So, the Election Happened

President Donald Trump.  Yeah.  I don't believe it either.

I don't get it.

I don't even know where to start.  But a Facebook buddy of mine gave me a jumping off point...


A decidedly less left-wing friend of mine, whom I've known for a long time, posted something on his feed suggesting that the liberals need to take their medicine and stop complaining, as we had it our way for eight years.  If he's reading this (and I doubt he is), please know:  This isn't all directed at you; this is just what got me started here.

On the complaining part, all I'll say is this:  This was the single most polarizing election in the history of the republic.  Everyone geared up for this fight for six months.  It was ugly, nasty, and at times sickening and frightening.  At the end of the day, my candidate lost.  OK, I'll deal with that.  But the end result is that a man that I find to be a despicable human being, who is completely diametrically opposed to everything I think America should be about, is going to be the president of my country for four years.  Despite the fact that my candidate got more votes.  I'm not going to apologize for not being over it in eighteen hours. 

I'm going to be led by a guy I hate for four years.  You're going to have to listen to complaining for like, what, a week?  You wanna switch places?

Now, as for WHY I'm so upset... that's simple.  Believe it or not, it has little to do with ideological differences.  Even though I have plenty of them when it comes to President Oompa Loompa.  With a two-party system, there are going to be ideological differences.  Hell, they're necessary sometimes.  Having a completely closed off group of people with the same ideas and no moderating influence can be a recipe for disaster. 

I voted against Dubya in 2004 after he presided over the worst terrorist attack ever to hit this country, and I didn't cry in my beer when he won re-election.  Because even though I thought he was a bumbling nincompoop, I didn't think he was a horrible human being.  I thought he wanted to help his country -- just in a completely different way from what I would have done.  OK, fine.

My problem is the way the Republicans demonize everything and everyone, and sell fear.  I have no problem with the fact that the GOP had ideological differences with Obama.  But the only platform they had for eight years was "Fuck you, we're not doing anything."  We're going to block everything you do, regardless of whether or not it makes sense.  Obamacare was basically Bob Dole's old health care plan from the 90's, and they all loved it then.  As soon as President Blackula proposed it, it was the worst plan in the history of the country.  It gets passed, they try to repeal it 60 times, the Supreme Court says it's legal, HE WINS RE-ELECTION, and still -- nothing.  Not an inch.  They don't try to fix it, they don't try to amend it, to don't try to make it work -- they just put up the double-bird and pout. 

That's not what this country is supposed to be about.  I mean, even if you thought the system was horrible, and it wasn't going to work, and it was too expensive -- the intentions were noble.  The idea was to keep people from dying because they had no access to healthcare.  That seems like an idea that in the past wouldn't have been controversial.  "Saving lives?  Yeah, I'm for that."  But noooooo -- then the black guy might get credit.  Can't have that shit.

Obama was also the President under which gay marriage was passed.  Which not everyone likes, but the idea is expanding civil rights to more people, as opposed to limiting them.  Inclusiveness.  That's what this country is supposed to stand for.

And we've gone from that, to a man who's said he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the country and put the ones who are already here on a registry -- Islamophobia.  A man who brags about the sexual assaults he's committed -- misogyny.  He's called Mexican people coming to our country rapists and murderers -- racism and xenophobia.  He's gotten into week-long feuds on Twitter with beauty contestants DURING THE CAMPAIGN -- petty and vindictive.  And he's just a fuckin' liar!!

A make shit up as you go along, doesn't matter how ridiculous they are, liar.  He said Hillary wanted to bring in 650 million refugees in the first week of her administration.  Yeah, 650 million.  If you don't know why that's the most ridiculous thing ever said by anyone, anywhere, go pick up a book somewhere.

When Obama took over, unemployment was over 10%.  Mitt Romney pledged to get it down to 6%.  Obama has it down UNDER 5%.  Donald Trump said that "people told him" (code for I'm making this shit up as I go along) the real unemployment rate was somewhere around 30%.  And people too lazy to read anything other than Twitter swallowed it up whole, because Trump was peddling FEAR. 

I could go on for a week.  And this doesn't even mention the angry, violent rhetoric he spewed at his rallies or the fact that he asked during his security briefings why we couldn't use our nuclear weapons.

Fear.  And xenophobia.  And racism.  And sexism.  That's what people voted for.  I can get over the policy differences.  But half the country gave into fear and hate and divisiveness. 

Sorry.  I'm not getting over this any time soon.