What happened last night will negatively affect this country for decades. Misogyny, ignorance, hatred, and mindless fear of The Other all won last night, with Donald Trump as their avatar. More than half the country has so little regard for anyone who isn’t a straight white male that they have handed control of the entire government to a man who is beneath contempt. Anyone who is not a straight white male just learned that the majority of their countrymen don’t care about them or their well-being.
I don’t think we come back from this one, guys. The sun has just set on America as we once knew it, and the darkness is coming. The ACA will soon be a distant memory, to be replaced with… nothing, probably. Pay for it all yourself, or die quietly and stop burdening your betters. Planned Parenthood will be de-funded. They will go after Roe v. Wade with everything they have. Gay marriage will be outlawed. White supremacy will be publicly legitimized. The regressive idiots have their mandate now, and they will do everything they can to reshape this country to fit their small-minded image of what it’s “supposed to” look like.
They get two years to enact whatever lunatic whims they want, and there is nothing to stop them. They will gerrymander the shit out of every district they can, and push through every restriction on voting they can get away with. They will do anything and everything they can to make sure they never lose again. And more Dems than Repubs are up for re-election in two years, so if anything, Congress is likely to only move further rightward.
I’m trying to hold onto hope here, but I just don’t see any. With the exception of the civil war, this is about as fucked at this country has ever been. We’ve just seen ironclad proof that the majority of people in this country are willing to give control to a shameless demagogue and his supporters. This horrible election just became the new normal in America, because now there’s no doubt that Trump’s approach works.
It was bad when Bush II got re-elected, but it at least felt like that would end. This feels more like a paradigm shift, and the implications are truly horrifying.
The US may or may not be fucked. But if you are relatively young and with decent skills you can immigrate, or if you are at retirement age with some regular income from one source or another you can get retirement visas in various countries.
You know, all Presidents are fucked up in some way or another. Reagan was fucked up in the way he ballooned the national debt. Clinton was fucked up in the way that he couldn’t keep his fly zipped. G.W. Bush was fucked up because, well duh, take your pick. Obama was fucked up because he failed to take proper advantage of a liberal majority in his first term and didn’t accomplish all that should’ve been accomplished, esp. ACA. He did good, though.
On the bright side – Donald Trump’s a lot of things, but at least he’s never BORING. I, for one, plan to enjoy watching the death spiral.
Okay, fine, I join in the despair. All is lost. You’ve all successfully convinced me that life is no longer worth living. That was your purpose, right? Nothing matters. This election has murdered the human race.
When is the suicide pact on?
(I had a much much darker “joke” here that I deleted for possibly being something that could get me investigated.)
We had a chance. Just a small one, but a chance to help slow down the collapse. This is gone now. We are well and truly screwed. Not today. Not tomorrow. But within the next 100 years, there is going to be an environmental collapse that will devastate human-kind. And historians will be passing around stone tablets that document that it reached its nadir last night.
I think both versions of the truth have some validity, but in even the most optimistic scenario certain facts are undeniable. One is that the combination of a regressive moron heading up the executive branch with Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate is a recipe for some really, really bad things to happen. The makeup of Congress would itself be highly problematic even if Hillary had won.
The second fact is that some policies have long-term implications that may be impossible to reverse. The above-mentioned climate change is one such instance. Delay and willful negligence takes us closer to the point of no return on climate. Lack of proper research funding by anti-science idiots can set back progress to the detriment of society and squander technological leadership to others. Perhaps the most worrying is that there is now every prospect of the Supreme Court being stacked for a generations with reactionaries who rule with 19th century mindsets.
As many of you know, I’m not even an American, I’m Canadian, and I can’t believe how sick I feel about this. Literally. It’s as if a dark cloud had descended on the world. The implications may not be as direct for me as they are for my friends to the south, but they will inevitably filter over the border in one way or another. The David Remnick article in my link lays it out pretty well. The only good news is that some of my family, now dual US-Canadian citizens who have been thinking about returning to Canada, have renewed their determination to do so.
Except for the Great Depression, and 9/11, and WWI, and WWII, and Vietnam, Korea, Iran and Afghanistan, and the Cold War years, etc., etc., etc. A nice dose of perspective will do ya good.
No, no, there’s no reason to live anymore. There’s nothing to look forward to except death. No hope, no future for your kids or anyone you care about. Who cares if coral gets bleached or the ground gets fracked anymore? What’s the point?
Join everyone else in their despair. Spread the despair as far and wide as you can. The only thing you can do now is make everyone face harsh reality and sit down and wait to die with you.
These are the death throes of a white majority that has slowly been losing its privilege. For whites, working hard and keeping your nose clean used to virtually guarantee you a middle class lifestyle, even if you only had a high school degree. None of the rest of us had that sort of assurance from society. They feel like something has been taken from them and they are looking for someone to blame.
