I would never discuss politics on Facebook.
I shouldn’t say never, actually. Probably never is more accurate. I might do it by accident or during a momentary lapse in judgment.
Why would I never discuss politics on Facebook? Because it’s like rolling over a big rock and discovering all the yucky bugs underneath, except the bugs are your FB pals and you never before realized they had political views you find daffy, baffling or downright infuriating. You wished you’d have just left that big rock alone.
But here on my blog I have my own peaceful little echo chamber. I almost never disagree with myself. Every big rock I roll over has nothing more than rich, nutrient-filled earth under it, the stuff life happily springs from.
When I post on my blog I don’t have to face disappointment from yucky bugs or be tempted into fruitless arguments with people who I had previously found to be nice or sane.
Today’s topic is the U.S. election held on November 8, 2016. That was four days ago. American voters did a silly thing–they elected Donald Trump to be their next president. Just when I was ready to forgive them re-electing George W. Bush after they re-elected Obama, they go and do this.
Trump is a narcissistic bully, thin-skinned, sexist, racist, xenophobic and ignorant on basic facts about the world and his own country. He ran on a campaign of fear and hate, filled with ideas that were vague or terrible or unworkable or all of these things. He acted like a vulgar clown. He demonstrated over the course of a typically drawn-out campaign that he was singularly unfit for the office of the president. And yet he beat out 16 other Republicans to win their nomination. He beat Hillary Clinton (though not in the popular vote) and won it all.
The silver lining is that the vagaries of the loopy Electoral College meant that his victory was extremely narrow and tapped into a unique and fortuitous (for him) set of circumstances. He benefited from low voter turnout: only 50% of eligible voters cast ballots and of those, about 25% voted for Trump.
But these things are inconsequential to the fact that he did win.
Americans have made a venal manchild their next president and already we are seeing emboldened white men attacking minorities. The Ku Klux Klan is celebrating. This is happening because Trump’s hateful, racist rally cries have been legitimized by his victory.
Americans should be ashamed at what they have done to themselves–and to the world. The American people are better than this–or so we had imagined and hoped. The apathy of the tens of millions who didn’t vote must also be held up as shameful in a country that has always prided itself on the strength of its democratic institutions. They have, through their inaction, helped elect a person who doesn’t even know how many amendments the U.S. Constitution has. What sane person would find it to be a good thing to have such ignorance in a president?
I would like to hold out hope here but the best I can manage is that maybe Trump won’t be as terrible as feared. But even in that I see a downside, in that it would help normalize his awfulness and make it that much easier for him to win re-election.
In conclusion: WTF America.