I frequently find myself saying to people “it seems like it’s been different since the election.
This is, of course, always true. One of the things that we always have to accept is that things are always changing, things are always slowly falling apart. We’re all slowly dying. So yes, it is different since the election.
But at the same time, I don’t mean it like that. And what I have been noticing is simply alarming. Let me start, though, by going back.
The situation we are in could have been avoided, but liberal Americans split into various camps. For whatever reason, a number of people chose to stick with their desire to support Hillary Clinton as if she’d earned the nomination by stepping back for Obama and serving in his cabinet. This is not to say that Clinton wasn’t worthy; she’d have been a good President.
I worry for too many people it was about gender. Yes, I’d love to have seen a woman in the office of President (just as I cried when a non-white man became President), but over the course of the 2016 Election cycle– one that isn’t even a year in the past though it feels like forever– people were ignoring signs for the sake of their desire to push Clinton as the first female President.
- She was dead-to-rights once the GoP started attacking her, and when their choice was the most sexist, misogynistic man they could find, the writing was on the wall. When things like email servers and Benghazi wouldn’t go away, the writing was on the wall. The writing was all over the wall.
- Bernie Sanders had people energized who don’t vote very often. This is where as a political party, you have to be smart. Your base is going to vote for your candidate, because they’re your base. No one was going to turn on Sanders because of their love for Hillary and vote for Trump. But what did happen is that dirt came out on the DNC, and people who were fired up for Sanders didn’t vote for Trump, but they also didn’t vote for Clinton. They just didn’t vote. At all.
- The night Trump made a fool of Jeb Bush, we could all see our enemy. It should have been crystal clear to everyone.
So now we’re not even a year in, and things are weird. The office of the President has seen things done that no one would have fathomed. The leader of our country is obsessed with Twitter feuds and having two scoops of ice cream or the best chocolate cake ever. Meanwhile things that matter are going downhill.
Are you a woman who wants equal pay? Reproductive rights? Insurance? Not to be grabbed by the genitals? Trump’s not for you.
Are you a person of color who would prefer to not be shot by a police officer? Trump doesn’t have your back.
Are you a person of color, period? If you aren’t Dennis Rodman or Ben Carson, Trump isn’t for you.
Are you rich? No? This administration won’t be helping you.
When I say things are going downhill, what I mean is:
-Roe vs. Wade might be overturned before Trump is out of office
– The environment needs help, but Trump, if I heard him right, thinks the environment itself is a lie.
-The pay gap is growing.
-So is the debt.
-But social security, medicare, medicaid, the arts, seniors, and civility are all under assault
-We’re financing the President’s family being the family they were before the election
-We are on the brink of war with North Korea
-And China, sort of.
-The people who are closest to the President politically think he’s a moron. One of them said so then wouldn’t take it back even after pressure from the President himself.
All that negativity is drifting through our lives. It’s hard, sometimes, for me to expect my students to give their all when there’s so much uncertainty.
It’s been a bad not-even-a-year, and for the first time in a long time I’m not sure I see the way out. People have to start putting their best interests ahead of what they think are their best interests.
If you’re a liberal, you have to start thinking and fighting like the other side. They’re not going to start playing nice.
Know your fucking enemy.
Or at least quit being your own worst enemy.
