To say I'm shocked, most of us are shocked, is an understatement. Every week brought new atrocities from the mouth of he who is now the president elect. Each horrible gaffe or disgusting statement led pundits to pronounce his doom, yet...
The majority of folks on my Facebook feed are sharing their grief and disbelief. Comments in the key of "I can't believe America is so racist and bigoted" or "I can't believe so many people lost their minds" are most frequent.
I at first concur, and then I wonder. I don't really think that tens of millions of people all think that the media created the recordings of all the outrages that spewed from Trump's mouth. I can't believe that there are enough toothless methheads in rural America to put such a man in power. So what is this?
I think it's a hand grenade rolled into the officers' tent by those who feel they are stuck waiting outside.
Strangely, the most coherent explanation of "what are they thinking?" I've seen comes from an article in Cracked magazine online:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/
It's worth a read, to get a tiny glimpse into the minds of "the other". I think if there is one lesson that can prove valuable out of this disaster, is that the broad brush painting of the disenfranchised right needs to stop. Every campus in North America is teeming with an array of the vocal victimized--folks who lay a minefield around their pain to ambush any who don't have the right terms or suitable guilt when daring to discuss their issues.
We have no doubt that there are legions of groups who have reason fear and hate Trump--women, blacks, latinos, the poor, the gay community, educators, health-care providers, children, single moms, the elderly, the disabled... and there are so many more. Yet when we talk about those who feel left out on the other side of the spectrum, we tend to assume it's because they long for 1955 when they enjoyed being on top of the racist, patriarchal pyramid, and they're trying to turn back the clock for everyone else because they're hateful evil bigots.
Maybe there's more depth and variation to that group than I have previously grasped. Maybe some are motivated by other factors--cynicism about the established power structure within both major parties, disillusionment by the way the Sanders campaign was squashed, lack of vision within the speeches and position statements of Hilary--at least compared to what Obama, one of the most inspiring speakers in generations--regularly provided.
Yes, there are those who have little intellectual grasp of the complexity of the job they just handed to this nasty buffoon who, when they are questioned about the first things he should do as president focused on "building that wall" and "repealing the Affordable Health Care Act"--surprisingly frequent quote in one story I read--but that's not all of the 50+ percent of voters who chose the orange freak. It's the others who may have to be engaged in conversation--people who might come around to seeing the value in contributing to a system instead of just wanting to tear it down.
By engaging each other, Democrats and Republicans may be able to address the things that hurt them both--things like the false dichotomy of the oppressive two-party system, the corrupting influence of lobbyists and corporate money, the lack of transparency in so many government agencies that leads to a platform for Russian-backed Wikileaks scandalmongering.
It has to change. When the stupid man with no attention span begins to show his woeful ineptitude, nearly everyone will eventually begin to doubt this rash act, and perhaps think together, how to make sure it never happens again.
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