I’m too embarrassed to reveal to friends and family how much of a hard time I’m having. Sometimes when I think about Trump as president, I feel super anxious—like I’m about to have a panic attack. My heart has been racing, I’ve been throwing up, and I’ve even cried—as recently as today! I’m trying so hard to distance myself emotionally and relax/ move on… but then another outrage comes up—like today, it came out that Trump wants to appoint Steve Bannon as his top adviser. I know the first thing I need to do is turn off cable news. Nevertheless, I’m writing this to get my feelings out and hopefully to find some relief.
I’m realizing that Trump’s rhetoric (and his supporters’/ surrogates’ rhetoric) over the past year and a half has hurt me very deeply. I had no idea how much until Election Night. I turned off the TV in disgust and fear once I saw the panicked looks on Rachel and Chris Matthew’s faces (around 9:30pm). Then I woke up around 1:30am, hoping to see good news, but instead was thrown into a nightmare. I was always concerned that he could win, but in the final days leading up to Nov 8, I finally decided to trust Obama and the polls. Anyway...
The first major issue I have is that Trump’s election legitimized and empowered his most deplorable supporters. A day or so prior to the election, I saw a video of one of his supporters in Tennessee shouting racial slurs at a black motorist. That day I found comfort/hope in the idea that in a day or so, I’d never have to hear from Trump, his surrogates, or his supporters ever again.
But it’s not just Trump’s win that has me so upset. It’s the way he won. The media isn’t talking about the massive voter disenfranchisement efforts that made his win possible. 300k voters in Wisconsin alone were denied their right to vote. That doesn’t even include the people who ended up not voting because it became extraordinarily hard to do so. Republicans won because they worked together with the Supreme Court and state legislatures to gut the Voting Rights Act. It’s disgusting. And our media is silent.
Third, I’m furious with the media, FBI, and Russia! The funny thing is, as the media Monday Morning quarterbacks the election, they don’t seem to think of themselves as part of the reason Hillary lost. They took the whole thing as a joke. Creating false equivalencies and turning Hillary into some sort of supervillain. Meanwhile, Trump was colluding with RUSSIA and the media says nothing! They played right into Russia & Trump’s hands, eagerly reporting on every frivolous email. And the FBI? Wow. Unbelievable. To use Trump’s words, “Very unfair!”
Finally, I’m kind of angry at some of my so called allies and coalition members, although I’m trying not to be. Now mind you, I understand some of the indifference. For the past 2 years, we’ve watched black person after black person killed in cold blood by government sanctioned police officers. Even when on video, justice is nowhere to be found. Then we saw an entire city poisoned, and the governor etc. are still walking around freely as if nothing happened. Meanwhile, nothing was done until the last minute regarding the coordinated attempts to curb voting rights in battleground states. On the other hand, not voting didn’t help at all (assuming that’s what actually happened. Trump insisted our elections are rigged and hell, he’s probably right! But he backed democrats into a corner by forcing them to defend our joke of a democracy prior to the outrageous results…). Trump is now on track to fill 100+ federal judicial vacancies, not to mention at least 3 supreme court nominees. How does that help the social justice cause? Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t.
Let’s be clear, we look like clowns to the world. President Obama, bless his heart, is in a tough spot because if he shows outrage or comments on the absurdity of what happened, Trump will be even more determined to undo everything Obama has done. On the other hand, this attempt to show other nations how democracy should work is a flat out joke, at this point. We look stupid. Period. No amount of lipstick can be put on this pig. Assuming our election wasn’t flat out stolen, there’s still the issue of Hillary winning the popular vote and still being denied the White House. It’s frustrating beyond belief. And it only seems to happen that way when a republican “wins.” Check out Lawrence O’Donnell’s excellent rant on our outdated Electoral College.
I think I feel better now.