Elpis

[4thofeleven]

We're going to be debating this election for a long time. We're going to be living with its consequences even longer. It was incredibly close – a few percentage points in a handful of states, and we'd be talking about the Clinton Landslide, and most of the world would be celebrating this public repudiation of Trump and his vile brand of bigotry and ignorance.

Let's not forget that as we struggle through these dark times. We're not done for. There is no permanent Republican majority. There are still enough voices of sanity to swing the pendulum back and salvage what remains.

And for those of us outside America particularly, we need to remember this. The last few days, I know I've had to remind myself not to judge all Americans for the actions of a few. Trump did not win with a majority; he did not even achieve a plurality of voters. The silent majority remained silent – and, we can only hope, is and will be horrified by what has been unleashed and will, in time, stand against it.

Let's not be too optimistic; the tide of fascism, of populist nationalism, the politics of hate – they're all gaining in strength. In America, in Britain, in the Philippines, across Europe. But they remain a minority, and one that can still be fought.

And let us not forget that this was not an election won cleanly. This was an election tainted by Russian propaganda, by Wikileaks' idiotic grudges, and in the end, almost certainly swung by a partisan hack who used his position to add weight to an illusory scandal. We should not accept the hatred Trump spews under any circumstances, but under these, for him to claim any sort of mandate is farcical. Do not let anyone forget this.

For those of you in the United States. You are not broken. You are not defeated. You have a party that will – and must – oppose Trump and his agenda. You have the numbers to ensure they will. The world still hears your voice. Do not let yourselves be silenced. Do not let them advance without a struggle. If the arc of the universe no longer bends towards justice, then you must force it back towards it.

Maybe I'm a fool to still have hope. Maybe.

But sometimes that's all we have.

And all we need.

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

I'm still reeling. I knew it was a possibility. I knew millions of my fellow Americans either did not give a shit whether I and huge numbers of others are denied rights or assaulted or actively liked those ideas. It's still horrifying to actually see it tallied up in a vote. (And I'm one of the luckier people. I can't say I expected better of white women as a group, but I did hope.)

And it isn't like even most of the relatively well-meaning Trump voters I know are saying, "Look, I thought he was a less terrible option and have been planning to oppose these parts of his message all along, the way a lot of Democrats thought of their vote as rolling for half damages and planned to continue pushing and demanding better." No. It's all smug Facebook posts about how none of these bad things are actually happening and Trump is actually doing way more for progressive causes than the Democrats and anyway we're all just whiners. (Not that any of them are in danger of being deported or beaten or groped on public transit, but they're sure it's fine!)

Right now, it's hard to think farther ahead than "how are we even going to survive the upcoming holiday season with Those Relatives."

[4thofeleven]

There are times when I'm rather glad I've lost touch with most of my extended family...

I hope you're holding up. We're all still pretty stunned on this side of the Pacific; the sense that this is bad political satire, not something that could actually happen is hard to shake. I can't imagine what it's like to actually live there.

I'm clinging to the knowledge that there was no actual swing towards Trump - he got less votes than Romney. I'm hoping that means he'll have a very tough time in the mid-terms and 2020.

Stay safe, and don't let them get you down!

[sunnyskywalker]

Thanks.

I live in California, so I'm partially insulated from the very worst--not that California doesn't also have some horrible policies (and people), but there's slightly more lip service toward the ideas that maybe we shouldn't treat the majority of our population as lesser human beings and oh maybe we should think about not wrecking the planet for the grandkids. So we can at least hope that the state government will partly compensate for any changes for the worse at the federal level, though of course it won't be enough. And the building where I work still got spray-painted with TRUMP the day after (small, at least), and we still had several synagogues bombed a few years back, and... well.

I'll probably be okay, since I have a strong support network of financially comfortable family members. And my public transit system recently upped their security, so maybe I won't even get groped. But what about my Latina coworkers? The homeless people downtown who already face huge hurdles getting mental health care and places to sleep safely? My PoC neighbors in our majority-white complex where people already call security to report that they saw black people and find that suspicious? All the public libraries who currently get federal Library Services & Technology Act funding and the people who depend on those libraries for so much?

I can't even think about the Supreme Court and how many decades appointments there will affect us.

I really hope you're right that his support will fall apart soon. I can't imagine that he will magically fix the economy (like this is actually a hard task, you know?), so barring some unrelated fluke that he can take credit for, he'll lose one of his major selling points.