Well...at least we won't have to worry about all that obstructionism!
Still...here's what worries me most about yesterday.
The GOP has much the same priorities today as it did in 2001; taxcuttery, deregulation, privatization, in essence to destruction of what remains of the environmental, labor, and safety regulations, the welfare state, and the New Deal left by eight years of Reagan and eight years of Bush (and eight years of a pretty damn centerist Clinton...) - a return to the pristine unmoderated vulture capitalism of the Gilded Age.
Ironically we were spared that in 2001 only by Osama and Bush having to spend the next seven years chasing muj in the desert instead of running down granny's Social Security or kicking the apartment doors of gay adopters.
Today Trump and his supporters have no such distractions. Trump himself has shown very little enthusiasm for wars other than the usual war-on-terror bullstuff that's carried on thru Obama's tenure. Osama can't come to our rescue now, he sleeps wit' da fishes.
Nope. Donnie's got a TON of time and inclination to use it to endorse Paul Ryan's Randite boner and Joni Ernst's kill-the-fags butthurt. He's got nothing to do but grab us by the pussy and return us to the Republican paradise of 1899; when men were men, women were life support systems for a vagina, and when you could dump your coal tar and your fly ash in the crick without some prissy bureaucrat whinin' about "drinking water" or some such faggy shit.
Since now I think we get to live in an Dickensian cosplay only with real hunger and sickness here's the thing, Red America:
You voted for this. You own it. It's all yours. Now you get to Make America Great Again.
And...
When your poor neighbor's Medicare voucher runs out and she curls on her front steps in pain unable to afford her medication just remember; you voted for this.
When the guy at the taqueria who used to make those great churros is gone Friday just remember; you voted for this.
When the fence wire goes up across what used to be your favorite wilderness trail just remember; you voted for this.
When the DA refuses to indict the three men who roughed up your daughter's gay friend just remember; you voted for this.
You've been whining for years that political correctness and liberal prejudices kept you from making America great again. Those are now gone, swept away; in six months you will control all three branches of the federal government. Your dreams have come true.
And when those dreams become your fellow Americans' nightmares, just remember;
You voted for this. You own it. I cannot stop you. I tried. I failed.
What happens now will be on your heads, for good...or ill.
As for me..?
You will be unsurprised to know that I despise the President-elect and all he stands for. While I cannot do much I will do everything I can to fight him and his party's agenda. I will work, to the extent I can, here in Oregon, every minute for the next four years to mitigate the damage he and his minions will do to my friends, my state, my country, and the world. If I cannot do that I will work, at least, here in Oregon to build a great, big, beautiful wall to keep Trumpism away from my friends that he would pursue; my gay and lesbian friends who fear the loss of their legal marriage, my immigrant and Muslim friends who simply fear, period. My daughter, who is afraid that when he gins up a trade - or a hot - war with China that she will suffer the fate of the Japanese in WW2.
He IS the President. The laws under which our nation is governed have rewarded him and his supporters with the right TO govern. I'm not going to imitate the Republicans under Obama, I'm not going to be a whiny little titty-baby and spend the next four years refusing to accept that and trying to dirty-trick my way into undermine his legitimacy.
Fight his agenda? Sure. Refuse to accept his victory, #NotMyPresident? No. He is my President, and yours, much as it hurts me to say that.
And I swear, I will not rest for the next four years until I can no longer say that.
4 comments:
there is a lot to be said for your statement about working locally inyour fair state of Oregon to limit TrumpDamage. That is what we should all do, local politics is good national politics. Democrats used to do focus on that. The Repub;icans watched and got the message, and took over statehouses. Thence came the gerrymandering that screws over us in Congress. Thecen came the voter suppression laws. Thence came Republican serving 30 year in Congress.
Give him hell Chief!
Now we get to see how robust America's democratic institutions really are.
I am optimistic, but I clearly do not understand America.
With the upcoming level of corruption in DC likely to rise (even more than it is today) there should be plenty of fodder to fight him. This will play well in 2018 and 2020. Those who bet on him may be very resentful when he betrays them.
The first shots have, apparently, already been fired; supposedly the incoming Trump Administration is saying that federal funding will be cut off of polities (such as Multnomah County) that have "immigrant-sheltering" policies (such as not checking citizenship automatically during police questioning or any encounters with local agencies).
I REALLY need to re-connect with the Sanders organization (now called "Oregonians for our Revolution") to see what plans are in the making to work to make Oregon Drumpf-free.
Ael: The problem is that America's "democratic institutions" work perfectly well to make America a relatively open oligarchy. That's what we were for a pretty huge portion of our pre-New Deal history, and it's not like we have ever been some sort of freewheeling popular democracy. The Founders and Framers were wealthy white guys and they made sure that what they designed was designed to keep wealthy white guys on top forever (see my next post on the Electoral College...)
What the Trump Administration (which, it appears, is going to include not just the current hairbags like Ryan and McConnell and Chris Christie - if that fat bastard doesn't get "Secretary of Transportation" I'm gonna be disappointed in Trump's total absence of a sense of humor - but looks to be dredging up all the wretched refuse of the previous Republican scum-ponds like Newt Fucking Gingrich. If the rumor about fucking Caribou Barbie is right I'll be insane with fury...) is gonna do is just that; they're going to do everything they can to undo the New Deal - hell, they're gonna try and undo the Progressive Era reforms of the Teens - and return the United States to the legal and governmental conditions of 1929 (and the environmental conditions of the pre-EPA/Love Canal/flaming Cuyahoga River era).
The predatory capitalists will run riot, the rich will launch that second yacht, the theocrats will enjoy their day of Jubilee, and the streams fill run black with oil and the sky gray with soot.
And it will all be perfectly, legally "democratic".
The real problem, IMO, is that there really is no way to help those genuinely "economically anxious" people down there in the stews of Youngstown. Those manufacturing and industrial jobs aren't coming back, no matter how much Trump lies about that. What happens when the non-yacht-owning Trumpeters realize what it means to live in the Gilded Age when you're not made of gold...well, we'll have to see now, won't we..?
My only hope is that he ignores most of his 'promises' from the campaign trail as nothing but electoral lies and that the people who elected him to 'fix the system' realize how misplaced their faith was. He'll certainly follow through on the low-taxes and business stuff, but if he drops the race-bating/Ya'llqueada stuff I'll at least get to enjoy the fury of his 'white power' base.
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