You're so right, Hilary... All around the world we seem to be harvesting a crop of the worst leaders ever. I'm trying to find hope somewhere, somehow, but—honestly, it's hard. Really hard. (Glad you liked the post, though—and thanks so much for the visit!)

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  7. You are so articulate and I love what you wrote. I can't begin to write what you did in such a thoughtful and intelligent manner. As Hitler said, that he would say and do anything to win and, I believe, Trump said something similar. The day of the election is the day we heard that the Trump Tower in Toronto went into receivership. It is a shame so many people voted for him but I was shocked at how many simply didn't vote at all. The world will be watching very closely when he actually comes to power....I find it scary.

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    1. Thank you so much, Birgit! I confess that my earlier attempts (especially just after the election) were much, much less articulate :D I agree; the scariest moment of the campaign for me was when DT said he could shoot someone out on Fifth Ave and he wouldn't lose a single supporter. Then the sexual assault scandals hit, and... Indeed, he alienated nary a one. He terrifies me—but his supporters terrify me more. (And those near-50% that didn't vote... Really, REALLY shocking. They're as bad as his supporters.)

      Thanks for stopping by! I've missed you... And I promise to post more often :)

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  8. Beautiful post, Guilie, so articulate and sadly so true! I'm still reeling. I knew empathy was lacking, but I had no idea it barely existed.

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    1. A tough eye-opener for us all, I'm afraid. Thanks so much for coming by, Yolanda!

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  9. Excellent post Guilie. Thank you for articulating what many are thinking. I definitely didn't vote for the man and I'm devastated by the outcome. I fear what is to come. My first thought was: I may not be long in this country...I may have to find a new place to call home...Sad to say. But I'm scared...

    Michele at Angels Bark

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    1. I know many other US citizens who are having the same thought, Michele... Several of my US friends, first thing on Nov. 9th, called or emailed me to ask about moving to Curaçao, and quite a few have since taken steps to actually move out of the country. That, in itself, speaks loudest of the hopelessness we all feel. What a tragedy. What a freaking unnecessary, wanton tragedy.

      Thanks for the visit, my friend. I've missed you :)

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  10. So true Guilie:
    When you live here you have to make up your mind to vote for which liar.
    Then you have to live with it. Do you want an old evil or a new unknown evil?
    One way we know it would be wrong. Now we can only hope you’re wrong.

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    1. And the whole world hopes—desperately—right along with you. Thanks for stopping in :)

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  11. There was a lack of Democrats voting (though, when it was all counted, the people had a majority of voting for Hillary-- but America is a Republic, not a Democracy, so it is irrelevant). Then the Electoral College got their say, which is a broken system, because some of them can vote for whoever and some can only vote for who the majority of their state voted for, etc etc. But they are all pretty much 1% people who know Trump will save them money and cut tax for the wealthy and generally help out the richest people in America because those are his people. But, since they are only 1% of the population, he had to get votes elsewhere. No one with a real chance has given a voice to the racists in a few decades. He was betting there was a lot of them. Turns out he was right. And they lived in states with lots of Electoral votes, which is all that matters.

    The majority of us are very concerned.

    "You were tired of feeling like the outsider—in your own damn country! " -- But that line... ha ha ha.
    On election day I, a descendant of the Lenni-Lenape tribe, the Grandfather tribe, with thousands of years of my ancestors under my feet, was told by someone wearing Trump attire to "Go back to my own country."

    *hands you a slice of irony pie, drops mic, walks off*

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