This blog is dead and has been for years but I need somewhere to store my thoughts on this fucking shit show of an election so here it is.
I just finished watching my country chose hatred, anger and fear over reason, compassion and common sense. Elect a sexual predator, racist and pathological liar with literally no qualifications to the highest office of state in the country. Perhaps in the world. Someone who represents a very real threat to millions of our fellow citizens, innocent people whose crimes are that they are other, nothing more. A man who, like a child, threatened to undermine our entire political system if the election didn’t go his way. Someone who has through his words and attitude very probably irrevocably damaged the Republic as a whole. But not only that, I watched as the the tide turned in the US House and Senate, putting in place a party that often espouses theocratic ideals and has done very little to condemn or otherwise counteract their supposed leader’s horrendous statements and beliefs.
I don’t care if you think Trump’s been bluffing or just pandering to the crowd. The things he said and stand accused of doing are moral indefensible and are signs of the rot threatening to set into the heart of the American people.
I know Hilary has problems. I know the things she’s been confirmed to have done would’ve gotten someone less well connected shit-canned at best or shot at worst. But despite all of that, she didn’t preach hate and fear. She didn’t win votes by turning Americans against their fellows just because they’re different. She didn’t stand to legitimatize the racism, sexism, homophobia and religious intolerance that fester in our darker corners. But by electing Trump and sweeping the Senate and House for the same party? We have.
I’m not saying you personally are racist, sexist or a bigot of any stripe but that in the end, you’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan Members and all manner of vile folk to put a horrible narcissistic human being in the high level of authority, civilian or military, in the world.
The worst part? I’m not even surprised. This country is sick and the two party system is a part of that disease. We are a country divided in a way that no country should be. There are so many problems with the Republic that this election highlighted its hard to know where to start. I won’t go to say this is not the America we used to be, because it is. Racism, Sexism and Bigotry have always been a part of the American dream, whether we knew it or not.
But this is not the America our stories tell us it should be. We are afraid and in our fear we lash out at all that seems different or strange. This isn’t the America that dreamt of the stars and reached out for them. The one writers put down as the vanguard of Freedom and Defender of all Humanity. We aren’t the Shining Light of the World and to some extent, I get it. No human society could be. But we can do better than we are and I’m honestly disappointed and, at least a bit afraid of where we’re headed.
Afraid for my friends who aren’t white. Who aren’t heterosexual, cisgendered, or binary. Who aren’t Christian. I’m afraid for all of those who were starting to see hope, starting to see this country righting ancient wrongs and leading the world forward again in morality and social issue only to watch that swept aside in the tide of anger and hatred. They’ve had so many battles already, they didn’t need another one.
I’m afraid of the tone this sets for the future, for the kids I want to raise in a country where tolerance, understanding and genuine respect for our neighbors isn’t just an idea we pay lip-service too.
But again, mostly? I’m just disappointed. I’m safe from a lot of the issues that come, I live in a state that is staunchly liberal and I’m a cis, hetero male who can pass for white. But I understand this isn’t about me, it’s about everyone who isn’t safe in their own country now.